Globalaffairs

By Rafael Nespereira
Tehran, Iran

Issue 15/June-July 2009
By Glen Ruffle

The people of Europe have voted, and shown that the separation between them and the elite is bigger than ever. Given this, and how the elite will not listen to the people, the only way forwards for the EU is to reduce in size.

Europe is now looking at the aftermath of the European Parliament elections, where 350 million people were able to have their say choose some of the people who will make laws that rule and govern their lives.

With the lowest ever voter-turnout, the election of explicitly anti-EU MEPs, and gains for far-right parties across Europe, only Jose Manuel Barrosso could say “Overall, the results are an undeniable victory for those parties and candidates that support the European project and want to see the European Union delivering policy responses to their everyday concerns” [1].

That the President of the Commission could conclude such a fantastical and outrageously wrong conclusion is symptomatic of the plight facing the EU. Quite simply, the elite of Europe are not listening, and don’t want to listen.

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Issue 15/June-July 2009
by Erica L. Green

For over a decade, UN troops have been fighting to maintain peace in the volatile Democratic Republic of the Congo in Central Africa. Since an influx of refugees and from a neighboring country and several wars in 1996 and 1998, the government and relations on the eastern border of the Congo have been unsteady. The conflict in this region has gone largely undetected by the rest of the world, yet has surmounted a substantial number of casualties. A 60 Minute report aired in August of 2008 noted that the regional death toll has already reached five million. These numbers surpass the casualties of Iraq, Afghanistan, and Darfur combined (1). Human rights advocates note that even though much of the struggle is over the acquisition and selling of Congolese natural resources, one common foe has become women.

Sexual violence within the context of war is not a new phenomenon. Traditionally rape has been a form of diversion for bored troops. The difference with rape in the Congo, according to Anneka Van Woudenberg, Human Rights Watch spokesperson, is the high incidence and brutality. Within the past 10 years the number of rapes incidents are estimated in the thousands (1) and is increasing. In the first quarter of 2009 alone the Congolese authorities have registered a staggering 493 new rape cases (2). However, many estimate the actual number to be much higher because many occurrences go unreported.

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Issue 15/June-July 2009
by Esteban del Sar

The past May 18, the President of the government of the Democratic Socialist Republic of Sri Lanka, Mahinda Rajapaksa, announced the end of the civil war that devastated the country for 26 years.

This conflict involved, since 1983, on one side the forces of the government (Sinhalese and Buddhist) and on the other the “Tamil Tigers” (LTTE, Liberation Tigers of Eelam Tamil), an insurgent group that fighted for the independence of a part of Sri Lanka’s territory to establish a state of their own (from the Tamil ethnia and practicing Hinduism). It left behind itself between 75/100 thousand victims and nearly 100.000 refugees, according to United Nations.

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Issue 15/June-July 2009
By Juan Luis Dorado Merchán

When a USA President is appointed he knows that he will have an international agenda very full. He is aware that he will have to deal with the Arab-Israel conflict, meet duties with allies, and try to maintain good relations with Russia …

This could seem the foreign policy of any country in the planet, obviously to some degree. But the tenant of the White House will have to deal with something exceptional, an unchangeable fact for 50 years: Cuba-USA relations.

John Fitzgerald Kennedy imposed a naval blockade on the Island and the resulting embargo, missile crisis, rafter exodus, Helms-Burton law, consecutive “alleged” murdering attempts of Fidel Castro, the aggressive policy of last Administration… all North American presidents since JFK have taken Castro’s Cuba as “their stone in the shoe”.

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Issue 15/June-July 2009
By Erin Fitzgerald

Since the nineteenth century, Afghanistan has been the central battleground in the “Great Game” among the world’s major powers. The players, rules, and objectives have changed since the original struggle between Britain and Russian for control of Central Asia, but the Game continues to be played (1). After the traumatic attacks of 11 September 2001, a war was launched on Afghanistan to wipe out the al-Qaeda terrorist network and to overthrow the Taliban government that sheltered it. Under the Bush administration, the goal of the war was to replace the Taliban with Western-style democratic institutions, but establishing a functioning democracy proved more challenging than anticipated. Nearly eight years later, US forces are still in Central Asia, struggling to suppress a Taliban insurgency that has spilled over the border into Pakistan.

Upon inheriting these difficulties, one of the Obama administration’s first initiatives was to reassess the war’s objectives. On March 27, President Barack Obama announced that rather than exporting democracy, his administration’s goal will be to “disrupt, dismantle and defeat al-Qaeda in Pakistan and Afghanistan, and to prevent their return to either country in the future,” essentially redefining the aims of the US mission (2). Yet, while the President is correct to look beyond the fighting in Afghanistan and to call for a regional approach, it is far too early to know whether peace and stability can be achieved with these more limited objectives.

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Issue 15/June-July 2009
By Andrea Bonzanni

When Silvio Berlusconi and his People of Freedom (PDL) won his third non-consecutive term in office on 14 April 2008, Italian immigrants knew their life would get harder. Making Italian cities safer, along with the usual promise of a conspicuous tax cut, was an ace-in-the-hole during his electoral campaign. Italians generally feel unsecure and threatened by the fast growing foreign population and everybody was aware that Mr Berlusconi’s announced security policies were but a blow on immigrants.

