Wars and Conflict

The Africa Center for Strategic Studies, a part of the National Defense University in Washington, DC, has published a security brief by Michael O. Sodipo on jihadist radicalism in Northern Nigeria. The brief proposes practical suggestions as to how to respond to radicalization. Less than eight pages in length, it provides a superb overview, both for a general but also a more specialized audience. To illustrate his main points, Sodipo peppers his narrative with fascinating insights–and facts. For example, by 2011, Nigeria was tied at sixth, out of 158, with Somalia on the Global Terrorism Index. Or, in the months following 9/11, seven out of ten boys born at a hospital in Kano (Nigeria’s second largest city and the largest in the North) were named Osama. His general discussion emphasizes the role of, inter alia, fear, poverty, youth (unemployment and more general marginalization), and terrorism. He deftly reviews the history of jihadist radicalism in the country since 1802, with comments on aspects often overlooked, such as the influence of Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini and his role in the establishment of an Islamic government in Iran in 1979. His coverage of these themes in only four pages of clear prose is a model of compression. What to do about radicalism? Sodipo describes a local, Kano initiative, the Peace Club, a project of the Peace Initiative Network (PIN), of which he is a founder and coordinator. This consists of strategies to bring together youth from a variety of communities. But, Sodipo points out that any such initiative cannot on its own solve the radicalization of northern Nigeria. He then precedes with a useful–and short–survey of de-radicalization programs elsewhere, especially Saudi Arabia, Singapore, and Indonesia, with a focus on what has worked. His conclusion is sound: countering radicalism requires a spectrum of initiatives. He points out that the key is that they be rooted in local realities, and need not require the treasury of Saudi Arabia. However, I would note that they do require political will and focus from the Nigerian government, and the elites that run it. Thus far, that political will has not been much in evidence.

At first glance the 50th anniversary of the March on Washington and the chemical weapons crisis in Syria seem entirely unrelated. But they offer an opportunity to juxtapose the visions of war and peace of two influential Americans. On the one side is the towering figure of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. (MLK), an apostle of nonviolent resistance, convinced that “violence never brings permanent peace.” On the other is President Barack Obama, himself product of the civil rights struggle, who confronts an agonizing policy choice in Syria after the suspected chemical weapons attack by the Assad regime on civilian populations last week. Like King, President Obama has declared himself appalled by the carnage of war. Also like King, he has been awarded a Nobel Peace Prize. But there is an important difference between the two men. As a statesman rather than a minister, President Obama understands the tragic ethics of statecraft. Namely, that the pursuit of peace and justice may require the sword as well as the olive branch. The question now is whether he will unsheath it in Syria. Throughout his career and his Presidency, Obama has often sought inspiration from King’s example. The title of his second bestseller, Audacity of Hope, is a tribute to MLK, who often spoke of the “audacity” of his own vision for equal rights in America. After President’s Obama’s election to the White House, he decorated the Oval Office with a rug featuring one of King’s favorite quotations: “The arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice.” This week’s commemorations on the D.C. Mall focused, understandably, on MLK’s domestic legacy: his spine-tingling “I Have a Dream” speech, his advocacy of the 1964 Civil Rights Act, and his eventual martyrdom. But his vision was an inherently global one, and it had enormous impact abroad. Like Gandhi, whose example inspired him, MLK was an evangelist for human dignity worldwide, including implementation of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. At home, King worked to vindicate the principles of freedom and justice celebrated at America’s founding but still unrealized a century after slavery’s end. But he belonged to all those struggling for freedom globally. And he yearned for the ultimate solidarity of all peoples. As he told his Nobel audience in 1964, “If we are to have peace on earth, our loyalties must become ecumenical rather than sectional. Our loyalties must transcend our race, our tribe, our class, our nation; and this means we must develop a world perspective.” (President Obama has echoed this sentiment by describing himself, controversially, as a “citizen of the world”). The heart of King’s Nobel Prize speech was a ringing endorsement of nonviolent change. “Violence often brings about momentary victories,” he conceded, but “never brings permanent peace.” It solves no social problem: it merely creates new and more complicated ones. Violence is impractical because it is a descending spiral ending in destruction for all. It is immoral because it seeks to humiliate the opponent rather than win his understanding: it seeks to annihilate rather than convert. Violence is immoral because it thrives on hatred rather than love. It destroys community and makes brotherhood impossible. It leaves society in monologue rather than dialogue. Violence ends up defeating itself. It creates bitterness in the survivors and brutality in the destroyers. Contrast King’s speech with President Obama’s remarks from the same podium forty-five years later. Whether or not the President’s 2009 prize was ridiculous (as some critics alleged) or merely “premature”, the actual address he delivered was compelling—and is relevant to the current crisis in Syria. Its most striking contention—and a stark rebuff to King—is that the cause of peace sometimes warrants war, on ethical grounds. “We must begin by acknowledging the hard truth….”, the President insists. “There will be times when nations—acting individually or in concert—will find the use of force not only necessary but morally justified.” Obama explicitly acknowledges that King and Gandhi would disagree. But as a head of state sworn to protect and defend my nation, I cannot be guided by their examples alone. I face the world as it is, and cannot stand idle in the face of threats to the American people. For make no mistake: Evil does exist in the world. A nonviolent movement could not have halted Hitler’s armies. Negotiations cannot convince al Qaeda’s leaders to lay down their arms. To say that force may sometimes be necessary is not to a call to cynicism—it is a recognition of history; the imperfections of man and the limits of reason. The position that the President outlined in Oslo—call it “ethical realism”—owes less to Reverend King’s utopianism than the sober-minded writings of the American theologian Reinhold Niebuhr, who contended that force was justified to check humanity’s lust for power. Obama, like Niebuhr, understands the inherent tragedy of the human predicament: “Our challenge is reconciling these two seemingly irreconcilable truths—that war is sometimes necessary, and war at some level is an expression of human folly.” Today, the President finds himself on the horns of this dilemma in Syria. Focused on winding down the twelve-year commitment in Afghanistan, the President is loathe to risk U.S. lives and resources in yet another military morass. And yet Syrian President Bashar al-Assad’s apparent use of chemical weapons offers two powerful justifications for military action. First, it constitutes (if substantiated) an egregious violation of international law, risking the collapse of a Weapons of Mass Destruction taboo that has stuck for a quarter century. Second, it represents a massive atrocity crime against unarmed civilians—one greater than any violation Moammar Gaddafi committed in Libya—meriting intervention under the so-called “responsibility to protect” (R2P) doctrine. In his Nobel address, the President defended the right to intervene against regimes that commit either category of crime.  Assad, having not only crossed but trampled President Obama’s “red line”on the use of chemical weapons, has provided the United States and like-minded governments with ample justification for intervention. With all due respect to Dr. King, the time to act is now.

