Globalaffairs

Issue 7/February-March 2008
By Soraya Carvajal Barona

Columbia lives and breathes debate on account of many different factors. Of these, several stand out, such as humanitarian agreement, its difficult relationship with the Venezuelan government and the protest against kidnapping and the Farc.

On the 4th of February, hundreds of thousands of Columbians protested in the country and in several cities around the world (Sydney, Rome, Madrid, Buenos Aires, New York amongst others), against kidnapping and the Farc guerrilla force. This “march” was organised on the social networking site Facebook, by citizens tired of the excesses of the insurgent group. It came about from a desire to make the international community listen – and specifically NGOs and other organisations that support and legitimise the actions of the guerrilla – in order to make them recognize the effects that the armed group generates amongst the Columbians, who are those who have to deal with the daily drama of the war.

The idea that the protest was drawing support from political parties, businesses, the media and the Columbian government, was what was interpreted by those against the initiative as a spin in favour of the government of President Alvaro Uribe. The consequent political use of the initiative and attempt to centre the debate around the Farc, leaving in second place the complex causes and different actors– paramilitaries and drug traffickers – of the long Columbian armed conflict has, in passing, dealt a blow to the possibility of a humanitarian agreement permitting the liberation of the politicians and members of the military kidnapped by the guerrilla group, some of which have been held for 10 years.

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Issue 7/February-March 2008
By Rafael Vanegas

After the Second World War the new world re-composition was very important. International system actors changed definitely, powers such as Germany, France and England stopped being powers and other countries in the path of being powers became powers. This is the case of the USA, who played an important role in the reconstruction of the destructed Europe and the USSR, a country that emerged as a new power.

The new international system composition was bipolar, the EU and the Soviet Union were hegemonies. In this new world order it was a media and ideas war: the Cold War, a conflict that provoked very important world changes. This conflict was developed not only in Third World countries but also Latin America meanwhile the Soviet Union was trying to expand its ideas in the region and the USA was trying to impede the socialism extension. For this reason, Latin America had a period of high instability because powers were looking for strategic allies to accomplish their purposes. In this sense it was clear how the Soviet Union was helping new illegal groups for expanding its ideas, being Cuba the main base in Latin America and therefore provoking a great instability in the region, especially in Central America, where several internal conflicts took place.

Likewise, the USA who was doing the same in South American lands at the same time. American strategy was to give money to countries – those that could make the USA vulnerable - and promote coups for restoring country principles, most of the countries ended up being dictatorships. The case of Chile in the 70’s is a clear example of this situation.

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Issue 7/ February-March 2008
By Tom C. Varghese

For the twelfth time since its establishment in 1973, Western Sahara’s independence movement, Polisario, assembled to evaluate its current standing and to settle on a future strategy. The congress was held in Tifariti, a former bastion of Polisario during the war with Morocco; an appropriate setting given the overshadowing question of whether to put force behind existing threats to return to an armed struggle. The conflict between Polisario and Morocco has reached its most critical point since the ceasefire in 1991. Rising tensions in Western Sahara, a deteriorating humanitarian situation and a diplomatic deadlock are nurturing a steadily growing fraction within Polisario, pressuring the current leadership to return to arms.

Africa’s oldest territorial conflict

As Spain initiated its decolonization of Western Sahara in the early 1970s, both Morocco and Mauritania put forth claims to the territory, based on historical ties to the region through former empires. The land of Western Sahara was desired for its abundance of phosphates, fish, and potential oil and gas reserves.

Upon Moroccan initiative, the territorial dispute was brought forth to the International Court of Justice in the Hague. The verdict was found in favour of the people of Western Sahara (the Sahrawies) and their right to self-determination. Despite this, both Morocco and Mauritania invaded the country on November 6, 1975.

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Issue 7/February-March 2008
By Lukas Vitalijus and Chris Stocman

What is the defining issue of our times? Ask Al Gore and he would tell you that it’s global climate destabilization. Talk to Bill Gates and you will most likely hear about how technology and Internet are continuing to revolutionize the world. Jeremy Greenstock, UK Ambassador to the UN, on the other hand, believes the defining issue is a shift of relative power around the world.

