Author: kasmir

On the eve of the anniversary of the Srebrenica massacre, President Obama issued a statement,

“We can offer no solace that fully addresses the pain borne by the victims’ families. But we must look back at Srebrenica with clear eyes, commemorate the tragedy, and learn from it.”

Rising tensions on the day, a memorial to over 7,000 Muslim men and boys who were executed by Bosnian Serb forces, ignited with the throwing of stones at a fleeing Serbian Prime Minister. Serbia’s stubborn refusal to label the atrocity as a genocide, aided by Russia who helped strike down a UN resolution labelling it so, continues to prevent the wound from healing. Like Obama, many world leaders have spoken of the need to learn from the events of 1995 and resolved to never let such suffering happen again.

Yet on 21^st July 2015, Human Rights Watch (HRW) published a report entitled “They Burned it All”.  This 42 page document, arriving just 10 days after the Srebrenica memorial, details the human rights atrocities and war crimes committed in South Sudan during a military offensive earlier this year.  According to HRW, The South Sudanese government forces were responsible for raping, killing and widespread pillaging. The report is a sobering collection of over 170 interviews with South Sudanese civilians over the course of June and July 2015. One woman told the interviewers that;

“If you run they will kill you so you just close your eyes so you don’t see the rapes.”

The United Nations Mission in the Republic of South Sudan (UNMISS) was set up following the independence of South Sudan in July 2011 in order to aid the stability of the country. However the situation in South Sudan is complicating by the day and now poses a real test for the United Nations. The roots of the current crisis are, as ever, man-made. The fledgling state was plunged into civil war in December 2013 after rebel factions sided with the sacked deputy of the President. Since then over 50,000 are thought to have been killed. In response to this growing violence, the military capacity within UNMISS was readjusted. The mission now controls over 10,000 troops from 52 different countries.

Yet this considerable military force could not prevent the murder of internally displaced people (IDPs) in UN ‘protection-of-civilians’ (POC) sites. Whilst these incidents are nowhere near the scale of Srebrenica, once again the UN has been unable to create a safe haven underneath its banner. The high level of IDPs, 1.3 million have been displaced, has combined with the general disruption to production caused by war to lead to severe food shortages in certain South Sudanese regions. The fears of famine that dominated 2014 have returned. ‘Emergency situations’, the penultimate stage in the 5-stage measure for food insecurity ranging from ‘minimal’ to ‘famine’, have been declared in 3 states across South Sudan. The Famine Early Warning Systems Network estimates that 40% of the population will require emergency food assistance. To make matters worse, the arrival of the rainy season will further disrupt famers, and has brought with it sanitation threats and the increased risk of diseases like cholera affecting already malnourished children.

The combination of starvation, disease and destruction is forming a perfect storm above South Sudan. Despite the lessons of Srebrenica so fresh in their minds, the United Nations has not been able to protect South Sudanese civilians. Now the worsening conditions require immediate and considerable international action. In June, the European Commission’s Directorate-General for Humanitarian Aid and Civil Protection (ECHO) and the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Assistance (OCHA) convened a high-level conference on the crisis in South Sudan. Donors committed to even more aid spending. The US, responsible for around 66% of all aid to South Sudan, increased its commitment to the country by $133 million. The UK Government, the second largest supporter of South Sudanese aid, agreed to a further £40 million in 2015.

Yet the South Sudanese Government is becoming increasingly insular and irrational in its view of the international community. In May 2015 a new law limited the foreign national presence within NGOs working in the country. In June, The South Sudanese Government expelled the United Nations’ top humanitarian official Toby Lanzer, who had criticised the actions of the ruling party. In July, a senior member of the of South Sudan’s governing Sudan People’s Liberation Movement (SPLM) accused members of the international community of obstructing South Sudanese moves towards a peaceful end to the civil war. In response to the HRW report, an army spokesmen dismissed the claims, stating that;

“This report has to be verified, one cannot base a report on people who are part of the opposition”.

This increasingly obstinate distrust for the international community is only creating another barrier to saving the lives of South Sudanese citizens. On July 27^th Barack Obama arrived in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, to talk with regional leaders. Following a raucous reception in Kenya, the US President travelled there to address the African Union, and the crisis in South Sudan was at the forefront of discussion with the aim to push for a final breakthrough in peace negotiations. Neither South Sudanese President Salva Kiir, nor rebel leader Riek Machar attended, but both face an ultimatum: African leaders are looking to foster support for ‘decisive action’ against the leaders should the civil war continue beyond August 17^th. Following Obama’s visit, US envoy to South Sudan Donald Booth has said that peace delegates will meet on August 6^th to “work this out” once and for all.

The last 19 months have seen South Sudan broken by a civil war between two sides willing to discard the lives of civilians on the road to political power. Famine and disease are now tangible threats to the population. 20 years on from Srebrenica, the United Nations is still struggling to protect innocent civilians in war-torn countries. If world leaders truly have learnt from the massacre, then finding lasting peace must be their immediate priority.

Author Biography

Tom Walpole is currently studying Arabic and Middle East Studies at the Institute for Arabic and Islamic Studies at Exeter University. During his degree, Tom lived in Cairo and has focused his studies on security policy and Islamist movements within the Middle East. Tom is also alumnus of the European Youth Parliament and has an interest in researching the potential role of the European Union in Foreign Affairs.

*Cover image ‘Man raises flag‘ by ENOUGH Project

Today’s conflict in the Ukraine marks the inception of a new period of hostility in East-West relations after two decades of relative peace. The end of the Cold War, its aftermath, and the United States’ unchallenged emergence as a global hegemon (unipower or hyperpower) yielded various predictions about how global power would be distributed over the coming decades. Francis Fukuyama, for example, posited that the world had reached the End of History, with liberal democracy being the final ideological victor after a century of conflict between the West and communism, fascism and other dictatorial belief systems. America stood tall as a shining “City upon a Hill” – its ‘exceptionalism’ scarcely doubted. Now, American hegemony appears to be under considerable threat, and idealistic notions of a prevailing liberal democracy spreading irreversibly across the world are appearing more and more defunct. Numerous scholars (as identified by Buzan and Clark) are suggesting that, over the coming decades, the global centre of power could shift East, and that a new multipolar system – a result of the economic and political emergence of the BRICS (Brazil, Russia, India, China, South Africa) as great powers – is but a matter of time. Out of these states, only India and Brazil have the advantage of being relatively free and open democracies, compared to Russia’s authoritarian regime, a still-divided South Africa, and a China still under the firm rule of the Communist Party.

For neoconservatives concerned with the spread of freedom and democracy by interventionist means and advocates of hegemonic stability theory – the idea that the United States ought to maintain a strong military presence around the world in order to prevent the international system descending into anarchic destabilization – these changes are seen as quite troubling. Indeed, the Russian Federation is the successor state to the USSR, having retained its nuclear stockpiles. Just last month, Putin announced that he would put forty new Intercontinental Ballistic Missiles (ICBMs) into service – a troubling sign of the growing hostilities between the newly emergent Eurasian power bloc and the West. Russia also inherited the Soviet Union’s permanent seat (and all important veto) at the United Nations Security Council, giving it significant influence over international decision-making.