This is a guest post by Jacob Zenn, an analyst of African Affairs for the Washington D.C.-based think tank, The Jamestown Foundation, and a contributor to the West Point CTC Sentinel. Amid the ongoing trial of Kabiru Sokoto–the alleged Boko Haram mastermind of the Christmas Day and Abuja police headquarters bombings in 2011–other testimony relating to “Ombatse” has been largely overlooked. Ombatse means “Time has Come” in the language of the Eggon people who inhabit Nasarawa and Benue states. Ombatse was reportedly formed as the result of a revelation received in the leader’s dream that called for male Eggons to “purify society and rid it of social evils such as promiscuity, adultery, crime, alcohol consumption, and smoking.” The government commission hearing the testimony on Ombatse learned that over 1,000 members of the Ombatse militia invaded Nasarawa villages where they killed dozens of Fulanis and members of other ethnic groups in late 2012, and 2013. Ombatse members are also notorious for their role in the ambush of between thirty (according to the government) and ninety (according to Ombatse’s “chief priest”) Nigerian troops in April 2013, in Nasarawa–a higher death toll than any single Boko Haram attack on Nigerian troops. This ambush–indeed a massacre–has rarely made it to mainstream international media, possibly because of the Nasarawa’s remoteness and the lack of a “jihadist” news angle (as with Boko Haram) or an oil-related angle (as with MEND). The Ombatse spokesman explained the purpose of the movement in December 2012, when he said, "the invasion of the Europeans, Christianity, and the Islamic jihad changed the status quo. Our forefathers had their own way of worship... Now, what led to us to bring back this traditional worship is the complaints we receive from our people about the evil and vices that have pervaded our society and our state. These things were not there according to what our fathers told us. The society used to be serene and orderly till the advent of the foreigners.” Boko Haram, as well as one of its ideological predecessors, Maitatsine, also have the “purification” notion in their ideologies. Boko Haram also has the notion that a return to the pre-colonial era–and restoration of Usman dan Fodio’s Caliphate–is necessary to restore the “dignity” of the Muslims of northern Nigeria. The ideological similarities between these disparate violent extremist groups may reflect the influence of pre-colonial belief systems and colonial-era experiences on present-day Nigerians. There is also a common belief that the federal government has not been able to provide sufficient services for people on the margins of society, and as is so often the case among disenfranchised populations, a return to the past is somehow seen as the solution to today’s ills.

