Globalaffairs

Issue 20/April-June 2010
By Andrea Bonzanni

On March 27, after an Arab League summit in Sirt, Libya, the Spanish government, acting as rotating President of the European Union (EU), issued a formal statement in which it apologized with Libya and its leader Colonel Muammar al-Gaddafi for the inclusion-at the request of Swiss authorities-of 188 Libyan citizens in the blacklist of personae non gratae in the Schengen Area, a borderless travel zone of 22 EU countries plus Norway and Iceland, of which Switzerland is a member since December 2008. All the individuals were also promptly removed from the list.

This was only the last of the many points scored by the Libyan leader since the beginning in July 2008 of a dispute between the Gaddafi’s Jamahiriya and Switzerland. The controversy was triggered by the arrest in Geneva of the Colonel’s 29-year-old son Hannibal and his wife for allegedly maltreating their domestic staff. Libya responded with immediate retaliation, including a cut-off of oil supplies, a drastic reduction of commercial flights and the closure of Libyan branches of several Swiss companies. Also, two Swiss businessmen were arrested (or taken hostage, according to the Swiss authorities) for supposed visa irregularities. Further, Gaddafi inflicted Switzerland several public humiliations, ranging from his repeated claims for the country’s partition among Germany, France and Italy to last February’s declaration of jihad against the Swiss. In August 2009, Gaddafi also expressed his desire to “wipe Switzerland off the map”, if he owned nuclear weapons.

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Issue 17/October-November 2009
By Erica L. Green

Newly elected Somalia President Sheikh Sharif Sheikh Ahmed has a tall order on his hands as he tries to stabilize a country that has seen economic and social unrest for the last 20 years. On his first United States visit to Chicago last month, he faced a receptive but anxious crowd eager to hear answers to Somalia’s increasing indiscretion towards the industrialized world - piracy.

Ahmed staged a grand balcony entrance with an entourage of multinational dignitaries, and then proceeded to address questions about stabilization in northeast Africa. The audience, arranged by the Chicago Council on Global Affairs, was predominantly students, Somalia nationals, and local dignitaries. Ahmed’s speech began with a brief overview of Somalia’s turbulent past.

The geographic state of Somalia as we know it today is quite different from what it was not too long ago. Over the past 50 years several colonies have gained independence from Britain and Italy to unite as one socialist state [6]. General Siyad Barreh assumed and held power for the majority of that time until he was overthrown in 1991 [6], and the country has not known stability since [2]. Instead, it has been run by warlords who have failed to find a replacement leader [2].

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Issue 16/August-September 2009
By Erica L. Green

While the World Health Organization braces the world for the latest H1N1 swine flu outbreak, countries like Uganda are still battling an epidemic they have been fighting for centuries, malaria. This can be a very preventable disease through the use of mosquito nets and prophylactics. However, due to economic conditions, many rural Ugandan couples are swapping their mosquito netting for lacey wedding coutour.

In recent years, many Ugandans are straying away from traditional means of matrimony to adopt those more in line with Christian beliefs [5]. This usually involves a church, a ceremony with family, a pastor, and costly formal attire. The BBC notes that the groom usually has little difficulty unearthing a suit jacket and tie in the sultry Sub-Sahara, but the bride faces more complex challenges. In rural regions, white fabric is often impractical and could be expensive due to the rareness. So to meet the requirements of a white wedding, many creative brides-to-be have turned to their mosquito bed netting [5]. They simply bring their net to the local tailor down the road and in return they get a breath-taking ensemble that seriously rivals Dolce & Gabbana -and for a mere 3.30 Euros ($5 USD). Top that Vera Wang. The Ugandan Ministry of Health, however, cringes at this practice. It not only exposes the women to insecticides, but leaves them netless after the nuptials.

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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 14/April-May 2009
By Andrea Bonzanni

Until a few years, piracy seemed to have been swept away in this world of technology and instant communication. Like carrier pigeons and lonely explorers, it took a somewhat romanticised character and appeared only in the pages of novels and in the scenes of adventurous films. The few cases taking place every year in the Straits of Malacca and some way off the coasts of Nigeria were deemed to disappear soon [1] and the international crime of piracy – defined as “the raid of ships and their crews for private ends” [2] – was being forgotten in a few spared lines of maritime law manuals.

Over recent years, however, the exponential increase in the volume of international trade and the presence of a ‘failed state’ in Somalia led to a resurgence of such activity, whose entity reached a worryingly point in 2008. Far from the time when the Indian Ocean was the safest way for the East-West commerce route [3], acts of piracy in the area between the Strait of Hormuz, the Gulf of Aden and the Red Sea have grown steadily. Lately, it has been calculated that over 20,000 ships (around 1% of the total maritime traffic in the area) have been affected by attacks or attempts of seizure [4]. Worries have mounted also because the pirates have progressively increased their capacity, abandoning the little boats they once used and they now operate with full-fledged cargo boats [5]. The ruthlessness of the attacks has been proportioned to the means at their disposal, possessing now AK-47 and rocket-propelled grenades [6]. Ransoms have therefore grown accordingly and passed from averaging $500,000 in 2007 to ranging from $1 to $8 million one year later [7].