Undoubtedly, the United States now wields less influence over world affairs than it did in the 1990s. The decade notably succeeded America’s victory in the Cold War and the end of global bipolarity. Partly, this recent decline can be attributed to its adventurous wars overseas, which have cost trillions of dollars, damaged the superpower’s reputation across the world, and seen an overextension of the country’s resources (which, if one accepts the premise that the United States is indeed an empire, Paul Kennedy in his book The Rise and Fall of the Great Powers has conceptualized as ‘imperial overstretch’). While the Rise of China, whether peaceful or otherwise, is set to continue unceasingly, a resurgent Russia is an issue that has only recently regained attention following the re-election of Vladimir Putin as President in 2012 and his subsequent invasion of Crimea (Ukrainian sovereign territory). Firstly, there is little question that the four-year hiatus in his Presidency – with Dmitry Medvedev stepping into the position while Putin accepted the post of Prime Minister between 2008 and 2012 (in what has seen the regime be described a “tandemocracy”) – was but a constitutional annoyance rather than any intentionally desired relaxation on the part of Russia’s strongman.

President Putin, himself an ex-KGB member, has stated that “the collapse of the Soviet Union was a major geopolitical disaster of the century”, and with the creation of the Eurasian Union earlier this year there is growing unity among the former Soviet republics. Such a move suggests a diplomatic shift away from Europe and the West in favor of a more Eurasian cultural identity, which strikes resonance with Samuel Huntington’s theory of the post-Cold War era constituting a Clash of Civilizations. Indeed, in Central Asia the United States’ closest ally is Kyrgyzstan (and until last year the U.S. had stationed troops in the country). Similar alliances with Russia’s neighbors, such as American support for President Saakashvili of Georgia during the Russian invasion of South Ossetia in 2008, has led some to argue that the region is seeing a new ‘Great Game’ between the Western powers and the Eurasian states. Belarus – under the dictatorial rule of President Lukashenko – has also joined the Eurasian Union, while Eastern Europe and other former Warsaw Pact countries – having attained freedom from Soviet rule in the late 1980s – are now feeling increasingly threatened by the resurgent growth of Russia’s sphere of influence. Lithuania has even chosen to reintroduce conscription as a result of the growing tensions, and an old U.S. proposal to place missile defense in Poland and the Czech Republic further contributes to the uneasy relations here.

An additional issue is the granting of asylum to American whistleblower Edward Snowden after his revelations detailing the National Security Agency’s pervasive global surveillance practices. And turning to the Middle East, there has been a long-standing relationship between Russia and several American enemies. Iran, for example, was provided with the Bushehr nuclear reactor by Russia amid ongoing international concern about the former’s nuclear ambitions. Furthermore, the USSR was the biggest contributor of arms to Saddam Hussein’s Iraq – Putin being strongly opposed the U.S. invasion and occupation in 2003. Russian military support for Syria’s Bashar al-Assad is also well documented.

During a period of relatively cordial relations between the West and Russia, President George W. Bush famously announced that he “looked [Putin] in the eye. I found him to be very straight forward and trustworthy and we had a very good dialogue. I was able to get a sense of his soul.” Now, the conflict in the Ukraine and the imposition of sanctions has seen a rapid growth in hostility between the two former Cold War enemies. Hostility that, as a topic, is sure to dominate the study of international politics in the foreseeable future.

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Author Biography

Tom McLachlan is a recent MSc Global Politics graduate from the London School of Economics and Political Science’s (LSE) School of Government, having also acquired an undergraduate MA in International Relations and Modern History from the University of St Andrews. He has a background in think tanks and the UK Parliament. His main interests include U.S. foreign policy (being the subject matter of his undergraduate dissertation on the Bush administration), the politics of the Middle East, ethnic cleansing and genocide, self-determination, and international terrorism.

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Cover image ‘BRICS Business Council‘, 20 Aug 2013’ by GovernmentZA

Transport contributes around a quarter of global CO₂ emissions, a significant share, and is the only sector that has not seen emissions start to reduce. Generally this has been because improvements in efficiency and technology have been offset by ever increasing demand for transport. The challenges for developed and developing countries are quite distinct. In developed countries the challenge is to meet growing demand for transport through sustainable options and where the potential to expand roadways is limited and, in some cases, the peak in demand for private car travel may have been met. In developed countries, the challenge is to meet a basic need for transport services without increasing emissions, often trying to maintain a low share of private car ownership against the trend for increasing demand. In addition, in many developing country cities, the more pressing issue is poor air quality and the associated health risks from this. This article will focus on the developed country perspective, with the developing country perspective to follow in a later article.

One of the most obvious challenges for transport is congestion. Congestion increases emissions due to stationary traffic and the stop-start behaviour of queuing traffic. It may seem that the simplest solution to this problem is to build more roads but there are two problems with this: the first is that in many countries there simply isn’t space to build more roads in the most congested places as often the busiest roads are in densely packed cities where roads are constrained by buildings on either side; the second problem with building more roads is that as you expand the capacity of roads then the number of cars increases. For example, between 1970 and 1990 in California, USA, for every 10% increase in road capacity there was a 9% increase in traffic. Clearly an alternative solution is needed.

In the USA and Europe, emission standards are being placed on new vehicle fleets to try and reduce the environmental impact of car travel. The EU has a target of an average of 95gCO₂/km from new cars in 2021 and Euro standards regulate emissions of NO_x and other harmful pollutants. In the USA, the Corporate Average Fuel Economy (CAFE) standards have improved efficiency of passenger cars, with the 2014 efficiency at 34.2 miles per gallon. However, due to the structure of CAFE, this has actually incentivised an increase in light duty trucks which are not subject to the same standards which has had a perverse impact on emission reductions. There is a need for long term policy signals to drive innovation from car manufacturers and deliver substantial improvements in vehicle efficiency. This needs to be coupled with policies that can incentivise the uptake of electric vehicles and build the facilitating infrastructure for alternatively fuelled vehicles.

High quality, sustainable and affordable public transport options are an important part of the package needed to clean up our transport system. Moving large numbers of people over longer distances in fewer vehicles presents a more efficient option for transport and encouraging people to shift to these more sustainable choices is vital. In the UK, much of the rail infrastructure is overcrowded and is a long way behind the high-speed rail options available elsewhere in Europe. There are policies in place to improve this infrastructure in the coming decades but it is important that this is done in an affordable way that does not compromise other environmental objectives. Where effectively managed, high-speed rail can represent a real sustainable alternative, particularly where it can substitute domestic flights. An integrated public transport system will be essential in a cleaner transport future.

In developed countries, some are suggesting that ‘Peak Car’ has been reached, meaning that the growth in car ownership and distance travelled may have levelled off or be reducing. It is difficult to determine whether this is a change in the trends or a blip due to the economic crisis. But it appears that younger people are waiting to learn to drive due to the high costs of driving and the reduced need to own and run a car if you live in a city with alternative transport options available. It may be too early to tell if these trends can be maintained but capitalising on these early indicators of a shift could be a useful policy dimension for locking in sustainable transport choices.

There are a clearly a range of policy options available for developed countries to clean up their transport sector. There are also early indications of improvements through the potential peaking of demand for car travel and new technologies emerging from car manufacturers. But there is a need for stronger actions on the part of governments to force manufacturers to go further in improving vehicles, as well as delivering policy for public transport and alternative vehicles. It is essential that the transport sector, which contributes large volumes of CO₂ to the climate crisis, as well as causing other significant environmental damage, is prioritised in order to deliver a low carbon, sustainable transport future.

