Diplomacy & Politics Archive

The results of Pakistan’s parliamentary elections provide a genuine opportunity for Pakistan and the United States to rebalance their relationship. For Pakistan, they are a chance to re-establish representative government. For the United States, they are a chance to demonstrate support for Pakistan’s democratic institutions. And for both countries, they are an opportunity to initiate a much healthier long-term relationship. Despite his recent appeals to European and American audiences for support, the Musharraf era is over. President Pervez Musharraf once could claim to rule Pakistan with the support of the public, the Army and the Americans, but not anymore. His […]

As the Russian government strongly condemns Kosovo’s declaration of independence, Russia’s independent media voices are reacting with ambivalence to the dispute between their country and most of its Western interlocutors. Among reporters who maintain some distance from the Kremlin, the general tone is one of disillusionment with the West and concern about the condition of the international system, rather than full endorsement of the Russian government’s position. On the one hand, there is a widespread sense that intemperate expressions of anger by Russian officials do the country no favors. In “Rogozin Threatens NATO” (Gazeta.ru, Feb. 22), Natalia Kuklina quotes Dmitrii […]

Last week, the U.S.-led Multi-National Force-Iraq (MNF-I) had nothing but praise for Shiite theocrat-wannabe Moqtada al-Sadr. Prefacing his name with “al-Sayyid” (the Honorable), the United States acknowledged al-Sadr’s legitimacy in the Iraqi political scene as U.S. commanders warmly embraced his decision to maintain a ceasefire between his roughly 60,000-strong illegal militia (Jaish al-Mahdi or JAM) and Iraqi government and coalition forces. With a tenuous domestic political situation in Iraq, the United States had no choice but to shake hands with the devil. Without question, the short-term effects of the U.S. surge strategy have been highly positive: significant reductions of violence […]

DENPASAR, Indonesia — When the U.S. ambassador to the Philippines, Kristie Kenney, visited the camp of the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF) on Feb. 19, she made modern history. In fact, the last time the highest American official stationed in the country talked directly with the Moros was in the early 20th century, during the American colonial period in the Philippines. Moro is the term used to define the native Muslims and tribal people who reside in Mindanao and the Sulu Archipelago. The MILF is the Philippines’ largest Islamic rebel group and the one spearheading the decades long fight for […]

GULU, Uganda — After one-and-a-half years of rocky peace talks between the government of Uganda and the Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA), northern Ugandans are cautiously courting freedom. Although many internally displaced people are still sleeping in the camps they’ve called home for about a decade now, they’re beginning to move furniture and farming tools back to their village homes. Meanwhile, in the northern town of Gulu, new hotels and apartment buildings are being constructed and buses are now leaving for Kampala, the southern capital, at 11 p.m. (A late-night trip was unthinkable just three years ago, when rebels could be […]

SEOUL, South Korea — The world-renowned New York Philharmonic has added another country to its list of international concert stops. On Tuesday, America’s oldest orchestra played to a full house at the East Pyongyang Grand Theatre in North Korea. But the real star of the show, North Korean leader Kim Jong-il, was nowhere to be seen. There had been speculation that Kim, who is said to be a music aficionado, might show up at least during the intermission. The philharmonic’s repertoire for the evening included Antonin Dvorak’s “New World Symphony” and George Gershwin’s “An American in Paris.” The 105-member orchestra […]

FIDEL’S FAMILY MATTERS — If Fidel Castro had wanted to establish a dynasty he has the sons to do it, although none — as far as is known — holds government or party office. The least visible is oldest son Fidelito, a Moscow-trained physicist now around 58, and totally out of the limelight. Cuban exile circles in Miami say two other siblings, Alexander and Alexis, are both cameramen. Then there’s Alejandro (El Comandante apparently has a thing about Alexander the Great) the computer programmer, Antonio the orthopedic surgeon, and the youngest, Angel, occupation unknown. Fidelito’s mother is Marta Diaz-Balart, whom […]

It was easy on Feb. 17, as an American, to celebrate the victory of the underdog. Many Americans, the ones who follow international affairs at all, watched celebrating Kosovo Albanians on the streets of Pristina and New York City with excitement and yes, even some pride. As Kosovars waved gigantic American flags on Bill Clinton Boulevard in Pristina and stopped traffic in Times Square wearing “Thank You America” jackets, it was natural to smile and think that maybe the United States had done something right for a change. It was also easy on Thursday to watch the burning of the […]