Mr Berlusconi, taking full advantage of his well-known control on Italian broadcasts, was also able to launch a strong media campaign, which underlined daily misbehaviours and crimes of immigrants. Initially used as a weapon to point out the weakness and ineffectiveness of centre-left administrations at the national and local level, the campaign was so successful that kept fuelling fear and hatred in Italian society, augmenting demands for harsh policies [1].

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Issue 15/June-July 2009
by Enrico Labriola

“If you interpret reform as a movement within the government, I think yes, this is the end. But if you regard it as a social phenomenon, then it is still very much alive.”
-Reza Yousefian, former Majlis member after Ahmadinejad election

The horizon of Iranian politics is, as always, far to be clear. Surprisingly, the complexity of this society is the mirror of the background over the curtain of this Islamic Republic. But walking in the streets of Tehran the political debate is one of the most vivid in Middle East: everyone has a way to solve Iran’s problems. The rule for public speech is to accept everything but the nature of the Republic, that has to remain Islamic (and ruled by clerics). The 12th June the 46,7 million of voters will be called to express a preference for one of the 8 presidential hopefuls. The main actors in this long run are the incumbent Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and the last Prime Minister of Iran (in 1989 the post was abolished), Mir-Hossein Mousavi. It is a struggle of two different views about the prospects of this 66 million citizen-country. Ahmadinejad won the 2005 elections with the 61% (after a pale 19% in the first round), against the former president Rafsanjani in a run-off that cut off all the reformist candidates, with the two main candidates, Karroubi and Moeen stopped to the 3rd and the 4th places. Ahmadinejad, former major of Tehran and considered an outsider in the 2005 elections, become the first president in 24 years who is not an Islamic cleric.

Ahmadinejad is believed to have won mainly because of his populist views, especially those regarding the poor and their economic status. But despite the propaganda the economic situation is not so good, and the progress (the GDP grew of 7.8% in 2007 and 6.5% in 2008) was not seen by the poor. Iran is a strange country: appalling conditions in the countryside for the rural population coexist with big cities with an open-minded middle-class, influenced by the Great-Devil cultural models. Even though a woman witness count half of a man’s one, and women are penalized in the marriage and inheritance, women are an active part of Iran: they are judges in the tribunals, teachers in universities, the 70% of the students enrolled in the universities, they are MPs and have a woman as UN vice-representative and one as Presidential candidate. Although, they have big problems to divorce (but man can repudiate one of the wives just with a statement) and they can’t travel without a man’s permission and wear appropriately the scarf, without showing any hair.

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Enrico Labriola

The struggle between the two visions for the future of Iran is in the toughest days. The 12th June elections mobilized the main parties and the public debate sustaining the two main opponents, with different programs and different views about the future of the Islamic Republic of Iran. The incumbent Mahmoud Ahmadinejad is driving a campaign based on populist slogans (the same that have given him the victory) and hoping for a low turnout that could mean that ’silent voters’ that are bored and unsatisfied with the political class have not cast their vote. The aim of the opponent’s supporters is to build a grassroots movement that could bring the reformist former Prime Minister of Iran Mir-Hossein Mousavi to the Presidential victory. Speaking with some sources involved in the campaign, I have understood some key facts about this election.

Firstly, Iran is in a peculiar situation, and, differently from the others, this time all eyes are looking at the moves of citizens of Iran. And citizens know that this election could be decisive for the future of the Republic. On the other hand, the situation is very unclear and enthusiasm and fear are mixed in a complicate emotional moment. Mohammad speaks frankly about the new way of campaigning of the reformists: building a flat movement and campaigning on Internet and with widespread events and mobilization. It reminds me in a way the new wave calling for change driven by Barack Obama. Of course, Mousavi and Obama couldn’t be more different, but the exciting movement has many things in common. New key-words, a big involvement of common people, a charismatic figure and the distrust in traditional politics, mixed with a urgent need of change perceived my many.

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Issue 15/June-July 2009
by Javier Delgado

India is often described as the largest democracy in the world. A label widely honoured last April and May, as the 58 per cent of the 714 India’s eligible voters went to the polls in largely peacefully and internationally praised parliamentary elections. Exceeding even the best previsions, the incumbent Congress Party (‘the Congress’) won a remarkable victory at the Lok Sabha, the lower House of the Indian Parliament, taking over 206 of its 543 seats.

In a country as vast as linguistically, ethnically and religiously diverse as is India, transparent, free and fair elections would have signed a significant achievement by its own right. Instead, India has reached further beyond. Although faced with overwhelming challenges as ingrained poverty, widespread corruption, volatile religious tensions and bloody internal uprisings, Indians have elegantly manifested a surprising political sophistication.

The following article breaks down the importance of last Indian elections’ result by scrutinising the poll’s backdrop. Issues like the shameful failure of literally all voting predictions; the key components of the Congress’ success; the dire prospects of the defeated major political forces; as well as the challenges down the road for the ruling coalition articulate this in-depth but affordable outlook on the so called ‘largest democratic election in history’.

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