Diplomacy & Politics Archive

Of the 79 recommendations of the Iraq Study Group report that came out recently, the one that got the most attention — even before the report’s release — was the recommendation that the U.S. government talk with Iran and Syria. That recommendation has also met with broad approval in the Arab world, not so much out of affection for the two countries but out of a conviction that dialogue will yield better outcomes than an effort at isolation. Indeed, the Gulf governments’ response to more strident voices in Tehran over the last 18 months has not been a 1980s-style isolation […]

BANGKOK, Thailand — It was Constitution Day in Thailand on Dec. 10, and because it fell on a Sunday this year, banks, schools and offices stayed shut Monday for a holiday, ostensibly to reflect on the charter’s importance. There’s just one problem: Thailand hasn’t got a constitution any more. The much-lauded 1997 constitution, the 16th since the end of absolute monarchy in 1932, was torn up and thrown in the trash can when the army staged its coup on Sept. 19. The generals who stepped in to rescue the country from what they claimed was an increasingly despotic, divisive and […]

Last week’s confirmation hearing for soon-to-be Secretary of Defense Bob Gates was as much political theater as a serious inquiry. Predictably, many of the questions that came Gates’ way involved the war in Iraq. Democrats and Republicans alike expect that he will bring a fresh outlook to the nation’s problems there. Sen. Edward Kennedy (D-Mass.) cut to the root of the issue by asking Gates if he “was going to be an independent” voice of counsel to the President — an obvious reference to the close relationship between President Bush and former Defense Secretary Rumsfeld. Without hesitation Gates responded that […]

CARACAS, Venezuela — “Es-tu-dian-te u-ni-ver-si-ta-rio.” It took a while, but José Bueno finally read out “university student” from a bulletin board at a Caracas primary school, where he is learning to read thanks to a government-sponsored literacy program. “I didn’t know any of that before,” he said. “But if you set a goal, you can achieve it.” Bueno grew up in rural poverty, planting corn and sweet potatoes instead of going to school. It was a time of donkeys and candles, a time of two-party democracy, oil-fueled modernization schemes, and corrupt elites. The system later collapsed and then came change. […]

The United States embassy in Baghdad is a bustling complex with a staff of over a thousand Americans, more than in any other country. Its Iraqi counterpart in Washington is a quiet, shuttered red brick house adjacent to Dupont Circle with maybe a dozen staffers headed by Ambassador Mahmoud Sumaidaie. who has held the post since May. Sumaidaie may be Iraq’s leading voice in the United States, but he speaks in a whisper, and very selectively, steering clear of the high volume public debate about the future of his country. For a diplomat whose country dominates the news, he has […]

ON THE BOUAKE-YAMOUSSOUKRO ROAD, Ivory Coast — For the passengers on this bus, the trip started encroaching upon its fifth hour. Most had abandoned rebel-held Bouake, headquarters of the New Forces, for the bright lights of Abidjan, where they had families and business. But their bus had been stopped before Yamoussoukro, the Ivorian capital. Armed government customs agents ordered the driver and his crew to unload all the baggage from the bus, where it could be opened and inspected for possible infractions. Few, if any, were found. The bus driver, his shirt stained with sweat, somewhat shrugged off the delay. […]

Things just got worse for Halima, a displaced woman I found nursing burns from a militia attack in Darfur six months ago. Security is at a premium for war-scarred Halima and tens of thousands of other refugees hunkering down in squalid camps studded across war-torn Darfur in western Sudan. Just days after the African Union extended its limp mandate in the blood-soaked region unil mid-2007, its poorly equipped troops — deployed to protect Halima and others — are now running scared. They could be attacked anytime by Khartoum-sponsored Arab militias, the “Janjaweed,” or bands of quicksilver rebels, the other side […]

BOUAKE, Ivory Coast — Officially, Ibrahim Ouattara, 32, is a nonentity in his country of birth. He has neither a passport nor an identification card to prove his citizenship. Should the resident of this central rebel-held city wish to change his status, Ouattara said he faces a Kafkaesque struggle because no one can apply for their identity papers outside of their town of residence. That requires all the paperwork to be sent to Abidjan, more than 300 kilometers away. There, he said, the bureaucracy inevitably leaves one item behind before sending it on for processing to another town where the […]