Author Biography

Clare Linton is a researcher at the University of Leeds. Her research examines pathways to a sustainable transport future, exploring both technological and behavioural approaches to the challenge. She has worked with the Institute for Public Policy Research and holds an MSc in Climate Change and Policy from the University of Sussex. Follow on Twitter: @ClareLLinton and LinkedIn

*Cover image ‘Traffic’ by Michael Loke

The recent attacks in France, Tunisia and Kuwait confirmed a growing trend of global Islamic State (IS) violence. IS has been organising its foreign fighters into battalions tasked with transferring military experience gained in Syria to violent action in the wider international community. Yet this simultaneous trifecta of terror illustrates an escalation in the reach and ferocity of the group.

IS has continually used brutality to force a reaction from international media and commentators. The horrendous executions gave IS the column inches and reports it needs to stay relevant and prominent in the thoughts of potential recruits. A media blackout on the executions in late 2014 proved controversial but did starve IS of media oxygen. So IS responded in early 2015 by refocusing its propaganda machine on the destruction of Heritage sites. The world reacted suitably to the heartbreakingly mindless demolition of Hatra and Nimrud, but the pain felt from the smashing of stones could never equal the agony inflicted by massacre and butchery.  Global action, through beach shootings, mosque bombings and beheadings, re-establishes IS at the forefront of our newspapers and minds.

Domestic terror is now a credible threat in many countries. France is currently at its highest stage of security alert following the Charlie Hebdo and Lyon attacks. Yet this heightened security presence did not prevent the recent theft of explosives from a military base near Marseilles. In the UK, recent ceremonies marking the 10 year anniversary of the 7/7 bombings provide a blunt reminder of the continuing threat of Islamist violence.

These developments transform the discussion on how returning fighters should be dealt with. From 18^th Century Europe through to 1970’s Angola, foreign fighters have been a staple presence in war. Yet there is still an incomprehensible paucity of laws written to deal with their return. Indonesian prosecutors had to resort to using an old 1921 Dutch colonial law – to punish those engaged in “rebellion” against a friendly state – to charge Afief Abdul Madjid after he returned from an IS training camp in 2014.  UK policy changes, from an initial hard-line position towards fighters, to one more accommodating of returnees, is also symbolic of an international community that has no common, comprehensive policy of dealing with those who return from fighting for IS.

International responses currently range from Australia threatening to revoke citizenship for IS fighters, to a structured rehabilitation programme offered by Denmark. The ‘Aarhus model’, taking its name from the port city, welcomes returning fighters through a series of reintegration programmes, free counselling and job support. The programme has been credited with stemming the flow of young people to Syria, but also allowed a compelling counter-narrative to emerge. This model echoes the Saudi Arabian programme, which has rehabilitated 3,000 men since its inception in 2008 by focusing on social re-integration. A compassionate reaction to the issue is backed by the reality that many returning fighters have rejected IS. Homesickness and disillusion are pertinent factors to the return of individuals. Ignoring their suffering wastes an opportunity to create engaging anti-IS voices within society and, more worryingly, could lead to resentment and a re-descent into violence.  Evidence of historic returning Islamist fighters shows that only a small proportion will continue to engage in terrorist actions, however these actions are then more likely to succeed thanks in part to the experience of the returning fighters.

Yet with IS intentionally looking beyond the borders of Syria and Iraq, the potential threat from returning IS fighters could logically be greater than the historic statistics currently show. Moreover, IS propaganda is more pervasive than the efforts of any group before it. Individuals are acutely aware of how violent IS are.  When this does not stop them from joining IS, consideration must be taken to how dangerous these individuals are when they return as hardened fighters. These dynamics expound the risk inherent in the Aarhus model. Knowledge of potentially violent individuals has been repeatedly shown to be insufficient in preventing their violent actions. The Islamist who beheaded his boss near Lyon, an attack similar to the Charlie Hebdo and Lee Rigby murderers, was known to security officials. ‘Cautious’ estimations show that around 1,300 former jihadis have returned from IS action to their homes in Europe alone. If all are welcomed home, and only one individual harboured murderous intent, could rehabilitation programmes and security monitoring be expected to prevent that one individual attacking a restaurant or busy subway station?

Rehabilitation programmes provide a human response to a radicalisation process that is complex and individual. They give returnees a second chance and afford countries the chance to prevent their own citizens from submitting to a life of radical, Islamist violence. Locking up foreign fighters is at best unproductive, and at worst potentially toxic, as prisons have long been seen as effective incubators of radicalisation. Banning passports helps to defend borders but ignores the complexities considered above, leads to divided families and fails to tackle the wider issue of radicalisation. Denmark is currently championing a scheme that some will see as nuanced, others as naïve. Yet with IS peering over the parapet and looking beyond its areas of control in Iraq and Syria, clear policy answers to the threat of returning fighters need to be developed.

Author Biography

Tom Walpole is currently studying Arabic and Middle East Studies at the Institute for Arabic and Islamic Studies at Exeter University. During his degree, Tom lived in Cairo and has focused his studies on security policy and Islamist movements within the Middle East. Tom is also alumnus of the European Youth Parliament and has an interest in researching the potential role of the European Union in Foreign Affairs.

*Cover image ‘Islamic State‘ by Karl-Ludwig Poggemann

With Syria and Iraq currently at the heart of the Middle Eastern debate, this article looks at the role of Hezbollah in the Syrian conflict and the potentially destabilising effects it is having on Lebanon. Hezbollah’s involvement in Syria has helped both prolong the fighting and preserve Bashar al-Assad, the Syrian President’s position. In a deeply rooted and ever-evolving sectarian conflict, Hezbollah has had a lot to gain from the alliance but the benefits have also come at a price, especially as victory for the Assad regime continues to be uncertain.

Origins: A battleground of proxies

Much to the relief and surprise of many in Lebanon, the contagious nature of the so-called Arab Spring spared a country that has been dragged through civil war, terrorist plots and numerous foreign occupations since the 1970s. Yet the dizzyingly complex web of alliances in place today have been woven inside Lebanon over many decades as Hezbollah, the Iranian backed Shi’ite movement, has grown in strength and consolidated its power. Home to 4.4 million people and 18 recognized religions and sects, Lebanon has become a crossroad for proxies created by the diverse interests of Iran, Israel and Syria, which have all met and clashed violently over the years.

No stranger to conflict, the Lebanese civil war of 1975-1990 saw the entry of Israeli troops into the country in 1982 to protect its citizens from the Palestine Liberation Organisation (PLO) operating within Southern Lebanon. Born out of a resistance movement, the ensuing war provided the impetus for the Iranian backed Shia movement Hezbollah to take form; united in its hatred of Israel, it would not rest until its enemy was “obliterated”.  Hezbollah leaders were backed by Iran and supported by the Syrian state that provided easy access to arms. In return Syria had free access to continue its long history of meddling within Lebanon, unashamedly extracting money through bribes and drug trafficking. Following two decades of occupation, “victory” came when all Israeli troops finally withdrew from the Southern part of the country at the turn of the 21^st century. As a result, Hezbollah was able to portray itself as the leader in freeing Lebanon of foreign armies and won fame and unquestioned support across Lebanese society.  In return, the organisation was given sole use of weapons as the rightful defender of the country.

