Diplomacy & Crisis News

The General Assembly today appointed by acclamation the former Prime Minister of Portugal, António Guterres, as the next United Nations Secretary-General, to succeed Ban Ki-moon when he steps down on 31 December.

Over the past twenty years, 90 per cent of the 1.35 million people who have died in 7,056 disaster events have come from low and middle-income countries, according to a new United Nations report released today described by Secretary General Ban Ki-moon as a &#8220damning indictment of inequality.&#8221

The General Assembly tomorrow is expected to act on the recommendation of the Security Council regarding the appointment of the next Secretary-General of the United Nations; last week, the Council forwarded to the 193-member body its nomination, António Guterres, former Prime Minister of Portugal, to be the next UN chief.

With the imminent clearance of the Calais camp and wet winter weather fast approaching, the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) Special Coordinator for the Refugee and Migrant Crisis in Europe, said today that the commitment by the United Kingdom and France to find urgent solutions for the hundreds of refugee and migrant children languishing there for months, “could not come a minute too soon.”

While Haiti is still counting its dead and assessing the damage in the aftermath of Hurricane Matthew, the powerful Category 4 storm that battered the tiny island nation last week, a senior United Nations peacekeeping official today reported that significant headway is being made clearing the roads to make facilitate the movement of humanitarian aid.

On Tuesday 4 October, 2016, Hurricane Matthew struck Haiti. While the capital, Port au Prince, was mostly spared from the full strength of the Category 4 hurricane, the western cities of Les Cayes and Jeremie suffered the full force – sustaining heavy rains, winds and water damage across wide areas.

Welcoming the announcement that formal negotiations between the Government of Colombia and the National Liberation Army (ELN) will begin later this month, United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon today expressed hope that the two sides will reach a sustainable peace agreement as soon as possible.

The United Nations World Food Programme (WFP) is working with the Cuban Government to provide food for 180,000 people in hard-hit eastern areas of the island as they cope with the aftermath of Hurricane Matthew.

Deploring yesterday’s deadly attack on a primary school in the Syrian city of Darra, the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) has reiterated its call on all parties to the conflict to abide by their obligations under international humanitarian law and protect children and schools.

Nicholas Haysom has experience in challenging political situations. His service with the United Nations has seen him serve as Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon’s top political advisor at UN Headquarters in New York – but has also involved service in some of the toughest field assignment locations, such as Iraq and Afghanistan.

Chad’s economy is losing 575.8 billion CFA francs ($1.2 billion) per year, or 9.5 per cent of its gross domestic product (GDP), to the effects of childhood undernutrition and resultant increased healthcare costs, additional burdens on the education system and lower productivity by the workforce, a new United Nations-backed study has revealed.

One third of the Eastern European and Central Asian workforce performs precarious jobs that include informal and vulnerable jobs, while approximately $65 billion in illicit cash leaves the region annually, according to a new report launched today by the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP).

Cette recension a été publiée dans le numéro d’automne de Politique étrangère (n°3/2016). Marc Hecker, chercheur au Centre des études de sécurité de l’Ifri, propose une analyse de l’ouvrage de François Heisbourg, Comment perdre la guerre contre le terrorisme (Paris, Stock, 2016, 128 pages).

François Heisbourg signe un essai d’une virulence inhabituelle. Réputé proche du Parti socialiste – il a fait partie du cabinet de Charles Hernu de 1981 à 1984 –, il sonne une charge retentissante contre François Hollande et Manuel Valls, accusés d’« incompétence » et de « médiocrité » dans leur gestion des attentats de 2015.

Le réquisitoire est construit en dix étapes, présentées comme dix règles d’or pour perdre la guerre contre le terrorisme. Le gouvernement aurait multiplié les erreurs – voire les fautes – ce qui, sauf changement de cap, conduirait notre pays à la défaite. Voici les dix reproches énoncés par le procureur Heisbourg. 

1. Les dirigeants politiques et les responsables de la sécurité n’ont pas su anticiper les attentats.
2. Les situations d’urgence ont été mal gérées.
3. La communication opérationnelle a été défaillante.
4. Les leçons des crises précédentes n’ont pas été retenues.
5. La menace n’a pas été comprise.
6. Nos opérations militaires au Moyen-Orient sont inefficaces.
7. Le gouvernement joue sur les peurs et réagit de manière « hystérique ».
8. Les mesures annoncées par les dirigeants politiques divisent les Français.
9. Les principes fondamentaux de la République sont menacés par certaines décisions gouvernementales.
10. La France agit au détriment de la construction de l’Europe de la sécurité.