Below is a guest post by Alexandra Kerr, program coordinator in the International Institutions and Global Governance program. Ahead of the G8 summit this June, economist Paul Collier remarked that “instead of preaching to poor countries or promising to double aid, which we never did anyway, the idea now is… to put [our] own house in order, in ways that are good for us and also good for Africa.” Prefacing the summit’s strong focus on transparency, Collier’s statement touches on a recent series of international actions that shift the approach to solving the problem of corruption in the extractives industry. Where countries with natural resource abundance have often been scrutinized for failure to turn their endowments into sustained wealth for their populations, the onus is now on the companies that partner with these states to extract natural resources, to instigate change. Consequently, a new paradigm is emerging wherein the extractives industry is increasingly accountable for its financial transactions—which, in remaining largely ungoverned, have contributed significantly to the “resource curse.” At the heart of this shift, transparency is taking center stage. The lack of governance at both ends of the supply chain—from the mines on the ground to the financial accounting in the offices of multinational extractives companies—allows for unsound industry practices to feed off of and sustain corruption. And this corruption contributes directly to the “resource curse’—the idea that (contrary to a logical connection between the discovery of natural resources and higher GDP per capita) there is instead a nexus between oil, mineral, and gas resources in a poor country, and conflict, poverty, and social and environmental degradation. While the direct correlation between resource wealth and the exacerbation of poverty is spurious at best, there is no doubt that the extraction of oil in Venezuela, Nigeria, and Ecuador, of diamonds in Sierra Leone and Angola, or of coltan in the Democratic Republic of Congo has not translated into social and economic prosperity for their populations. International efforts to remedy the problem have largely focused on the resource abundant countries and specifically their lack of institutional capacity, incidents of widespread government corruption, and the on-site problems faced by the local communities. However, taking Robert Klitgard’s equation for extractives corruption in reverse (Corruption = Monopoly + Discretion – Accountability), the recent concentration on transparency seeks to shift the onus from the states in which resource extraction takes place to the companies that bring the resources to market. In a system entrenched in a cycle of corruption, the goal is to ensure transparency from companies that have both the means and institutional capacity to implement accountability regulations effectively. It is one step in solving a complex problem, but it is an important one. Currently, transparency is an issue at every juncture of an extraction project lifecycle. In the initial stages, for instance, companies undertake extensive exploration followed by concession assignments, negotiations, and contract preparations. Under the veil of opaque and unmonitored deals, companies take advantage of their financial upper hand over weak governments, creating unbalanced contracts that often exempt the foreign company from local taxes and rarely, if ever, make provisions for how and where the revenues will be distributed by the government agencies involved in a sale. While ignoring the local governments’ ability or willingness to plan ahead for the social, environmental, political, and economic impacts of a project, multinational companies have long been able to avoid blame from transparency watchdogs, like Publish What You Pay, due to weak reporting standards. Furthermore, without transparency to enforce accountability, funds have been moved to tax havens or revenues misreported to avoid tax in the foreign company’s own country. The lack of transparency demonstrated in the acquisition phase, can be found in each subsequent phase of an extractive operation—from the implementation of operations to the establishment of management, and even mine closure and post-closure. The implementation of governance mechanisms that expose the financial records of companies operating in and benefitting from resource rich developing states, to the scrutiny of their home governments, third party regulators, and the public, is being recognized as a key step to transforming the industry. Consequently, transparency initiatives have taken hold at the multilateral, regional, and unilateral levels. The strongest and most recent initiatives include the following: Multilateral: The Extractives Industry Transparency Initiative (EITI) has been leading the way in financial transparency in the extractives industry since 2002. It is a voluntary initiative and, while it requires members to report revenues, it has weak punitive mechanisms to enforce standards, besides suspending membership. While the Initiative has become an important catalyst for international cooperation on the issue of extractive industries and has the potential for arresting corruption in weak states, its shortfalls must be made up by national legal regulation. Unilateral: In July 2010, the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform Act was passed in the United States. Section 1504 of this act requires all oil, gas and mining companies to disclose taxes and other payments to the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission on a country-by-country and project-by-project basis. Given the United States’ position in the market, Section 1504 applies to 90 percent of the world’s largest internationally operating oil and gas companies, as well as eight of the world’s ten largest mining companies. Similarly in June 2013, the Canadian government announced that Canada would establish mandatory reporting standards for all extractives companies operating in or registered in Canada—standards that would apply to over 1,700 mining companies. Regional: In June, the European Union passed legislation that will force EU-listed and non-listed extractives industry (oil, gas, mining, and logging) companies to declare payments they make in resource-abundant countries, showing how much tax they pay, to whom the payments are made, and where the payments go. These regulations are hard won victories, considering that most extractives industry companies have strong reservations against transparency measures; while these regulations enforce transparency across the majority of the extractives industry market, the requisite reporting standards could put those companies not covered (such as those registered in solely China, Russia, or India) at a competitive advantage by increasing the transaction costs for companies following the new regulations. To solve this problem, a recent working paper by the Center for Global Development suggests that the EITI ought to revise its reporting regulations. Currently companies can choose to disclose the payments that they make through either disaggregated (company-by-company) or aggregated (total for all companies combined) reporting, allowing some countries to send aggregate reports that do not reveal the companies or countries that have failed to make the correct payments. If this regulation were amended to stipulate disaggregated reporting only, a significant degree of corruption would be exposed. The new legislative moves towards transparency may yield the beginning of a new era in which companies benefitting from natural resources are governed in such a way that endemic resource wealth becomes the blessing to the countries that need it most, rather than a curse. With two-thirds of the world’s poorest people living in resource-rich countries and recent discoveries of oil, gas, and minerals in countries like Ghana, Kenya, Mozambique, Tanzania, and Uganda, cementing financial transparency is a fundamental progression to ensure the appropriate development not only of the resources, but of the political economy of those states.