NOBEL LAUREATES CALL FOR ACTION ON BURMA — Eight other Nobel laureates joined with South African Archbishop Desmond Tutu earlier this month to call for an international arms embargo, supported by the United Nations Security Council, against Burma’s military junta. Despite international anger and pressure to reform in the wake of the regime’s October 2007 violent crackdown on demonstrations led by Burma’s monks, the ruling junta has largely continued with business as usual – denying basic human rights to Burmese citizens. Several countries, including China, Russia and India, continue to sell military equipment and arms to the regime. “Despite decades […]

Under normal circumstances, it’s nearly impossible to get countries to restrict the use of widely available weapons that are seen as militarily advantageous. At the moment, however, two groups of countries are competing to sharply cut back on one type armament that humanitarian groups claim pose a particular danger to civilians in war zones: cluster munitions. Cluster munitions are bombs, rockets, and artillery shells that disperse smaller submunitions over broad areas. These grenades or bomblets, sometimes numbering as many as 600 submunitions from a single munition, can fail to detonate immediately yet maim or kill if disturbed later. Officials of […]

BANGKOK, Thailand — Three days after Burma’s repressive military regime announced a timetable for its self-styled roadmap to democracy Feb. 9, the generals were back to their old, undemocratic ways. They ordered that the deputy leader of the much-restricted opposition National League for Democracy be held under house arrest for another year. Tin Oo has been detained for almost five years, but aged 81 he hardly seems like a threat to the all-powerful army that runs the desperately poor, underfed country of 54 million, which was Asia’s biggest rice exporter during British colonial days. Tin Oo’s continued detention seems to […]

When asked by reporters about the threat to his own safety following the assassination of his mother and Pakistani opposition leader Benazir Bhutto, 19-year-old Bilawal Bhutto Zardari cited a Pakistan People’s Party (PPP) saying: “How many Bhuttos can you kill? From every house a Bhutto will come.” But despite such defiant rhetoric, videos of the Oxford student at the Dec. 30 London press conference during which he was thrust suddenly into the spotlight of the Bhutto legacy — and into the shadow of the Bhutto curse — reveal a nervous boy trying his best to muster the courage to fill […]

Kosovo’s Feb. 17 declaration of independence places the Russian government in an awkward position. Neither Moscow’s nor Belgrade’s pre-declaration threats prevented Pristina’s parliament from voting 109-0 in favor of severing ties with Serbia. Actually implementing the threatened retaliatory measures, however, could easily backfire and seriously damage Russian interests. Most NATO governments likewise decided to back Kosovo’s independence despite Russian warnings that Moscow might respond by promoting the independence of other separatist regions in Europe. For months, Western governments have argued that, given the deep divisions separating the parties involved in the Kosovo status negotiations, delaying action would not improve the […]

AFRICA’S RAPE EPIDEMIC SPREADS — Rape has long been a tool of terror for military forces, but in Africa the practice is now spreading to civilian populations, with members of various ethnic groups using it as a weapon against women and young girls of other groups, UNICEF said Feb. 13. “Sexual violence is taking epidemic proportions and it is translating into the civilian populations, no longer only the military and the militia. It seems there is a license to rape when everything falls apart, in the sense that it becomes legitimate to do things that you otherwise never would do,” […]

DRUG TRAFFIC — On Feb. 5, Director of National Intelligence J. Michael McConnell told the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence that “Venezuela has been a major departure point” for Colombian cocaine since 2005, and Venezuela’s “importance as a transshipment center continues to grow.” On March 1, the State Department is expected to address the same issue in its annual International Narcotics Control Strategy Report, one of those report cards about other people’s faults that State grinds out every year — this one, of course, about the anti-drug war worldwide. Three years ago, the Venezuelan government halted regular cooperation with the […]

PRISTINA, Kosovo — Kosovo, the separatist province of Serbia, is making nervous preparations for adeclaration of independence on Sunday: “Independence is ready,” says a government poster. Sunday is thought the most likely delcaration day because it is followed by a national holiday in the United States to mark President’s Day. This timing could stop Russia, which opposes independence, from immediately calling an emergency session of the U.N. Security Council in New York, which it would have to do within an unofficial three-hour time limit. Such immediate high-level opposition could easily fuel disorder and violence, with the Albanian majority eager to […]

The recent African Union summit originally intended to concentrate on accelerating Africa’s industrial development. By the time they met from Jan. 31 through Feb. 2, however, the 52 African heads of state who attended the 10th Ordinary Session of the AU Assembly of Heads of State and Government in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, abandoned consideration of this and other planned agenda items in order to address the conflicts in Chad, Kenya, Sudan, and Somalia, which dominated their discussions. Although the need to manage urgent problems can often stimulate institutional capacity building, in this case the crises prevented AU governments from grappling […]