Les mots les plus durs de François Heisbourg sont réservés au projet – désormais abandonné – d’intégration à la Constitution de la déchéance de la nationalité. L’auteur parle d’une mesure « atroce », qui nourrirait le « sentiment d’aliénation de nos compatriotes de culture arabe ou berbère », et aurait pour effet d’élargir « le vivier dans lequel Daech et d’autres mouvements djihadistes pourront puiser ». Il dénonce également certaines réformes annoncées qui risquent de conduire à un « état d’urgence permanent ».

Le spectre de l’histoire hante l’auteur. Ce dernier mentionne L’Étrange défaite de Marc Bloch (1940), et affirme que nous nous dirigeons vers une « défaite encore plus étrange », Daech étant loin d’avoir la puissance de feu de l’Allemagne nazie. Il évoque aussi la guerre d’Algérie et soutient que certaines mesures liberticides décidées par le gouvernement de Manuel Valls rappellent celles prises à l’époque de Guy Mollet.

Heisbourg consacre justement la dernière page de son essai à l’Algérie. Il imagine un scénario catastrophe « à la syrienne », qui conduirait ce pays à sombrer dans la violence. « Il faut penser dès maintenant aux mesures sociales, économiques et politiques permettant de limiter l’impact qu’aurait une telle crise » écrit l’auteur, mettant au défi les dirigeants politiques de redonner sens à la devise « Liberté, Égalité, Fraternité ». Et de conclure : « L’histoire jugera durement ceux qui choisiront de persister dans l’incompétence et le contresens. »

Si nombre de critiques de François Heisbourg font mouche, d’autres semblent outrancières ou peu convaincantes. Par exemple, il revient à plusieurs reprises sur le fait que le gouvernement aurait dû mettre en place une commission d’enquête comparable à celle créée aux États-Unis après le 11 septembre 2001. Il existe pourtant, en France, une commission d’enquête parlementaire « relative aux moyens mis en œuvre par l’État pour lutter contre le terrorisme ». Son rapport, franc et utile, a été publié en juillet 2016.

Marc Hecker

S’abonner à Politique étrangère.

It is increasingly obvious that China can no longer be patient over the North Korean issue. (South China Morning Post)

It is always surreal to watch the televised images of the heir of the Kim family dynasty, Kim Jong-un, strutting around his senior subjects with a cigarette between the fingers.

What is even more surreal is the oddity of the heir’s relentlessly pursued agenda—‘Byungjin Line’ (meaning ‘Guns and Butter’ but more like ‘Guns over Butter’ in actual implementation). At the 7th Party Congress held last May, one of Dennis Rodman’s best friends obstinately manifested that he will unflinchingly invest in the completion of his ballistic missiles and nuclear weapons portfolio, whatever the cost is to its people. Kim’s such dogged ‘Songun’ (Military-first) position clearly demonstrates that he will not follow the Chinese path of moving towards economic reform with a degree of openness.

Kim Jong-un’s diplomatic craftsmanship is disastrous. Since he came into power in 2011 he has not yet made a single official visit to China. Meanwhile China, the G2-aspiring major power, has unwittingly earned an international obloquy as the Kim regime’s one and only godfather; largely because the major power accounts for more than 70% of the regime’s foreign trade, and most of its food and energy supplies.

Instead of reviving its regime’s effete comradeship with China, in 2013 Kim executed his own uncle, Jang Sung-taek. Jang was then the second most powerful person in the Kim regime and China’s most trusted power broker, who dominated the development of trade cooperation and border economy (‘Shinuiju’ meaning special administrative district) with China.

In an official response to Jang’s execution, China hoped to ‘continue’ maintaining a ‘healthy’ relationship with the Kim regime, but the consequences of spoiling little Kim are harmful. Internally, Kim’s support base has been engulfed by his father’s hawkish loyalists who compete for the boss’ trust, notwithstanding the fact that the boss is too survival-conscious (or hyper-rationally ‘mad’) to have faith in anyone but his ballistic missiles and nuclear weapons portfolio.