Doctors Without Borders announced that it is leaving Somalia. The French-founded, Nobel prize winning non-governmental organization, known by its French acronym MSF, provides medical care in war zones. It has operated in Somalia since 1991. In 2012, MSF “provided 624,000 medical consultations, admitted 41,100 patients to hospitals, cared for 30,090 malnourished children, vaccinated 58,620, and delivered 7,300 babies” according to its August 14 statement. It is leaving Somalia because of accelerating attacks on its staff “in an environment where armed groups and civilian leaders increasingly support, tolerate, or condone the killing, assaulting, and abduction of humanitarian workers.” In Somalia, MSF negotiated with war lords and other “actors” for the “minimum guarantees to respect its medical humanitarian mission.” On that basis, MSF was willing to accept very high levels of risk. However, the same “actors” with whom MSF negotiated agreements have been directly involved in violence against its personnel–so much so that the organization, which is famous for its willingness to tolerate risk, judged that the situation has “created an untenable imbalance between the risks and compromises our staff must make and our ability to provide assistance to the Somali people.” This is a tragedy all the way around: for the Somali people and for MSF, which is rightly celebrated for the effectiveness of its humanitarian interventions. What happened? Only a few months ago there was optimism that Somalia had turned around, that the jihadist terrorist group al-Shabaab had been driven out of Mogadishu and Kismayo by Kenyan and Uganda troops (part of an African Union mission) and a new Somali civilian government was establishing itself. Abdihakim Ainte provides an overview in his African Arguments article, “Reorganization and Rebranding Make Terrorist Group a Force to be Reckoned with Again.” He concludes that a reorganized al-Shabaab under the leadership of Ahmed Godane is internally more united and operationally more diffuse. He argues that al-Shabaab is “dialing up its domestic attacks and dialing down its external operations.” He also highlights the recruitment of youths with Western exposure, and cites an al-Shabaab video that features three Somali-Americans: “The Path to Paradise: From the Twin Cities to the Land of Migration.” He also highlights the continuing fiscal and military weakness of al-Shabaab, concluding that it still needs al-Qaeda support. But, as he says, the Somalia government is also very weak. The lesson here may be an old one: failed states in an environment of religious fanaticism fueled by clan and other rivalries, take a long time to recover.

