miércoles, septiembre 21, 2011

Más de dos millones de mujeres "desaparecen" cada año

Por GEORGINA HIGUERAS - Madrid - (El Pais.com, 21/09/2011)

El avance de la tecnología en la detección del sexo de los fetos extiende la barbarie del feticidio de niñas por el Cáucaso y los Balcanes occidentales, según se desprende del "Informe sobre el desarrollo mundial 2012: Igualdad de género y desarrollo", elaborado por el Banco Mundial (BM). El informe revela que al año se practican un millón y medio de abortos selectivos de hijas. Además, otro medio millón de niñas menores de cinco años mueren víctimas de la discriminación en hogares pobres que optan por dedicar sus escasos recursos a los varones en lugar de a las féminas.

La odiosa práctica del aborto selectivo de niñas se utiliza sobre todo en China, India y Corea del Sur, países en los que desde hace más de una década se ha prohibido el uso de ecografías para detectar el sexo del feto y los médicos cometen delito si informan al respecto. Pese a ello, en los últimos 20 años han aumentado los feticidios de niñas en China hasta más de un millón en 2008. En India, sin embargo, hubo un ligero descenso, aunque el informe revela que estos asesinatos selectivos se realizaban antes solo en el norte de India y ahora se dan también en algunas zonas del centro y el sur del país.

Los expertos atribuyen las causas de esta barbarie a la "combinación de la fuerte preferencia por los hijos con el descenso de la natalidad y la expansión de las tecnologías que permiten a los padres conocer el sexo de los hijos antes de su nacimiento". El dato más alarmante corresponde a la región de Europa y Asia Central -en concreto a los Balcanes occidentales y a las repúblicas caucásicas-, no por su número, que sigue siendo bajo, sino porque se ha duplicado, pasando de 7.000 en 1990 a 14.000 en 2008.

En total, el informe considera que cada año se pierden cerca de cuatro millones de mujeres, porque también hay un alto número de ellas -casi un millón y medio- que mueren durante la edad reproductiva, entre los 15 y los 49 años. Primero, porque persiste una muy alta mortalidad materna en el África subsahariana y en algunas partes de Asia. Así, en Afganistán, Chad, Guinea-Bissau, Liberia, Malí, Níger, Sierra Leona y Somalia, al menos una de cada 25 mujeres muere por complicaciones del embarazo o el parto y un número aún mayor sufre distintas dolencias como consecuencia de los partos.

Pero no todo es negativo. El informe también revela los importantes avances logrados en igualdad de género en el último medio siglo, lo que a escala global ha permitido a la mujer ser más longeva que el hombre en todas las regiones del planeta. Así, en 2007, la esperanza media de vida de la mujer se situó en 71 años, frente a los 67 años de los hombres. En algunos países en desarrollo la esperanza de vida de la mujer llegó a aumentar hasta 25 años, en parte debido a la reducción de la natalidad.

En educación, los logros han sido espectaculares. Puede hablarse de casi paridad entre hombres y mujeres en educación primaria y secundaria, mientras que a nivel universitario, ya hay más mujeres que hombres en 60 países. Entre los países que han dado un salto de gigante en la escolarización de las niñas ha sido Marruecos, que ha pasado de tener escolarizadas solo el 58% en 1997, a escolarizar el 88% del total en 2008.

En el plano laboral, 500 millones de mujeres se han incorporado a los distintos puestos de trabajo desde la agricultura a la jefatura del Estado y en 2008 suponían el 40% de total de la fuerza del trabajo, aunque la ocupación por la mujer de puestos retribuidos en Oriente Próximo y Norte de África sigue siendo muy deficitaria. Persisten también fuertes diferencias salariales, con una media superior al 20%.

El Banco Mundial insta a eliminar las barreras que impiden que las mujeres trabajen en determinadas ocupaciones o sectores, "lo que reduciría las diferencias de productividad entre trabajadores hombres y mujeres entre un 33% y un 50%" y aumentaría en numerosos países la producción por trabajador entre un 3% y un 25%. Asimismo, insta a que las agricultoras tengan acceso a los recursos lo que incrementaría la producción agrícola.