Externally, the Kim regime keeps flaunting its nuclear missile capabilities in defiance of the international community’s sanctions. The latest UN resolution 2270 was signed in March 2016 to call upon member-states to ban their support for the Kim regime’s WMD (Weapon of Mass Destruction) related activities, like transportation of WMDs, and to embargo coal and other mineral exports from the regime.

Scoffing at the fifth UN Security Council (UNSC) sanction that it received, on August 24th the regime lofted at a high angle a long range KN-11 Submarine-launched Ballistic Missile (using ‘cold-launch’ technology). This landed in the water of Japan’s Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ). And on September 9th (North Korea’s National Foundation Holiday), the regime further conducted its fifth and biggest underground nuclear warhead test yet (the alleged impacts round up to 10kt), dismissive of the G20 summit hosted in China.

Is There a Rosy Future for China and the Kim Regime?

The credibility of Kim’s threats has become existential to the extent that, if the regime really possessed miniaturized nuclear warheads as it claims, its long-range Intercontinental Ballistic Missile (ICBM) and SLBM could nuke the west coast of the U.S. mainland. Such existential threats gives the U.S.-led trilateral alliance in Northeast Asia legitimate reasons to resort to preemptive strikes, in case the Kim regime shows any signs of a nuclear attack.

Unlike his father, Kim Jong-il, who at least kept the de-nuclearization card under the negotiation table of the six party talk, Kim Jong-un is not as dexterous in finding the fulcrum point on the dovish-to-hawkish scale. The danger with little Kim is that his threats swing back and forth in a pendulum between the two polarities of “artilleries and nuclear weapons”.

China must understand that Kim Jong-un’s behavioral incorrigibility concurs with the collapsibility of the regime, not because of exogenous pressures, but from internal malfunctions. The dilemma for the Kim regime is that maintaining political stability through reinforcing a frayed Juche ideology is always more important than promoting a degree of openness in the informal Jangmadang economy.

Thus, the regime will be more repressive in putting an end to the North Korean people’s increasing market demands and simultaneously over obsession with its ballistic missiles and nuclear weapons portfolio. For the foreseeable future this can only be exacerbated, especially when the North Koreans (those who surreptitiously access outside information) confirm the own economic reality―namely of being relatively deprived, at a 1:40 per capita income gap, in comparison to their kindred South Korean people,.

It is expected that the United States might soon apply the Iran Model to the Kim regime, in order to strengthen sanctions against the regime’s incorrigible behavior. Pundits warn that China will be offended by the United States’ initiation of a secondary boycott on Chinese companies transacting with North Korea, foreboding possible ruptures in cooperation between the United States and China on the Korean peninsula.

Despite the gloomy picture, whenever Kim Jong-un poses another new non-negotiable threat, it becomes ever more obvious that China can no longer be patient over its buffer zone; it is turning into a rambunctious nightmare to regional security. A number of Chinese experts have recently recognized that Kim Jong-un is a worn-out nuisance. Perhaps now is the ripe time for China to recalibrate it policies towards North Korea.

The post China should Recalibrate its Policies towards North Korea appeared first on Foreign Policy Blogs.

The United Nations Mission in South Sudan (UNMISS) said today that it is &#8220extremely concerned&#8221 over increased reports of violence and armed conflict in various parts of the country in the last few weeks, including heavy artillery and gunfire exchanges between Government and opposition forces in Leer town.

The United Nations mission in Afghanistan has condemned two separate attacks on mosques in the country that together killed about 30 worshippers congregated to mark Ashura, the Muslim day of remembrance.

Welcoming the start of an inclusive dialogue among political leaders, civil society and religious communities of Guinea-Bissau today, United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon encouraged all the parties to engage in constructive discussions and “seize this opportunity for a favourable outcome” in the interest of the country’s people.”

With Haiti facing the dual challenges of addressing the impact of Hurricane Matthew and restarting preparations for the holding of the much-anticipated elections, the United Nations envoy for the Caribbean country today expressed support for the recommended extension of the UN mission there by six months until mid-April 2017.

The United Nations Special Rapporteur on freedom of peaceful assembly and of association, Maina Kiai, warned today about growing restrictions on civil society in Egypt, with human rights defenders and organizations in particular being targeted.

The United Nations envoy for Myanmar today expressed his deep concern at the violent attacks by unidentified individuals and groups against border guards and security forces on 9 October and the resultant fighting that claimed the lives of security personnel and civilians in the three affected areas of Northern Rakhine.