The decision to keep the Hezbollah militia armed has continued to define and secure the militia’s place within Lebanon by means of creating “a state within a state” that protects its prized position fiercely, seemingly stopping at little to outmanoeuvre and intimidate its rivals. In 2005, Lebanese Prime Minister Hariri, along with 22 others, became victims of terrorism following a collision with an explosive-packed suicide car. The Prime minister’s vision to reconstruct Lebanon was at odds with Syrian interests and unsurprisingly fingers were quickly pointing to Assad, whose army had been occupying Lebanon since 1976. The incident culminated in the “Cedar Revolution” where anti-Syria protests swept through Lebanon, causing, with added International pressure, Syrian troops to withdraw from the country and supposedly ending an era of political meddling and 29 years of occupation.

Turning Point – Hezbollah today

Although altered by the developments in Syria, the Assad-Hezbollah-Iranian alliance has returned to haunt the streets of Lebanon. Early on in the Syrian conflict, Hezbollah had tried to hide its involvement in the war by keeping funerals of Shia fighters low key and forbidding mention of the war. But by 2013 fighting needed to intensify to push back the Sunni rebels in Syria. Hezbollah’s Secretary General, Hassan Nasrallah finally gave a televised speech in 2013 where he welcomed “a completely new phase” in the Middle Eastern conflict. The result was a public declaration of Hezbollah’s commitment to fighting with Assad’s government troops inside Syria.  The unexpected strength of the Islamic State of Iraq and Al-Sham (ISIS) was proving too strong for Assad’s troops to defeat alone, so to preserve its neighbours’ position, Iran sent Hezbollah to fight. Yet since 2013, despite the extra troops, no clear winner has emerged and the Syrian war continues unabated. With Iran’s Shi’ite forces now committed, there is no turning back for Hezbollah.

Power Shift

From its inception, Hezbollah was careful to define itself as a Lebanese group first and foremost; in a country with an equal amount of Christians, Shia and Sunni this was the best tactic to galvanise widespread support. Hezbollah’s role in Syria now goes against the earlier pragmatism of the image it portrayed and according to some, risks alienating non-Shia sectarian groups through its support of Assad, responsible for killing fellow Sunni neighbours.

Opinion is polarised further with increasing sectarian clashes breaking out at the Lebanese border after Hezbollah stepped up its involvement in Syria. Sunni terrorists quickly retaliated inside Lebanon, masterminding numerous suicide missions. The most brutal was the attack on the Iranian embassy in Beirut, designed to send a clear message to Iran and its local proxy, killing 23 and injuring 146 people.

Having contributed as much as $35 billion per year to help keep Assad in power, Iran has a lot at stake. If Assad should fall, Hezbollah will suffer, as will Iran who will find itself increasingly isolated.

Humanitarian spillover

The massive influx of refugees into Lebanon since the conflict is a concern for the fragile mix of people inside Lebanon. In 2013, the World Bank was already warning of the grave consequences the Syrian conflict was having on the country. To date there are now 1,174,690 registered Syrian refugees in Lebanon, which is about one quarter of the country’s total population representing a financial burden of three billion dollars. This is an overwhelming population growth for a country that has not fully recovered following the protracted period of civil war. Reports have also warned of resentment by locals who now compete for jobs and straining infrastructure.

The tensions that ignited in Arsal, a Sunni majority town in Lebanon in August 2014 is testimony to the problems caused by the growing refugee crisis and the dangers of extremism spilling over into the country. The Lebanese army was mobilised against the Nusra front and ISIS fighters who had taken over the town following the arrest by the Lebanese army of the commander of a syrian rebel group. In retaliation, members of the group took 25 Lebanese soldiers hostage. The army fought for 5 days in an attempt to release the hostages and liberate the town from militants.  This has caused further resentment within the country as locals see the camps as breading grounds for organised terrorist activity.

The problems Lebanon faces with the Syrian crisis have raised numerous questions. The developing theme in recent Middle Eastern conflict rings true also within Lebanon and this is where the difficulty lies; the rich diversity housed within its borders can only be negotiated with the skill of a tightrope walker. Positioned in Syria’s back yard, Lebanon stands on the edges of a conflict engulfing its Sunni and Shia neighbours, where extremist elements relentlessly attempt to destroy the opposing side. Hezbollah has complicated the matter further and with its destiny now tied to the Assad regime, the group’s existence will now depend on its ability to adapt to the changing Middle Eastern climate.

Author Biography

Marie Mulville is currently studying for a Master’s in Diplomacy and Foreign Policy at City University in London. Marie’s interests include the Middle East, European Politics and Security.

You can find her on Twitter: @Marie_Mulville

*Cover image ‘Lebanese flag floating‘ by Eusebius@Commons

The recent political factions and the ongoing common conflict between Islamism and Secularism has re-enforced a new kind of ideological war. A war that much of the Middle East and North Africa has presently come to experience, commonly known as the ‘Arab Spring’. From the outside our mainstream media-fed common sense would suggest these are religious wars politicised or that this is the nature of non-democratic states lost in the mist of revolution. However it may also be suggested, this is a struggle of cultures masked by ideologies in a fiercely globalising world; cultures that have historically never or hardly known democracy or statehood in their western concepts and cultures who are forced to choose between Secularism and Islamism as guiding polities. Bangladesh stands as an example of such a war after the executions of Islamist leaders and the killing of ‘secular’ bloggers whilst also dealing with contemporary issues of poverty, population growth and climate change. Bangladesh is enmeshed in this war of ideology showing no experience of how to deal with it and showing no signs of escaping it.

As a State, Bangladesh is in its infant phase when we think of it in terms of how long it took Europe to achieve what they now regard as democracy. Nevertheless, as is so easy to do, we might easily critique such states and countries for not democratising overnight into a Western-style democracy and would do so unjustly. Bangladesh was carved up by the British Empire based on ethno-religious identities with the partition of India; it then became East Pakistan but remained constituted by West Pakistani authorities. The state however was never equal in this East-West relationship, often financially marginalised and rarely receiving support during climatic hazards. Bangladesh was born impoverished.

So if we are to understand contemporary Bangladeshi politics we have to understand its beginning and as a result what we find is that politics becomes the continuation of war by other means as French philosopher Michel Foucault put it. A war fought out on the political stage at the cost of peace and stability whereby Bangladeshis are no longer Bangladeshis, a sovereignty that once united them; instead ideology has replaced that once uniting principle of nationhood and Bangladesh is not alone in this as is evident in Libya, Egypt, Tunisia, Turkey and Syria.

Born in 1971: Hasina vs Khaleda

Bangladesh’s (East Pakistan) independence started off with a glimpse of democracy when, 23 years, after Pakistan’s independence, a West Pakistan-led nationwide election campaign began in which women were allowed to vote. Unfortunately, West Pakistan’s refusal to accept the results that saw East Pakistan’s Awami League win a majority led to civil war. It is often marginalised that Bangladesh during this period was recovering from its own genocide as recorded by US Officials and expressed by Archer Blood’s telegram to Nixon. As such Bangladesh’s political history since independence from Pakistan in 1971 can be broken down into three eras – between 1972 and 1975 the country was ruled by populist authoritarianism after the war with Pakistan. In 1975 the assassination of the founding father of the nation, Mujibur Rahman led to fifteen years of military rule, followed by the adoption of representative democracy in 1991. Since independence, Bangladesh has adopted many styles of governance but also claims to have its own unique form called Caretaker Government which subsumes power as a neutral body during elections.

