Mass Graves Speak of Violence in Ivory Coast

Mass graves attest to the brutality of a 5-month-long power struggle for Ivory Coast’s presidency that ended last month. In a muddy slum at the edge of Abidjan, palm leaves stuck in rusty piles of earth mark the graves of 68 villagers. They were killed by rampaging militias over the last month.

At the start of the Arab revolutions, Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan and his Justice and Development Party (AKP) tentatively placed Turkey on the side of the pro-democracy movements, starting with Tunisia and then Egypt. In contrast to 2009, when Ankara backed the Ahmadinejad administration following Iran’s disputed elections, Turkey was the first country to call for Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak to step down at a time when other leaders, including U.S. President Barack Obama, were hedging their bets. In doing so, Erdogan positioned himself and Turkey as regional leaders in encouraging democracy in other Muslim countries, based on […]

Religious Violence Has Egypt’s Leaders on Edge

The clash between Coptic Christians and Salafi Muslims that left 12 people dead in Cairo over the weekend prompted a swift response from the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces that has run Egypt since February’s ouster of former President Hosni Mubarak. The violence represents a serious uptick in sectarian tensions within Egyptian society, and some are questioning the extent to which sinister elements from Mubarak’s fallen regime may be playing a role in it. “There is some concern, and there have been claims even that some of the things we’ve been seeing with regard to the sectarian clashes have […]

Global Insider: Egypt-Palestine Relations

Egypt’s military caretaker government played an important role in the new reconciliation deal between Hamas and Fatah, brokering secret talks that led to a breakthrough announced in Cairo. In an email interview, David Schenker, Aufzien Fellow and director of the Program on Arab Politics at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, as well as author of “Egypt’s Enduring Challenges: Shaping the Post-Mubarak Environment,” discussed relations between Egypt and Hamas and Fatah. WPR: What is the recent history of relations between Egypt and the Palestinian factions, Hamas and Fatah? David Schenker: Egypt has maintained strong ties with the Palestinian Authority […]

Turkey and the Arab Spring

There’s an emerging consensus that, after a promising start, Turkey has had a bad Arab Spring. Anthony Shadid suggested yesterday in the New York Times that the unrest threatens Turkey’s newfound regional influence, while Steven Cook argued in Foreign Policy that the Arab uprisings represent a kind of “emperor has no clothes” moment for Ankara, exposing the hollowness underlying Turkey’s much-vaunted rise. I’d like to weigh in on this, especially since I recently flagged the Turkish Model as a promising foreign policy approach for Egypt, the Palestinians and the region in general. Clearly, Turkey miscalculated on Libya, as Cook makes […]

Even for a man who was no stranger to government shackles, Ugandan opposition leader Kizza Besigye’s arrest last Thursday was particularly vicious. Though it was Besigye’s fourth arrest since April 11, when he and his supporters began holding “walk to work” protests against rising fuel and commodity prices, this one was met with disbelief across this East African nation of 33 million. A day after being released on bail following his previous arrest, Besigye was intercepted in his vehicle at a Kampala roundabout by plainclothes officers, who smashed the car’s windows with a hammer and a pistol, and doused Besigye’s […]

Since February, Burkina Faso has been shaken by major protests led by students, merchants and members of the country’s security forces. President Blaise Compaoré has responded with a combination of government reshuffles, outreach to aggrieved factions and repression. Yet unrest has increased, with a large crowd gathering in the capital Ouagadougou on Saturday to demand Compaoré’s departure. The protests reflect both economic and political frustration. Burkina Faso, a landlocked nation whose economy relies on cotton and gold exports, is one of the poorest countries in West Africa, with an average life expectancy of less than 54 years and a per […]

With the weeks grinding on in an intervention that no one anticipated, the West finds itself increasingly embroiled in Libya’s civil war. In this special report, World Politics Review explores the strategic and diplomatic fallout of NATO’s intervention in Libya through articles published in the past two months. Below are links to each article in this special report, which subscribers can read in full. Subscribers can also download a .pdf version of this report from our document center. Not a subscriber? Subscribe now, or try our subscription service for free. U.S. Leadership Obama Abdicating U.S. Leadership in LibyaBy Thomas P.M. […]

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