The Delusion of Missile Defense

By Yousaf Butt, a nuclear physicist who serves as a scientific consultant to the Federation of American Scientists (THE NEW YORK TIMES, 21/09/11):

Last week marked the two-year anniversary of President Obama’s announcement of what was to be a radical new approach to missile defense — the Phased Adaptive Approach. According to this plan, the United States, working with NATO, would ramp up the deployment of a mix of increasingly sophisticated sea- and land-based missile interceptors around Europe in an attempt to guard against future Iranian missiles.

If there’s one issue that still enjoys bipartisan support in the U.S. Congress these days, it’s that cooperating with Russia on this defensive system would be a swell idea. Contain Iran and strengthen ties with Russia: surely a win-win. Unfortunately, missile defense will neither contain Iran nor strengthen ties with Russia. To the contrary, it will lead to more nuclear weapons and a more dangerous world.

The main problem is that the type of missile defense the United States and NATO are planning is particularly easy to defeat. The simplest countermeasures are cheap inflatable balloon decoys. Because the missile defense interceptors try to strike the missile warheads in the vacuum of space, these balloons and any warheads would travel together, making it impossible to tell them apart. An enemy bent on delivering a nuclear payload to the United States could inflate many such balloons near the warhead and overwhelm the defense system by swamping it with fake signals.

The missile defense system depends on radio-frequency and infrared sensors. The simple scientific reason the system will never be able to reliably function in real combat conditions is because the infrared emissions and reflected radio waves from targets can be modified by an attacker to disguise, remove, deny, or simply overwhelm critical information needed by the defense to find attacking warheads.

The latest tests of both the ground-based and sea-based missile defense systems have failed — and these were essentially rigged tests, where the intercept team knew the precise timing and trajectory of the incoming missile.

We Americans would have no such luxury in the real world, where our adversaries will surely also use countermeasures and decoys. And on the few occasions that the Missile Defense Agency has actually tested countermeasures, even these carefully rigged tests have never succeeded. Neither has the sea-based missile-defense system been tested in really rough sea conditions, and it is known to be unreliable beyond a certain sea state. We could always pray for pleasant weather if and when we are attacked, but should we pin our national security on that?

If missile defense is so simple to outfox, why are our competitors and adversaries so concerned? The answer is simple: Their military planners are properly hyper-cautious, just like the Pentagon, and they must assume a worst-case scenario in which the system is effective, even when it isn’t.

Missile defense strengthens the hands of over-cautious, misinformed, opportunistic or hawkish elements within the Iranian and North Korean — as well as Russian and Chinese — political and military establishments. The interplay between unknowable future circumstances and pressures from internal constituencies demanding a reaction to NATO missile defenses will create pressures on their leaderships to increase deployed nuclear stockpiles and military expenditures.

Since the link between strategic defense and strategic offense is explicitly recognized in the New Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (New START) between the United States and Russia, it is highly improbable that Russia will ever accept NATO missile defense. Russia is more concerned with capabilities than with intentions. Any system that could raise uncertainties about the strict balance of arms agreed upon in New START would be a natural concern to both parties.

So the central conundrum of midcourse missile defense remains that while it creates incentives for adversaries and competitors of the United States to increase their missile stockpiles, it offers no credible combat capability to protect the United States or its allies from this — increased — weaponry.

Even if we finally got the Russians to agree to it, China’s concerns surely would not evaporate. Indeed, the bipartisan Strategic Posture Commission has pointed out that “China may already be increasing the size of its ICBM force in response to its assessment of the U.S. missile defense program.” Such stockpile increases will compel India, and, in turn, Pakistan to also ramp up their nuclear weapon numbers. It may also prod Iran to restart its nuclear weapons work, which it halted in 2003.

Chinese concerns about U.S. missile defense systems are a source of great uncertainty, reducing Chinese support for promoting negotiations on the Fissile Material Cutoff Treaty (FMCT). China’s leaders may wish to maintain the option of future military plutonium production in response to U.S. missile defense plans.

It makes no sense to cooperate with Russia on something so counterproductive to our security just for the sake of cooperation. People who say we need cooperation on missile defense to improve ties with Russia have the logic exactly backward: In large part, the renewed tension between Russia and the United States is about missile defense. Were we to abandon this flawed and expensive idea, our ties with Russia — and China — would naturally improve.