This is a guest post by Jacob Zenn, an analyst of African Affairs for the Washington D.C.-based think tank, The Jamestown Foundation, and a contributor to the West Point CTC Sentinel. On August 1, Nigerian media reported that Boko Haram leader Abubakar Shekau was either shot by the Nigerian security forces or deposed by his own men in a mutiny. Shekau has been the sole face and voice of Boko Haram’s most violent faction since its first attack on a prison in Bauchi in September 2010. The reports about Shekau are still unconfirmed—and even denied by the Joint Task Force and a rival factional leader of Shekau’s—but, if the reports are true, it would be the fourth time Shekau was wounded or almost killed. In July 2009, Shekau was the deputy of Boko Haram founder, Muhammad Yusuf, who was one of the thousand Boko Haram members killed in clashes with the Nigerian security forces that month. Shekau claimed to have been shot by the security forces during the clashes, but was released by the police after they failed to identify him as a top-level Boko Haram figure (presumably, he would have been killed if identified correctly). When Shekau reemerged in a video interview in July 2010, with a journalist who was taken to Shekau’s hideout in Maiduguri, the police said that the images were “digitally manipulated” since they had assumed Shekau was dead. On March 30, 2011, Nigerian security forces raided a home in Damaturu, Yobe suspected of hiding Boko Haram members. When they approached the house three of the suspects, including one believed to have been Shekau, detonated explosives and escaped. Two wives of Shekau’s lieutenant, one of whom was Yusuf’s younger sister, and three children were left behind, however. On January 20, 2012, an attack in Kano that killed more than 185 people (mostly Muslim civilians) may have led breakaway factions to inform on Shekau to the security forces. It was after that attack in Kano that Shekau’s rivals in Ansaru formally split from Boko Haram, dropping leaflets in Kano denouncing Boko Haram as “inhuman” to the Muslim community. Not long after the attack, in April 2012, Nigerian security forces surrounded Shekau’s hideout in Kano, arrested his wife and children, and reportedly shot Shekau before he escaped from the house. Shekau left Kano and allegedly traveled to Mali disguised as a Fulani herdsman. This may be why in April 2012, dozens of Boko Haram members were reported in Gao, Mali carrying out attacks with AQIM and MUJAO, and why Shekau started speaking mainly in Arabic in his video messages after April 2012. The recent news of Shekau’s demise does not come completely out of the blue. In late July, the security forces reportedly arrested Shekau’s in-laws and “cornered” Shekau in Gwoza in the hills of Borno State—an area that Boko Haram controlled until the security forces launched an all-out offensive in May. The US $7 million reward for Shekau’s capture may also be enticing some of Shekau’s inner circle—frustrated by setbacks and Shekau’s harsh leadership style—to abandon him. Two of Shekau’s former spokesmen were among those who betrayed Shekau in 2012 because of his ruthlessness. After one spoke to the police about Shekau’s brutality (which was leaked to the media), Shekau retaliated by killing the spokesman’s father. They killed the other spokesman when he tried to defect from Boko Haram in Kaduna. A video clip recovered from a Boko Haram camp in the Sambisa Forest Reserve in Borno, which was raided by the military on May 16, also reportedly shows Shekau limping, providing evidence that he may have been shot. Since President Jonathan announced the state of emergency in May, Shekau has only appeared publicly in one video, in which he ruled out any possibility of negotiations with the government (at a time when other factions seem interested in talking). He also recently announced that the only spokesman authorized to speak on Boko Haram’s behalf was Abu Zinnira. Shekau’s elimination would mean the end of the era. He is the Boko Haram leader most closely connected to founder Muhammad Yusuf. Without Shekau, and with a weakened link to Yusuf, Boko Haram may face a legitimacy struggle. Factions of Boko Haram willing to negotiate with the government may also step into the power vacuum. However, if Shekau does survive, and reassert his leadership, it could add to the mystique of invincibility he has built since his first reported death in 2009.

As Zimbabweans go to the polls on July 31, there is already press commentary that, unlike in 2008, these elections will be (relatively) non-violent. The election preparations were a technical shambles. That means that the African election observers (from the Southern African Development Community and the African Union) as well as those of us looking on from the outside are unlikely to reach credible conclusions. It will be difficult to answer questions of whether the polling has been free and fair or even who won absent a tidal wave of support for one of the presidential candidates. However, we will be able to comment on levels of violence. If there is a runoff, the likelihood of violence increases, as it did in 2008. Violence in the Zimbabwean context is complex. There have been waves of government-sponsored violence in Zimbabwe since the 1980s–the violence after the 2008 elections was only the most recent. Zimbabwean president Robert Mugabe has run a security state based on terror, the intensity of which varies with the circumstances. But, it is always there. Fear of violence is deeply entrenched among many Zimbabweans, especially outside of Mugabe’s core ZANU-PF support base. There are plenty of anecdotes that ruling party-allied security services are reminding potential opposition voters of that history, and the mere reminder engenders sufficient fear to have the desired consequences. There is also the rural/urban dichotomy. Violence in urban areas is much more easily observed than in the countryside. Yet it is in the rural areas that violence has been widespread in the past. Zimbabwe remains a rural nation; it is in the countryside that most voters reside. Robert Mugabe and his dominant ZANU-PF party is especially strong among parts of the peasantry. Violence in ZANU-PF dominated areas against political and ethnic outsiders could have some popular support. In any event, unless it is of a significant magnitude, election observers–and the outside media–are unlikely to see it. Yet it could have a significant impact on the outcome of the elections. Finally, for hardliners in ZANU-PF, the legitimacy of the state comes not from constitutions or elections but rather from fealty to the heritage of the independence struggle. ZANU-PF and Robert Mugabe are the custodians of that heritage. They will therefore try to ensure a ZANU-PF victory, at any cost.