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Issue 13/ February-March 2009
By Erica L. Green

These days when we think of cholera we may think of Gabriel Garcia Marquez’s epic novel about love and seduction or we may think of it as one of those diseases reminiscent of the plague that wreaked havoc in Europe during the 14th century. However, in recent years cholera has been making an unwelcome comeback in Zimbabwe and people point to the President Robert Mugabe as the person to blame.

Although, cholera has been out of the media spotlight as a threat for quite some time, the disease was never eradicated. It has always remained at bay with greater prevalence in developing countries such as Zimbabwe where poor sanitation is high and over crowding is common (1). Cholera is an intestinal bacteria infection that effects both young and old and is spread by fecal contaminated food or water. With a rapid onset, extreme cases include diarrhea, vomiting, and dehydration. If left untreated one may experience death within a matter of hours (1). Research suggests that 80% of those who contract the disease will have mild symptoms of diarrhea while the remaining 20% will suffer high levels of dehydration which can lead to death (8). Generally in developing countries, the casualties from such an outbreak only effect one percent of those infected with the disease, but Zimbabwe’s most recent outbreak now reaches a record five percent (2). Health officials state that cholera levels have reached epidemic proportions with a staggering total of 3000 deaths and over 57,000 people infected (3).

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Issue 12/December-January 2009
By Aurora Moreno Alcojor

Once again, the Democratic Republic of Congo is threatened by war, after years of confrontations against rebellious forces, foreign troops and governmental charges. When it seemed that they have attained a peace attempt definitely, after the first free and democratic elections celebrated in the country in 2006, the refugees horror, destroyed villages and a bloody fight in each millimetre of earth has come back to disturb the limited peace which the Congolese inhabitants were enjoying.

The history keeps repeating over and over again in Congo, a country which drags a truculent past full of violence since the Belgian brutal colonization in 1912, under the yoke of Mobutu Sese Seko, one of the most violent and oldest dictators of Africa. The geographical situation of Congo, together with his widely and covetously natural resources and a succession of corrupt dictators, has never helped to improve the situation.

Congo borders nine unstable countries: Sudan, Uganda, Rwanda, Burundi, Tanzania, Zambia, Angola, Congo-Brazzaville and the Centre African Republic. One more time, Congo is first page of newspapers and magazines after the armed revolt led by the General Laurent Nkunda. The movement, which was planned for several years, is sinking his roots in the events of the neighbouring Rwanda, in 1994. Between May and June 2004 the main attacks took place in the province of North Kivu. Extremists Hutus put an end to lives of approximately 80.000 Tutsis and Hutus who were stroked with knifes several weeks after. This event became the biggest genocide of recent history. When peace was settled in Rwanda and the Rwandan Patriotic Front (RPF) (movement formed by Tutsis) of Paul Kagame came to power, problems moved to Congo.

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Issue 11/October-November 2008
By Daniil Gorbatenko

When ZANU-PF and MDC signed the Zimbabwe power sharing deal (ZPSD) brokered by the South-African president Thabo Mbeki on September, 15 [1], it occurred to me for a moment that I might have been too rash to conclude in my recent article that a workable power-sharing deal is impossible and that outside intervention is the likeliest route to Mugabe’s regime demise. The initial conciliatory statements of the parties involved and cautious (expressed by David Miliband) [2] and not-so-cautious (expressed by Ban Ki Moon) [3] optimism from the outside observers seemed to tune into this narrative.

However, the developments that followed the handshakes suggest that ZPSD appears to be a non-starter. And here is why.

The first impediment to successful implementation of the deal lies in the widely differing motivations of the parties which have little to share in terms of intentions and much in terms of power. Although both MDC and ZANU-PF had to make significant rhetorical concessions to show good will, ZANU-PF and Mugabe obviously have a hidden agenda. In fact, their chief motivation for sharing power with MDC on paper seems to be prevention of total economic collapse by fooling foreign investors and aid agencies into changing their attitude to the political regime in Zimbabwe. One may ask why Mugabe and his cronies fear such collapse. The reason is plain simple, the need to pay salaries to the army and secret police to keep the regime afloat.

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Issue 11/October-November 2008
By Lionel Kpenou-Chobli

Zimbabwe! Any newspaper, any newsgroup, any website focused on international politics and any TV Channel would talk about Zimbabwe at least once a day.

Old dictator Robert Mugabe and his challenger Morgan Tsvangirai’s tribulations are reported day by day, hour per hour. All other the world, people and particularly European authorities (not African, European) are making plans about how to get Mugabe out of power. They spend and spread money only for that. Political negotiations here, Security Council’s threats there or Sir Gordon Brown’s going crazy somewhere else.

But, President Thabo Mbeki from South Africa recently said “Crisis? What crisis?” And none of the journalists interviewing him could understand what he was talking about. For all of those very important analysts, specialists of African politics and international relations, Mbeki was giving support to Mugabe’s tyranny. What nonsense!

The first and main consequence of the political crisis in Zimbabwe, of the country’s diplomatic isolation is a major and quite frightening economical crisis with catastrophic social and sanitary effects on the people. That‘s the real crisis and that crisis should be the international community’s first preoccupation towards Zimbabwe and it’s people.

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