As we approach the 20th anniversary of the end of the Cold War, it seems appropriate that we reexamine the changes in worldwide status quo. In 1988, the United States and Soviet Union were engaged in protracted long-term conflict that played out via proxy wars around the globe; Internet was a fledgling tool far from the economic big bang story it was to become. In terms of climate change, the only major issue on the agenda was the ozone layer and CFCs, and even this was put forth by a handful of Green parties in Western Europe. If one looks even further in the distant past, international affairs for most part were managed — or perhaps more appropriately, mismanaged — by a few pieces on the diplomatic chess board.

Contrast that to today’s world, where global and regional actors have been taking on increasingly proactive roles in global affairs. Western and Eastern Europe have come together in a way unthinkable in the late 1980s; China and India are emerging as global economic powerhouses; Iran and North Korea are in the process of acquiring nuclear capabilities and a multitude of international agencies are taking on projects around the world. As far as calamities around the world are concerned, the role of the United Nations to prevent human suffering and injustice has been left in the dust. Even the UN can not be better than its membership, and the more there are of them, the more difficult it is to reach an agreement. The burgeoning complexity in world politics is something that shows no signs of abating.

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Issue 7/February-March 2008
By Eva Díez Ajenjo

The aim of this article is to analyse former Yugoslavia war in regards to religion, identity and culture. The point is to unmask the forces behind ethnic or fault line wars according to the relationships of the terms discussed above. Throughout the article there is a critique to the Huntington’s analysis of former Yugoslavia war, especially with regard to the issues of culture and identity as the main causes of the strife.

According to Huntington’s predictions, the most violent conflicts will occur in the fault lines and he mentions as an example of such conflicts ‘the continuation and intensification of the fighting among Croats, Muslims and Serbs in the former Yugoslavia’ (Huntington 1993b: 188). In fact, he labels Yugoslavia war as a fault line conflict. Moreover, as for fault line conflicts, Huntington (2002) defines them as struggles between groups or states belonging to different civilizations, they occur in territories where different civilizational groups are intermixed, they are struggles for control over people and frequently the issue at stake is control of territory.

Furthermore religion and identity are the main reasons for such conflicts, these struggles have been existed historically hence it seems that they are irreconcilable through negotiations and compromise. On Huntington’s count (2002), fault line wars tend to produce a large number of casualties and refugees and in a large number of cases their escalation leads to genocide. Following Huntington (2002), the vast majority of fault line conflicts have taken place along the boundaries that separate Muslims from non-Muslims thereby he analyzes former Yugoslavia war in terms of religious conflict between Western, Islamic and Orthodox civilizations.

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Issue 7/February-March 2008
By Salman Ali

Pakistan came into existence on 14 August 1947 when Muslims of the British ruled Indian sub-continent rallied behind Quaid-e-Azam (1) Mohammad Ali Jinnah to create a separate homeland.

Pakistan was constitutionally named the Islamic Republic of Pakistan with majority of the population being Muslim; however, specific provisions were made in the constitution to ensure protection of rights of minorities in the country. Urdu is the national language and the current estimated population is 165 million, Karachi, Lahore and Islamabad are the major cities.

Pakistan occupies a position of great geo-strategic importance, bordered by Iran on the west, Afghanistan on the northwest, China on the northeast, India on the east, and the Arabian Sea on the south. The total land area is estimated at 803,940 square kilometers.

From their creation Pakistan and India failed to develop a healthy relationship and developed a major dispute over Kashmir, which was an independent princely State at the time of partition and as per division understanding States with Muslim majority were to become a part of Pakistan but the then King of Kashmir decided to join India although as per the 1940 census 94% of Kashmir’s population was Muslim. The government took the matter to the UN and it was decided that the people of Kashmir have a right of self determination and therefore, a plebiscite must be held. The countries went to war in 1948, 1965 and 1971 but the matter still stands unresolved. The two countries now have armies equipped with Nuclear weapons.

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Issue 7 /February-March 2008
By Camilo Andrés Realpe Acosta

Drawing the psychological profile of a terrorist is a difficult and unproductive task because as this essay will demonstrate it is impossible to conclude pathology for all people that have committed terrorist acts. This happens because motives for these acts are based in a large number of different reasons therefore it is not possible to attribute only one behaviour pattern to these people.

However, in a globalized world and concerned for security and territorial integrity it is unnecessary to anticipate people’s actions that causes a large number of governments try to relate a particular behaviour to terrorist potential characteristic.

“Terrorism is not the first and fundamental problems of individuals or a psychological problem; above all terrorism is a complex social and political problem. Global terror makes men mere mechanical instruments of who have power” (Martín-Baró, I).