After the 1971 independence war, Bangladesh emerged as a state based on socialist-secular principles. The 1975 assassination of Mujibur Rahman was swiftly followed by military rule beginning with General Ziaur Rahman. Six years later the assassination of General Ziaur Rahman would introduce another military leader until 1990 whereby external pressure and internal civic opposition would see the end of military rule. From then on parliamentary democracy would be held until 2006.

Two parties would come to dominate the political scene – the Bangladesh National Party (BNP) would be headed by the widow of General Rahman, Khaleda Zia and the Awami League (AL) headed by the daughter of Mujibur Rahman, Hasina Wazed. Their rivalry would be the cause of many future political factions and the demise of political and economic stability that we are seeing today. Though for a while Bangladesh had been a potential example of Islamism and Secularism working together, in 2005 Islamists would say otherwise. 500 bombs went off across the country largely unnoticed by international media, with Islamist group Jamatul Mujahideen Bangladesh demanding the implementation of shari’a. Suicide bombs would follow, killing judges and politicians with no group claiming responsibility. Tensions between the ruling AL and two moderate and influential Islamist parties such as Jamaat-e-Islami (allied with the BNP) and Hizbut Tahrir would further exacerbate political factions.

Growing instability led to a military intervention in 2007 until elections were held once more in 2008/09 whereby the AL came to power once more. Between 2001 and 2006 Islamist parties grew under the BNP and even formed coalitions now that secularism as a core principle was removed from the original constitution. This would lead to rising extremism and the AL boycotting parliament and calling for strikes. In 2008 however, the AL, known as the ‘secularist party’, would claim majority of seats in parliament and defeat any Islamist influence. As summed up by Tahrat Shahid – “whatever efforts BNP has made to ‘Islamize’ the Constitution, AL has sought to undo”.

2014 Election Boycott: Islamism vs Secularism

The political factions would all come into fruition when the January 2014 elections would be marred by violence and a complete boycott by all opposition parties. In late 2013, the AL abdicated the Caretaker Government system whilst also re-opening cases of crimes committed in 1971, which led to a crackdown on the largest Islamist party Jamat-e-Islami who were banned altogether from the political process. Opposition leaders would call for the return of the Caretaker Government to oversee the elections but AL’s refusal to comply resulted in more conflict. Allied-opposition parties then enforced a nationwide road-rail-water blockade which continues to be in-effect today weighing heavily on the economy, the very thing Bangladesh survives on. As a result, 21 political parties were banned and Hasina was re-elected unopposed.

Whilst Bangladeshi politics have failed its citizens, it has also divided the country into not only associations with various parties, as democracies do, but rather into ideological categories. The popular black-or-white narrative that began with the ‘war on terror’ when George W. Bush declared in 2001 after 9/11 “you are either with us or against us” has now become the international excuse in denying Islamists a role in politics. In the case of Bangladesh where more than 90% of the population follows Islam not only as a faith but a guiding principle for political life seeing Islamist parties being banned disregards their representation and representativeness for political Islam in Bangladesh. Furthermore, to then execute members of the largest Islamist party for crimes that had been pardoned in 1971 raises suspicion among citizens that this is an attack on representatives of their faith and thus an attack on their faith. The consequences are nothing more than what can be expected in this war of ideologies as bombs are targeted at Prime Minister Hasina and in response her opposition leader Khaleda Zia is charged with murder as she continues to call for free and fair elections.

To make matters worse, citizens have not only become victims but also perpetrators that are frenzied by the tense political atmosphere. Free speech, as is often the case, is the first victim when democracy fails and chaos ensues. First, the head of ETV a television station was arrested and the channel taken off air due to televising a speech from Khaleda Zia’s son or as AL authorities suggests displaying pornographic material. Then, a string of attacks on what are deemed secular bloggers sees the brutal killings of three men who sought nothing more than to do away with conservative and extreme interpretations of Islam. All three of them had opposed politicised religion (Islamism) in their writings with the first two finding it necessary to attack the faith by publishing books such as ‘Virus of Faith’. But the third victim Ananta Bijoy Das was quainter than the others with his final post stating “all of us are human, and all of us are Bangladeshi Bengalis”. In that there is a certain level of sentiment that opposes the foundations of ideologies – premised on the notion that to defeat an opposing force we must attack it, but as Das showed: there is still a desire that transcends the separatism brought forth by ideologies whether secular or Islamist. Whether or not this desire is representative of the majority is yet to be known as it seems highly unlikely the AL will hold fresh elections. The lines of ideology may become ever more defined until the next elections in 2019, however, it might prove to be too little too late as Bangladesh becomes well accustomed to the continuation of war by the means of politics.

Author Biography

Rubel Mozlu has recently obtained an MSc from the University of Bristol in International Relations with the intention of pursuing a PhD on the topic of philosophy, religion and terrorism. His MSc main thesis focused on ‘Liberal Democracy and Culture’ with a particular focus on Egypt’s revolutions and Bangladesh’s election boycott. His current interests are in the MENA region, Islamic history, Western and Eastern Philosophy and Culture.

*Cover image ‘Shahbag Chottor (Square)‘ by Rubayat Habib

While international attention is invariably drawn to the current crisis in Greece a far bigger threat to the  project looms on the horizon. lthough not a member of the euro, Britain is much more central to the European Union (EU) than Greece. Thus a Brexit would come with massive economic and political costs for the EU.

Nevertheless it will not be the consequences of a Brexit to the rest of the continent that matters when the British people go to the polls, rather it will be the consequences for themselves that will tip the balance.

A cornerstone of the eurosceptic argument is the economic success of Switzerland and Norway, who despite remaining outside the EU,  inside the European Free Trade Association. The so-called ‘Britzerland’ argument is that the UK could leave the EU without leaving the common market. This is particularly appealing to free traders and former Thatcherites such as Boris Johnson, but is it realistic A study by German think tanks: Bertelsmann Stiftung and the IFO Institute hypothesise that even in this best exit strategy GDP per head would be £157 lower by 2030 than if Britain remained in the EU.

Some may argue that this is a small price to pay for freedom from EU control, hile I also disagree with the sentiment behind such an argument I primarily reject the possibility of the UK exiting the EU and remaining in the common market. Euroscepticism, once  to Britain is on the rise across the Continent. Indeed UKIP is not the largest eurosceptic party in the European Parliament, that distinction goes to Italy’s Five Star Movement who took 25% of the country’s vote in the last European Elections. In France to, the latest polling suggest the Front Nationale’s Marie Le Pen would make it to the second round of a presidential contest instead of President Hollande.

Why does the rise of euroscepticism elsewhere matter for the details of a British withdrawal? The answer is simple, a failing independent Britain would be a killer blow to similarly minded groups everywhere. As a result it is not in the interest of the French, the Italians or any other powerful EU member to allow generous terms post-Brexit. Britain would find barriers to trade erected with all its closest trading partners on the continent.

In this more realistic scenario the aforementioned Bertelsmann Stiftung and ifo Institute report makes the dire economic consequence quite clear. Britain could lose up to 14% of its GDP in the decade following a Brexit compared to if it remained in the EU. This would be the equivalent of a massive £3,500 per person.