The International Crisis Group (ICG) is a distinguished non-governmental organization (NGO) devoted to conflict prevention. On July 29 it issued an important report, Zimbabwe’s Elections: Mugabe’s Last Stand. It suggests that the aftermath of the July 31 elections in Zimbabwe is likely to be a protracted and violent political crisis. Even before polling started, there have been reports of ruling-party aligned state security services resorting to violence and intimidation against opponents of Robert Mugabe’s ZANU-PF. The ICG notes the poor state of election preparations. None of the proposed reforms have been implemented that might have forestalled a repeat of the post-electoral crisis of 2008, in which violence and refugee flows led the Southern African Development and Cooperation Community (SADC) under South African leadership to intervene and impose a power sharing arrangement on Mugabe and the opposition Movement for Democratic Change–Tsvangirai (MDC-T). This time, Mugabe has blocked any western election observers. The African Union and SADC will have teams on the ground, but they are unlikely to be critical of Mugabe, who is the surviving patriarch of the southern African liberation movements. Given these realities, it is surprising that at least some in the opposition expect to win, and by a substantial margin. The media reports that the Zimbabwe Transition Barometer (ZTB), produced by a local NGO, argues that over the past four years, the country has become democratic in culture, and a democratic wave will sweep Mugabe out and opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai into the presidency. It is hard to share that optimism. But, if the opposition should appear to be winning, we should anticipate especially vicious repression by the ruling ZANU-PF, which will not tolerate an opposition victory; even perhaps in spite of Mugabe’s personal claims that he will accept defeat, a reality he clearly sees as remote. The Zimbabwe election shambles is no credit to SADC and South African president Jacob Zuma. They have failed to bring about a democratic transformation in Zimbabwe. Further, Zuma has thrown over Amb. Lindiwe Zulu, a sharp-minded and outspoken advocate for a free and fair election who had been his point person on Zimbabwe. Zuma acted at the request of Mugabe, who notoriously called her a “street woman.”

Israeli and Palestinian peace talks are poised to resume after a prolonged hiatus. Six Middle East trips, and tireless efforts by Secretary of State John Kerry made this resumption possible. The talks face three major challenges as a new chapter begins in the twenty year-long saga of Israeli-Palestinian negotiations. Diplomatic Ambiguity.  One fundamental challenge will be turning the very ambiguity that is enabling talks to resume, into the clarity and transparency necessary for a durable agreement. Vague diplomatic formulas were used to bridge seemingly irreconcilable differences. This allowed both Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu and Palestinian President Abbas to claim that they did not back down to get talks started. But the goal of negotiations is to put pen to paper. There, transparency will be needed to produce an agreement that resolves core differences, such delineating the Israel-Palestine border. Domestic Constraints.  Secondly, both Israelis and Palestinians will face formidable domestic challenges to making diplomatic progress. Both sides will be negotiating, not only with each other across a table, but also with their own people back home. Resuming talks with Israel are very unpopular amongst Palestinians, even within Fatah and the Palestine Liberation Organization, which President Abbas heads. Abbas’ main political opposition, Hamas, has denounced the talks. Palestinians fear that Israel wants open ended negotiations, and that their political standing will fall without rapid and tangible results from talks. This both constrains Abbas’ ability to be flexible while pressuring him to obtain quick results from Israel. Meanwhile, Prime Minister Netanyahu’s domestic situation is also difficult. Some of his main coalition partners oppose the creation of a Palestinian state, as do many of his own Likud party lieutenants. To make negotiating concessions to the Palestinians, Netanyahu may need to realign his political base, and even leave his party to make progress with the Palestinians, as did three earlier Likud leaders-- Arik Sharon, Ehud Olmert, and Tzipi Livni. U.S. Opportunity Costs. The third major challenge concerns the United States. This latest effort to launch talks required sustained, high level engagement by Secretary of State Kerry. Indeed, it has taken up more of his time in office, so far, than any other single issue.  Yet the U.S. faces many other pressing problems of vital national concern in the Middle East and in the rest of the world. At some point soon, Secretary Kerry and President Obama will have to decide if Israeli-Palestinian talks merit the sustained investment of precious time and effort by America’s lead diplomat, or if the Secretary’s energies would better be utilized trying to end the regionally destabilizing war in Syria, manage the delicate road ahead with Egypt, or lead a coalition to prevent Iran from developing nuclear weapons.  Pursuing all of these objectives, while producing an Israeli-Palestinian agreement, will be a major challenge, to say the least.

In a guest post on Micah Zenko’s blog, Amelia Wolf discusses the future of humanitarian intervention. She explains: While the international community is fixated on what world leaders are not doing or could be doing in Syria, their actions in Mali have been overlooked. Since the military-led coup in March 2012, the United States and its allies–particularly France and the Economic Cooperation of West African States (ECOWAS)–have been actively engaged in finding a political solution to the instability in Mali. The form of “humanitarian intervention” that has emerged differs greatly from former interventions and will significantly influence those in the future. Read her full post here.