Recent studies by Harvard University and Discovery Channel institute proved drawing terrorist psychological profile is impossible due to little homogeneity in motivations.

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Issue 7/February-March 2008
By Kim Young

Barbados is an island that some theorists might consider “schizophrenic”, only so much as it relates from its “swing” from the legacy of British colonialism to the now obvious and sometimes vexing issues of American cultural penetration, media imperialism, neo-colonization and the desire of Barbadians to maintain a sense of national identity.

It is not at all possible for this writer to examine in great depth; all the issues which conjoin to create the complex scenario that faces Barbados and many small island countries for the theoretical frameworks are inter-disciplinary and must be conceptualized within our experiential framework.

Like many islands of the Caribbean, Barbados was colonized by the British. Slavery was practised on the island and its legacy still rears its ugly head from time to time and does so in many manifestations. However, emancipation of slaves took place in 1836. From then, Barbadians were still not entirely free in more ways than one. The original religions, languages and cultural practises which would have been part and parcel of their very African being were stripped away and replaced by the practises of the English Colonial masters and systems/symbolisms of the plantocrasy. Some of the psychological scars of slavery as chronicled by the historians and psychologists still remain and have passed from one generation to another. This creates other problems, issues and challenges regarding the protection of our culture, sovereignty and the struggle for self-determination that cannot all be addressed here or indeed at all in one fell swoop.

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Issue 7/February-March 2008
By Roger Casas

The habitual verbal confrontation between the Chinese authorities and Tenzin Gyatso, the exiled 14th Dalai Lama and head of Tibetan Buddhism have worsened over the course of 2007. In the last few months, the Dalai Lama has made visits of varying importance to Canada, Germany, Italy, and especially the United States, where in October, the religious leader received the Congressional Gold Medal, the highest civilian prize given in the USA from President George Bush. On the one hand, these visits have provoked angry protests from the Beijing Government, who consider the reception that the Dalai receives from the heads of state of the aforementioned states too warm, and that it questions his sovereignty of Tibet. On the other, the relatively advanced age of the Dalai Lama (72 years), means that the battle over his succession has already begun, and there is more at stake than religious authority.

In addition to the government of the People’s Republic of China (PRC), several English language articles published recently in the official Chinese press have dealt with counteracting the negative effects that the Dalai Lama’s diplomacy could have for his political interests, presenting what Beijing considers as the “true image” of the Tibetan Buddhist leader. In a text that the state agency Xinhua “was authorised” to publish on the 9th of October 2007, entitled “Carrying forward Buddhism or fueling evil cults?” the Dalai Lama’s alleged support in the past of Shoko Asahar, the leader of the Aum Shinrikyo sect (and condemned to death in Japan along with another ten members of the group for having caused the death of 12 people and injury of hundreds more in the famous Sarin gas attack on the Tokyo metro in 1995) was condemned, support for which in exchange, the exiled Tibetan government was alleged to receive substantial economic rewards from the Japanese sect. This text also condemned the relation between the Dalai Lama and Li Hongzhi, leader of the well-known illegal Chinese Falungong cult, who the article accuses, apart from major crimes, to have falsified his date of birth to match that of the historical Buddha.

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Issue 7/February-March 2008
By Yawar Herekar

A Rude Awakening

I awoke to the sound of an incoming text message on my phone. “Benazir Bhutto assassinated”. It was hard to fathom. Was this true? I rushed to turn on the TV and there it was on CNN Headline News:”Benazir Bhutto critically injured at an election rally in Rawalpindi”. I scrolled through the channels and MSNBC and FOX were carrying it as their top stories as well. I called up my parents in Karachi and they confirmed the news that Benazir Bhutto had been killed. The ‘Daughter of the East’ had fallen victim to a suicide attack on her convoy. Just a few weeks ago, the return to Pakistan of the ‘Darling of the West’ had been marred by another suicide attack which had killed more than 150 people. She has escaped narrowly then. This time around, her enemies had made sure that they had hit their target.

Daughter of the East

Benazir was born into the powerful and politically motivated Bhutto clan of Sindh. She was only 26 when her father Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto, the charismatic prime minister of Pakistan was hung by the military government of Gen Zia-ul-Haq. This thrust her into politics at a young age. When Zia-ul-Haq was assassinated, she made a dramatic return to Pakistan and was soon elected as one of the youngest chief executives in the world, and first woman to serve as prime minister in an Islamic country.

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