Whether people like it or not the City of London is the heart of the British economy. With its links across Europe, how it would survive is a key question for any discussion of the economics of a Brexit. A report by the Centre of European Reform concludes that given its worldwide links the City’s financial institutions would not collapse, but that the cost would far outweigh any benefits.

Taking the  example of Switzerland who also have an important financial sector, we can see that the eurosceptics’ gains from the reduction of regulation are imaginary. As a “third country” Switzerland must constantly keep its regulations in line with that of the EU if it is to do business with EU companies. Thus a Brexit would mean Britain would still have to abide by EU rules, without having any say in drawing them up.

A Brexit would significantly reduce Britain’s bargaining power in international negotiations with rising economic powers such as China and Brazi.To think otherwise is wishful thinking. When it comes to trade negotiations there is strength in market power, the size of the common market both in terms of consumers and wealth allows the EU to collectively gain better deals than they would individually.

These are just a few of the things that the British electorate will have to consider when they vote on an in/out referendum on EU membership. It is also my opinion that the referendum should be sooner rather than later, since as most economists will tell you there is a cost attached to uncertainty.

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Author Biography

Callum Trimble-Jenkins is a recent graduate of Trinity College Dublin having studied Philosophy, Politics, Economics and Sociology, majoring in Economics. He is currently working in communications for an international NGO having previously edited Ireland’s only student run financial newspapers The Bull. Callum is particularly focused on issues of economic policy making, European affairs and British politics. Hailing from Northern Ireland he also watches developments in his homeland with keen interest.

You can find him on Twitter

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*Cover image ‘The Union Jack Flag‘ by UK Ministry of Defence

Inside Shanty Towns

Events over the past ten years have changed the outlook for the global economy considerably, with new bargaining tools and new opportunities increasingly available to emerging powers and developing states alike. This has given rise to some startling economic revelations, such as that debt now seems to be increasingly stockpiled in more affluent countries and that the fastest-growing trade relations tend to be between developing countries themselves, and between developing countries and the BRICs.

Despite this, however, the primary connotations associated with global shanty town development have in many ways proven durable and our treatment of this housing paradigm consequently has become outdated. By the early to mid-1800s, the slums that had proliferated in British cities as a result of the industrial revolution were denigrated for being dens of drunkards, prostitutes and thieves. Fast forward to the more recent past and the conventional wisdom remained little changed, being for the most part equally as blunt and dismissive in regard to the shanty towns that were by then growing at a rapid rate in other regions and continents.

The anthropologist William Mangin, for example, was one of the first to undertake field analysis in the Pueblos Jóvenes or ‘young towns’ that were springing up in various quarters of Lima in Peru throughout the 1950s and 60s. Mangin described how these shanty town developments were widely perceived by the authorities of the time to be hotbeds of crime and political agitation, whereas the reality was in fact quite different. Considered study revealed not only surprisingly well-planned urban structures in these young towns, but local populations residing within them who tended towards both civic participation and self-improvement.

However, over this same period, there was one trend about which everyone eventually appeared to agree upon: the shift in shanty town development in terms of its prime geographical location and concentration. The paradigm of slum housing that had originated in Europe and America was gradually displaced from the developed world as living standards rose unabated after World War II. It is important to note, however, that slum housing often persisted in developed countries in some form or another for far longer than is typically thought. A photo-documentary series undertaken by Nick Hedges, for example, revealed extant slum housing in British cities as late as the 1970s; and it was only in recent years that the Spanish government announced plans to start resolving the Canada Real Galiana shanty town located close to Madrid, reputed to be Europe’s largest surviving shanty town community.

As the 1970s were drawing to a close, however, the economies of Europe and of North America were on the brink of de-industrialisation to a greater or lesser degree; and the economic ideology of neo-liberalism was about to be unleashed, destined to irrevocably alter the inner-workings of the global economy in ways that would affect all states, developed and developing alike.

Elsewhere in the world, the combined forces of decolonisation, industrialisation and urbanisation were already exacerbating shanty town development across a whole plethora of new and old cities and, just as with processes of deindustrialisation across the West, the particular effect this troika of forces visited upon different urban centres in developing states varied hugely depending on context.

In the former colonies of Africa, for example, decolonisation was a contributing factor to shanty town development, albeit indirectly. This is because shanty town development tends to be more pronounced in those urban areas where inequality is entrenched and where antiquated property and land laws impede innovative urban planning. Too often, the socio-economic structures that the newly-independent African states inherited once transfers of power were complete reflected these indicators, with colonial inequalities far more likely to be replicated by the new ruling elites than overhauled by them.

Similar patterns can be observed in India and Pakistan. Indeed, a review of the largest slums in the world reveals that a great number of them are located in areas of particular importance to the former colonial powers, from the Dharavi slum in Mumbai to Kibera just outside of Nairobi. Although it is not helpful to simplify the very complex causality inherent in decolonisation processes, the congruence is nevertheless striking.

In China, in contrast, it was the unprecedented scale and deepening processes of industrialisation that accounted for the development of shanty towns across the mainland. China’s industrial path is notable in two ways. The first is the relatively short timeframe over which China has achieved its staggering levels of industrialisation and its concomitant economic reorientation towards its cities, over the past three decades alone. The second is the present maturing of the industrial process within China and the investment that China has been consistently willing to make in order to sustain urban growth, facilitate ongoing rural-urban migration and improve urban housing for its burgeoning industrial workforces. This has often come at the sacrifice of the rights of agriculture workers due to land seizures, however, and has been seen by some as a contributing factor to an oversupply in the Chinese property market.

Caught somewhere between these two processes, it is the urbanisation forces underway in South America that are now often treated as emblematic of the broader, arguably global trend towards informal shanty town housing. Moreover, with decolonisation having occurred much earlier in South America, and with industrialisation being by and large less intense than in Asia, it is the shanty towns of South America that are perhaps most likely to be problematised by the international community today.

This is mainly due to two reasons. In the absence of a distinctive phase of industrialisation underpinning migration into urban centres, shanty town development can be decoupled from urban productivity and can therefore feed into unemployment and stagnation. Secondly, due to the prevalence of drug trafficking across South America, it is often the shanty towns that bear the brunt of the high levels of crime that such trafficking involves. Some of the largest and most well-known shanty towns in South America- from the barrios of Caracas to the sprawling Nezo Chalco Itza shanty town in Mexico City- are characterised by high crime rates and pronounced inequality. Insecurity has long been the main concern in South American societies.

Impending Crisis or the Future of Global Housing?

In view of the present scale and prevalence of shanty towns around the world, there are a number of considerations that it is important to keep in mind when formulating academic and policy approaches.

As the above review hopefully demonstrated, we need to avoid generalising shanty town development and we need to avoid downplaying the importance of context. When we treat shanty towns as a single, monolithic housing category, it feeds into this tendency to critically isolate the shanty town paradigm and to perceive it as a ‘problem’ that can somehow be segregated within or eliminated from the urban planning process. The sheer scale of shanty town growth and the sheer pace of projected urbanisation for the foreseeable future makes outright eradication unfeasible, to say nothing of the questionable ethics such a policy aim as and of itself would imply. UN Habitat, for example, predicts that 6 out of 10 people can be expected to reside in urban areas by the year 2030.