This is a guest post by Jacob Zenn, a research analyst at The Jamestown Foundation, and Atta Barkindo, a Ph.D. candidate, SOAS, University of London. In May 2013, Nigerian President Goodluck Jonathan declared a State of Emergency (SoE) in northeastern Nigeria. The military purpose of the SoE was to eliminate Boko Haram safe havens and disrupt its operations. However, there may also have also been political motivations in declaring the SoE ahead of the 2015 elections. Since May, a new “Civilian Joint Task Force" (JTF) has emerged in Boko Haram’s main base in Borno, which has arrested Boko Haram members, including its commanders. The Civilian JTF may become an effective alternative to the government’s JTF, which has been accused of rights violations. Unlike the Civilian JTF, the government’s JTF is comprised of troops from all over Nigeria, who may not speak the local languages in northeastern Nigeria (Hausa, Kanuri, and Shuwa Arabic), or understand the local culture, religion, or geography. In contrast, the Civilian JTF is believed to be comprised of as many as five hundred young Muslims from Borno. Some joined to avenge the deaths of their family members at the hands of Boko Haram. According to one, “we are into this to salvage our people from the Boko Haram who had killed our people, security operatives, and destroyed our economy.” Boko Haram, in turn, has declared war on the Civilian JTF, and Boko Haram members have disguised themselves as women by wearing burkas or pretended to be coroners to avoid detection. However, the Civilian JTF also resembles “vigilante groups,” or urban political thugs that emerged in the north-east, especially with Nigeria’s return to multi-party democracy in 1999. Such groups included Ecomog in Borno and Yobe states, Sara-Suka in Gombe state, YanKallare in Bauchi state, Banu-Isra’il in Taraba state, and Yan-Shinko in Adamawa state. Most of these groups of unemployed youths are sponsored by desperate politicians who lure them with promises of employment and other government patronage. In some instances, they have even attacked their own sponsors in public functions like weddings and political rallies when the sponsors fail to meet expectations. Reliable information about the Civilian JTF is hard to obtain. Borno is perhaps the most remote state in Nigeria and the JTF has imposed a mobile phone ban in the region. However, Atta Barkindo, a PhD student at SOAS in London, recently traveled in northeastern Nigeria and gained primary source observations about the Civilian JTF and the SoE. According to Barkindo, on-the-ground evidence suggests that “government policy towards engaging with Boko Haram is at best confusing.” The government formed a Presidential Amnesty Committee, proscribed Boko Haram, and declared a State of Emergency. He says, “It remains to be seen how the government intends to pursue three, often conflicting, agendas at the same time in the midst of an ongoing conflict.” The Civilian JTF, he says, is likely a welcome development for the security forces. The youths, who form the bulk of the group, “know the inner recesses of the region” and are capable of helping the security forces, often less familiar with the geography and people, identify members of Boko Haram. However, according to Barkindo, it is safe to suggest that this Civilian JTF could be an extension of historical political grievance in the context of sponsored political thugs and urban violence, rather than some “lofty vision” of supporting the Military JTF. In addition, he notes that militia movements in northeastern Nigeria are fluid and motivations uncertain; “loyalty is not defined by any national ideology but material gains.” It remains to be seen whether the Civilian JTF is the game-changer that the Nigerian government needs to defeat Boko Haram. It could be a genuine civilian response to a conflict that is beginning to take its toll on the ordinary people. However, it may also be a risk. Given the history of militia movements in Nigeria, arming the Civilian JTF, as some have suggested, would be inadvisable. We will follow closely as events unfold.

Abubakar Shekau, the shadowy leader of the Nigerian Islamist group Boko Haram, issued a video in which he flatly denies that there is a cease-fire agreement with President Goodluck Jonathan’s Nigerian government, or that there is any prospect of one. According to the Nigerian media, he said: “We will not enter into any truce with the Nigerian government.” This video is presumably in response to the July 8 announcement by the Presidential Committee on Dialogue and Restoration of Peace in the North-East  that they had reached an “understanding for cease-fire” with Boko Haram leaders. They later clarified that they had been in discussion with “somebody who is second in command as far as Boko Haram is concerned, and he has informed the media that he has been discussing with us with full knowledge and authority of Imam Abubakar Shekau.” Shekau also endorsed the bloody attack on a secondary school in Yobe where forty-two people--students and one teacher--were killed. He said, “teachers that teach western education, we are supposed to kill them in the presence of their students.” There have been similar scenarios in the past: the government announces progress toward a cease-fire following conversations with ostensible leaders of Boko Haram. Shekau then utterly and completely denounces any cease-fire. This time, many Nigerians were highly skeptical about government claims that a cease-fire was at hand. Government forces claimed that Boko Haram was responsible for the murderous school attack. That seems unlikely, given that Shekau endorsed the attack but did not claim responsibility for it. As is the case involving so many incidents in the North, the perpetrators of the school attack are unknown. One hypothesis, however, is that it might be Ansaru, a splinter of Boko Haram that may have ties with jihadist groups outside Nigeria that in turn are linked to al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM). There are whispers that Ansaru and Boko Haram are drawing closer together. Shekau’s praise for the school attack might be evidence of such closer connections. Shekau’s video indicates that yet another occupational group has been added to Boko Haram’s potential victims: teachers. They join police, military, holders of office, and collaborators with the Abuja government. Schools were already a target for destruction, alongside police stations, armories, jails, government offices, churches, some mosques, bars, and brothels. Thus far, Western facilities, including diplomatic, have not been singled-out beyond the attack on the UN building in Abuja in 2011, about which, however, there remain many unanswered questions.