WASHINGTON — President George Bush met with a leading Iraqi Shiite politician at the White House Monday amid speculation of an imminent change of direction in the U.S. approach towards charting Iraq’s national destiny. Bush said he told Sayyed Abdul Aziz al-Hakim, the influential leader of SCIRI, the Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq, “we’re not satisfied with the pace of progress in Iraq.” The administration has been gathering proposals from several sources on how to put the democratization of Iraq back on track and accelerate an orderly American withdrawal. One source, the bi-partisan Iraq Study Group is […]

Guadalajara, MEXICO — The tense situation that appears close to resolution in Oaxaca, Mexico, began in May with a teachers’ strike, a fairly regular event. But with the unleashing of an authoritarian crackdown the following month on the striking teachers, it descended into an open revolt against the governor of one of the Republic’s poorest and most corrupt states. The nearly six months of unrest has left at least 16 people dead and the state economy in shambles. And while some of the parties in the conflict — namely the teachers and a left-wing group backing their demands — have […]

Last month’s Forum on China-Africa Cooperation (FOCAC), the largest meeting of African and Chinese leaders in almost half a century, underscored Beijing’s growing interest in Africa. The attendees included Chinese President Hu Jintao and Premiere Wen Jiabao, as well as 48 African heads of state. The official purpose of the summit was to promote “friendship, peace, cooperation and development.” While much of the media’s attention has naturally focused on the expanding economic ties between China and Africa, Beijing’s increasing political and military presence on the continent also warrant greater attention. Sino-African commercial relations clearly have been booming. Trade rose 35 […]

CAIRO, Egypt — During the latest protest against sexual harassment here last month, women were once again the victims of harassment. This time, however, the assaulters were none other than Egypt’s security policemen. At a Nov. 15 protest, female protesters were stalked, groped, shoved and pushed around. In one case, a woman in flowing black robes and a colorful bright scarf was held by the arm, dragged over a flight of stairs and shaken by her veil as bystanders and a fellow male protestor were hurled back. The humiliated young woman — in her early twenties — was not the […]

CARACAS, Venezuela – Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez yesterday earned six more years to steer the world’s fifth largest oil producer through what is set to become the region’s most expansive socialist experiment. Amid claims of voting irregularities by the opposition, election officials last night announced that Chávez had won 61 percent of the vote, with 38 percent garnered by conservative opposition candidate Manuel Rosales. Caracas exploded with the news. Fireworks, horns and throngs of chatting supporters broke an eerie silence that had settled on the tense city throughout the day of voting. By 11 p.m., thousands had converged on Miraflores, […]

Editor’s Note: “Corridors of Power” is a new weekly column written for World Politics Review by veteran foreign affairs correspondent Roland Flamini. Each week, Flamini will report news items drawn from his extensive travels and contacts with diplomats and foreign policy officials from governments around the world. White House security adviser Stephen J.Hadley’s suggestion in the leaked Iraq memo that Zalmay Khalilzad, the U.S. ambassador in Baghdad should be encouraged “to move into the background and let (Prime Minister) Nouri al-Maliki take more credit for positive developments” must have been good news for the Afghan-born American diplomat. What seems at […]

BUENOS AIRES, Argentina — In South America’s Southern Cone, “Dirty War” wounds are getting a fresh coat of pain. Under populist governments in Uruguay and Argentina, human rights investigators have been turning over old stones to prosecute crimes dating back to the region’s 1970s dictatorships, a period of state violence against dissident citizens known as the Dirty War. And old ghosts are flying. In October, Uruguayan President Juan Maria Bordaberry was arrested for his involvement in the 30-year-old murders of two politicians and two leftist guerrillas. Officials in Montevideo had detained the 78-year-old former leader and his former foreign minister, […]

Last month, a coalition of self-styled human rights groups, including the New York-based Center for Constitutional Rights, announced that it had filed a war crimes complaint in Germany against Donald Rumsfeld and thirteen other present or former U.S. officials. Other sponsoring plaintiffs include Germany’s Union of Republican Lawyers (RAV) and the French-based International Federation for Human Rights (FIDH). (The presence of the FIDH among the plaintiffs is particularly noteworthy, since the FIDH is a regular and substantial recipient of EU financing.) Whereas the announcement will undoubtedly have sent Rumsfeld-haters, Bush-bashers and anti-Iraq War activists the world over into raptures, those […]