Processes of social integration, innovative urban planning that embraces mixed land use and ongoing land reform, both formal and informal, will be much more meaningful towards managing this transition and should be the goals that inform the collective mindset going forwards. Slum improvement projects that provide links to amenities and transport infrastructure, similarly, are achievable ambitions which can render tangible benefits and which would do justice to the social mobility and economic activity that shanty towns could, and in some cases have already provided, often despite the failures of government to achieve the same. In contrast, treating shanty towns as an impending crisis and then subsequently seeking to relocate residents can have devastating repercussions, severing residents from their support networks, their jobs and, in the worst instances, simply leaving them homeless.

Secondly, and perhaps even more critically, we have to move away from this idea that shanty towns are somehow containable to less developed countries. The financial crisis that began in 2007, and the misguided housing policies that it revealed on the part of Western governments- a lack of sustainable, affordable housing stock, untenable mortgages, credit and property bubbles and a renting sector in disarray- should serve as a stark reminder that the Western housing paradigm is equally vulnerable to modern economic forces. Rather than treating shanty towns as interim, semi-permanent communities that will inevitably be phased out as economies achieve a high enough standard of living for the majority of its residents, it is time to start implementing approaches that envisage shanty towns on a much more permanent basis, one that will increasingly erode the distinction we make between developed and developing countries.

The signs are already here that shanty towns may be on the brink of revisiting developed countries in various ways. Concern about the ‘broken’ housing model of London is becoming a regular refrain in the UK, with some arguing that the ‘beds in sheds’ phenomenon of a growing yet largely invisible migrant population being housed in substandard conditions across certain boroughs prefigures a return to this type of housing. Others cite evidence that poverty is increasingly being concentrated in the suburbs of a number of major American cities in a way that likewise reflects a return to slum housing.  In view of such evidence, and in view of global population increases, it seems shanty towns are far more likely to be the future of global housing long before they become a thing of the past.

Author Biography

Heather Emond is an MSc graduate in International Relations from the London School of Economics, with a focus in advanced international security, European security and defence policy and Arab-Israeli Relations. Upon graduation, she worked in the fields of economic development and external affairs for local government in Edinburgh, assisting with a number of EU, international and telecommunications projects. More recently, Heather has collaborated with the United Nations Association of Edinburgh and is currently based in Northern Chile volunteering for a teaching programme co-delivered by the Chilean Ministry of Education and UN Development Programme.

Twitter: @HGEmond

*Cover image by author

The Rohingya, an ethnic Muslim community that is concentrated in the Rakhine State of western Myanmar, a predominantly Buddhist state, are the victims of an on-going campaign of brutal killings, rape and starvation in what falls within the international definition of an ethnic cleansing as stated by The Final Report of the Commission of Experts established pursuant to Security Council Resolution 780.

This campaign, organised primarily by Buddhist organisations with the aid of State authorities in Myanmar, has the final aim of driving more than a million members of this ethnic group out of the country.

The roots of the contemporary conflict can be traced back to at least the beginning of the Second World War. The Rohingya sided with the British while the Rakhine Buddhists sided with the invading Japanese. Since then there has been tension between the two sides. However, whatever balance remained was shattered with the passing of the Burmese Citizenship Law in 1982. This law did not recognise the Rohingya, whose existence in Myanmar can be traced back to at least the 19^th century, and has effectively left them stateless. Human Rights Watch and other international organisations have repeatedly requested that this law be repealed, yet it remains in force. Stripped of any kind of political power and the ability to hold governmental office, access education, vote and work as civil servants, the Rohingya became highly vulnerable to exploitation. Rohingya children as young as seven have been documented as working in forced labour camps, property owned by Rohingyas has been regularly confiscated, they have been displaced from settlements and the frequency of violence towards Rohingyas has been on the rise.

Compounding this situation, Myanmar has recently passed a population control law, allowing the government to subject selected areas to birth control laws. This is one strand in a set of four so-called “race and religious protection” bills that are being considered by the legislature and include bills granting governmental oversight for interfaith marriages and religious conversion. Proposed by the Race and Religious Protection Association these bills have received widespread support in what is developing into overt hostility towards not just the Rohingya but the ethnic Muslim population in general.

This hostility taps into ethnic and religious divides but is also fuelled by a particular fear – that Buddhism in on the wane and Islam is on the rise. In a country where Buddhists outnumber Muslims 2 to 1 and with many of the latter unable to vote, political expediency is perhaps why Nobel laureate Aung San Suu Kyi and other members of opposition political parties have not voiced strong concern over the treatment of the Rohingya.

Worryingly, there are opportunistic extremist groups that are seeking to use the plight of the Rohingya as a means to radicalisation. Recently the Islamic State has begun targeting South East Asian states as areas for potential recruitment and action in order to further their goal of creating a global Islamic caliphate.  If Myanmar continues to violently suppress its ethnic Muslim population, they will not only continue violating the human rights and dignity of its people but may also endanger itself and other countries.

The events of 2012-2013 encapsulate the Government’s attitude towards the Rohingya. In their chillingly named report, “All You Can Do is Pray” Crimes Against Humanity and Ethnic Cleansing of Rohingya Muslims in Burma’s Arakan [Rakhine] State,” Human Rights Watch documented evidence that in Rakhine:

“The two groups most influential in organizing anti-Rohingya activities in this period [2012 -2013] were the local order of Buddhist monks (the sangha) and the locally powerful Rakhine Nationalities Development Party (RNDP)”

These groups masterminded the distribution of leaflets directly or indirectly urging the ethnic cleansing of the Rohingya as well as organising local meetings and giving instructions to the local Buddhist population to socially and economically isolate the Rohingya in order to starve them of food and currency. Those who chose to ignore these instructions were met with beatings and public humiliation. There are multiple reports of Buddhists who chose to give food and aid to Rohingya being attacked by monks with bamboo sticks.

This prepared the way for waves of co-ordinated pogroms against the Rohingya and Kaman (another group of ethnic Muslims). Thousands of Rakhine Buddhists descended on townships like Mrauk-U, Minbya, Kyauk Pyu, and Pauktaw on October the 23rd 2012, armed with makeshift weapons, knives, guns and sticks, killing hundreds.

Government forces, at best, did nothing. At worst, there is strong evidence that the government forces sided with the attackers and used lethal force in multiple areas specifically against Muslims. One man reported:

“I saw three people hit by bullets from the police… They were standing right in front of me trying to stop the fires. They had water buckets. When I was trying to pour water on the fire, a man next to me was shot in the back of the head.”

The man said those killed were Muhammad Rafi, 21, Ali Khan, 16, and Ibrahim, 17.

This violence gave President Thein Sein a pretext to order security forces to crack down on the Muslim population, forcing 100,000 people from their homes – increasing the already large population living in camps for Internally Displaced People (IDPs). The authorities continue to make regular arrests of the Rohingya based on their ethnicity, force them from their homes, watch as they are beaten to death and explicitly endorse the on-going ethnic cleansing in not just Rakhine but in states across Myanmar.

President Thein Sein has repeatedly denied that the Rohingya as an ethnic group exist, instead referring to them as Bengali. The government has committed to this revisionist view. Even the findings of the inquiry into the violence in Rakhine titled, “Final Report of Inquiry Commission on Sectarian Violence in Rakhine State,” read that:

“the Commission was able to conduct interviews with 2,000 people, comprising 1,200 Rakhine and 800 Bengalis.”