Louise Arbour is the former UN High Commissioner for Human Rights. She is also a former justice of the Supreme Court of Canada, and she is the former Prosecutor of the International Criminal Tribunals for the former Yugoslavia and Rwanda. Since 2009, she has been the president and CEO of the International Crisis Group. When she speaks about governance, we should pay attention. And she has just spoken, in an op-ed that she co-authored with Gilles Yabi, the West Africa project director at the International Crisis Group. The title encapsulates the argument: “Mali: Election Threatens to Exchange One Crisis for Another.” They argue that Mali’s July 28 election risks such technical shortcomings and such a low rate of participation that the new government it produces will be denied the legitimacy it needs to meet the country’s ongoing crisis. They urge a short delay in the elections, while acknowledging that is increasingly unlikely. They express deep concern that poor elections in Mali could lead to serious post-electoral violence. What to do? They have four proposals: 1)   The Malian authorities, the United Nations Mission for Stabilization in Mali, and the French forces should prepare for terrorist attacks during the electoral campaign and on election day. 2)   In the remaining three weeks, everything possible should be done to improve the registration and voting process. 3)   The Malian authorities, the UN, and the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) should work together to secure “every aspect of the electoral process.” 4)   Presidential candidates should swear a solemn oath to respect to election results or to contest them by legal means. These are practical suggestions, but hard to implement. Indeed, terrorist attacks do seem likely. But it will be hard for the UN and French forces to prevent them. Electoral preparations are difficult enough in any developing country; they are particularly difficult in the aftermath of a civil war. Securing the voting process will require the UN and ECOWAS to mobilize substantial resources, and there is not much time. And oaths can be broken. But, if implemented, these proposals might, as the authors say, “prevent an imperfect election from turning into a catastrophic one. We have been warned.

In a guest post on John Campbell’s blog last week, Jim Sanders, a retired West Africa watcher for various U.S. federal agencies, discusses how climate change fuels conflict. As he explains: Recent protests in Turkey and Brazil are being lionized in the financial press as products of rising prosperity in “developing” countries, where economic growth grates against stagnant institutions. Yet simultaneously another powerful force is also engendering violent social unrest and revealing institutional deficiencies: climate change. Read Sanders’s full post here.

The radical Islamists in northern Nigeria denounce Western education as promoting ills ranging from secularism to state-worship. Radicals see the latter as a fundamental challenge to monotheism in Islam. Boko Haram has attacked schools in the past, but normally only outside of school hours. They apparently targeted the institution rather than the children. Since mid-June, however, the radical Islamists have been attacking the students themselves. The July 6 attack on a boarding school in the northeastern Nigerian state of Yobe was particularly vicious and deliberate. According to media reports, forty-two people, mostly students, were killed by a coordinated gun and bomb attack. The death toll may go higher. Some wounded students fled into the bush, where medical personnel are still looking for them. The specific targeting of school children is an outrage. President Goodluck Jonathan reacted to the tragedy saying the attackers would “burn in hell for their horrific act.” Nigerian politicians, the European Union, and Amnesty International among others, have also condemned this “horrific murder by terrorists.” The media reports parents withdrawing their children from schools in the northeast out of fear for their safety. As of July 8, the governor of Yobe state has ordered all secondary schools to close until the beginning of the new academic year in September. It looks as though the radical Islamists, whether Boko Haram or some other group, have achieved a goal--the shut-down of “Western-style” secondary education in a large Nigerian state. Alongside high levels of youth unemployment, and in a region where education levels are low, the shut-down of the schools is a tragedy, though it is hard to see what else the governor could have done. There are media reports that the Presidential Committee on Dialogue and Restoration of Peace in the North-East, charged with investigating an amnesty for Boko Haram, has reached an “understanding for ceasefire” with the group. Over the weekend however, the Joint Task Force claims to have killed forty Boko Haram members, so fighting appears to continue unabated. Although Imam Muhammadu Marwana, allegedly a person of some authority in Boko Haram, issued a statement of apology and seemed to confirm the ceasefire, Boko Haram’s leader Abubakar Shekau has yet to weigh in on this turn of events. Moreover, there have been claims of ceasefires before and Shekau has previously publically stated his complete disinterest in an amnesty. He claims the Nigerian government should seek an amnesty from them instead.