There is no evidence to suggest that the Rohingya are Bengali. The most widely accepted view is that they arrived in Burma in the 19^th century though some scholars believe they may have descended from Muslims living in the area from the 16^th century or were always indigenous to the region. Irrespective of that, they have lived in Myanmar for centuries.

Rather, this is part of a sustained State-backed propaganda campaign that has vilified the Rohingya as Bengali, terrorists bent on the destruction of the state and Buddhist values or Bengali terrorists bent on the destruction of the state and Buddhist values.

In a desperate bid to escape these conditions we have seen a mass exodus of the Rohingyan people out of Myanmar both through people smugglers and independently. Those that are lucky enough to make the perilous journey without dying or being abandoned at sea find their way to refugee camps in neighbouring countries. The UNHCR report over 140,000 living in border camps in Thailand, and Bangladesh currently hosts around 200,000 refugees and are considering moving 32,000 of them to Thengar Char, an island that is underwater during high tide in a cruel move that is almost certainly designed to force them to leave the country.

Given the circumstances, it is not surprising that the UN called the Rohingya one of the most persecuted minorities in the world. World leaders ranging from President Obama to the Dalai Lama have called on Myanmar to stop these atrocities. President Sein’s administration has refused to take any responsibility, calling allegations of human rights abuses “pure fabrication”.  If Myanmar hopes to transition into a democratic country that respects the rule of law it must immediately put an end to these divisive policies, take responsibility and open a real and positive dialogue with ethnic Muslim communities.

Author Biography

Yaseen Akhtar completed an LLB at King’s College London and have done extensive work for the Law Society’s International Action Team as well as working in Education in Japan and China – with a focus on English teaching and policy. Currently part of the 2015 Teach First cohort and continuing to try throwing the spotlight on Human Rights issues that may have been overlooked by the mainstream media. Particularly those in Asia. If you have any comments then do tweet me at  @kyouryuuonice

*Cover image ‘Myanmar/Burma: Little hope for Rohingya IDPs‘ by European Commission DG ECHO

“It is your historic responsibility to act.” – Dr. Joanne Liu, International President of Médecins Sans Frontières

It was 1976, when a blood sample taken from a Belgian nun in Zaire (now Congo) arrived in a laboratory in Antwerp for testing. The unassuming vial had been transported on a commercial plane, in someone’s hand-luggage containing a note. It was thought the patient had contracted yellow fever but further tests were needed for clarification. It was this blood sample that contained the first identified case of a deadly virus – Ebola haemorrhagic fever.  With further investigation, the virus was understood to have spread in a remote village north of Kinshasa, by contaminated needles. That same year, a total of 431 Ebola deaths were recorded, followed by a couple of sporadic isolated epidemics. Once the excitement of the discovery had subsided, the virus was then seemingly buried and forgotten. Fast forward 40 years and we see the worst outbreak of the Ebola virus on record, claiming, to date, 11,193 lives.

From July 2014, the horror in which the virus spread, with devastating consequences, was aired on international media, showing scenes that seemed to be from a sci-fi movie. Fear spread as quickly as the virus itself. Communities were unprepared and did not understand what was happening, blaming the health care workers in their special space suits for bringing the disease to them. Villages with unexplained deaths were stigmatised and many feared to report cases. It was only those in the last grips of illness who sought help from the clinics which were filled to capacity. Many lay on the streets dying in agony waiting to be admitted.

It is now believed that the first victim of the 2014 epidemic was a two year-old boy from a remote village in Guinea. His three-year-old sister also fell sick and died, followed by their mother. The symptoms the family displayed were mistaken for another not so lethal disease common to the area, which allowed the virus to spread undetected for three months. The virus then made its way to neighbouring Sierra Leone and Liberia through its porous borders and once it reached the heavily populated cities, such as Freetown, the death rate spiralled out of control.

The difference in the death rate between the richer countries like Nigeria, and the poorest such as Liberia, is significant. Nigeria has had 8 deaths caused by Ebola where as Liberia, the worst affected country, has had 4,806 deaths to date. At its peak, between 300-400 new cases were being reported on a weekly basis in August and September alone. The countries most successful in managing the virus had well-coordinated infrastructure already in place. Liberia and Sierra Leone however were still recovering after a period of protracted civil war ending only in 2003. Populations were also extremely weary of their governments in these countries and moves to ban the sale and consumption of bush meat, from which the virus originates, were largely ignored by the communities who believed this initiative to be part of another government scandal.

Many lessons and important policy implications have surfaced from this epidemic. Contrary to popular belief, it was not high-tech drugs and equipment that halted the spread of the virus which Hollywood would lead us to believe. Instead the outbreak demonstrated the importance of educating communities about symptoms and the need for a strong healthcare system. Before the crisis began Liberia had only 51 doctors for its entire population of 4.2 million. The high levels of urbanization within the affected countries meant that close human contact allowed the disease to proliferate at an increased rate than in a remote village. Teaching the communities the importance of taking loved ones with Ebola-like symptoms to the specialised treatment clinics and limiting contact with infected people was also crucial to stop the virus spreading further.

The heroic efforts of the health care workers and Médecins sans Frontières (MSF) were of course central to the coordinated fight against Ebola. However, the delayed reaction from international institutions to deal with the epidemic has been greatly criticised. Despite early calls from the MSF of the overwhelming numbers of sick people flooding the treatment facilities, the World Health Organisation took 5 months to finally call the epidemic a “public health emergency.” This meant that efforts to contain the virus could have been put in place sooner, limiting the spread at the most critical moment. Traditional burial techniques needed to be stopped immediately. It was soon clear that this practice spread the virus the most through the touching and kissing of the still highly infectious deceased bodies. One particular funeral in Sierra Leone was found to be responsible for as many as 365 Ebola deaths alone. But with limited communication tools in the initial phase of the epidemic, stopping the practice was hard to achieve. Communities were also hostile to the special workers tasked with taking bodies away for safe burial to limit the spread of infection. According to the communities’ beliefs, denying their loved ones a traditional funeral would spell terrible consequences for the inhabitants. This lead many communities to hide their sick, performing secret funerals thus exposing more people to the virus.

As resources were increasingly stretched, the focus on Ebola as the priority has caused other problems. Death rates from patients suffering from treatable illnesses such as malaria and cholera have increased dramatically. Pregnant woman fearing contamination also had nowhere to go when complications occurred. Ebola has also destroyed families and communities; a new report shows that as many as 12,000 orphans have been left behind in Sierra Leone.

On the 9^th May 2015 the epidemic was officially declared over in Liberia but recently three new cases were discovered.  The Ebola epidemic makes it painfully obvious that much progress is needed to prevent a similar scenario taking place in the future. Funding now needs to go into building hospitals and training health care workers to match population size. Perhaps the most important acknowledgement however is the need to coordinate and put in place a global response to future epidemics. Leaders can no longer think in terms of their own borders and instead they need to consider the global community in which they operate.

Author Biography

Marie Mulville is currently studying for a Master’s in Diplomacy and Foreign Policy at City University in London. Marie’s interests include the Middle East, European Politics and Security.

You can find her on Twitter: @Marie_Mulville