Fuente: Bitácora Almendrón. Tribuna Libre © Miguel Moliné Escalona

The coming U.N. debacle

By Yossi Klein Halevi, a fellow at the Shalom Hartman Institute in Jerusalem and a contributing editor at the New Republic (LOS ANGELES TIMES, 20/09/11):

After decades of failed negotiations over a Palestinian state, it is tempting to imagine that the potential vote in the U.N. General Assembly on Palestinian statehood might help finally resolve one of the most vexing problems that the world has inherited from the previous century. And after all, that’s just how a Jewish state was born — by a U.N. General Assembly vote in 1947.

But a U.N. vote that seeks to bypass negotiations and impose a fait accompli on Israel will only undermine a two-state solution. By deepening Israel’s isolation, the vote will reinforce the sense among Israelis that this is not a time for concessions but for resolve.

As polls in recent years show, a majority of Israelis supports a two-state solution. And for good pragmatic reason: Israelis see a Palestinian state as an existential necessity for Israel itself, a means of preserving their country’s Jewish majority and democratic identity.

But that same majority also perceives a Palestinian state as a potential existential threat. Even primitive missiles launched from the West Bank hills against greater Tel Aviv would end normal life here. And should Israel then be forced to send its soldiers back into the West Bank, it would likely find itself judged — perhaps literally — in the court of world opinion.

That, after all, is what happened when Israel invaded the Gaza Strip in 2009, even though Israel had withdrawn from Gaza four years earlier, only to be hit by thousands of rockets over its international border.

A Palestinian state, then, could create an untenable choice for Israel: learn to live with terror as a daily reality, or defend yourself and become a pariah.

In endorsing an imposed solution, the General Assembly would be telling Israelis that their security concerns are irrelevant. It is, in other words, far more important to the U.N. to create Arab state No. 22 than it is to ensure the safety of the lone Jewish state.

With its disdain for Israel, the U.N. has invalidated itself as a forum in which to try to heal the Arab-Israeli conflict. Israel isn’t just condemned by the world body more than any other country; the Jewish state is condemned more often than all other countries combined. According to U.N. Watch in Geneva, the U.N.’s Human Rights Council has adopted, since its founding in 2006, about 70 resolutions condemning specific countries, 40 of which have been against Israel. In the General Assembly, about 20 anti-Israel resolutions are adopted each year, as opposed to five or six against other countries. That is not mere hostility but pathological obsession.

The vote to recognize Palestine will almost certainly increase anti-Israel violence in the region. It will also likely encourage the international boycott-Israel movement, which uniquely ostracizes the Jewish state. Palestinian Authority leader Mahmoud Abbas has said that upgraded Palestinian status at the U.N. would “pave the way” to press for legal sanctions against Israel. The likely result would be to turn any Israeli act of war, even in self-defense, into a war crime.

Statehood is a responsibility to be earned. And so far the Palestinian national movement has hardly proved its willingness to live in peace beside Israel. Palestinian schools and media — those of Fatah as well as of Hamas — routinely portray Israel as an artificial and temporary creation, without any rootedness in the land. All of Jewish history — from the ancient temple in Jerusalem to the Holocaust — is dismissed as a lie. No Palestinian leader has told his people — as Israeli prime ministers since Yitzhak Rabin have told their people — that the land must be shared by two nations. Instead, Palestinian leaders have consistently told their people that the goal is a state on all the land between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea, and they encourage their people to dream of a Middle East without Israel.

The U.N. vote comes at a time when Israelis are feeling increasingly besieged. In the last year, Israel’s closest regional ally, Turkey, has turned outright hostile; Turkey’s Islamist prime minister, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, last week threatened to dispatch warships against Israel. The peace with Egypt is unraveling: Two weeks ago, as a mob ransacked Israel’s embassy in Cairo, Egyptian leaders refused to take desperate calls from their Israeli counterparts and dispatched commandos to rescue Israeli personnel only after American intervention. Israel evacuated its embassy in Amman, Jordan, over the weekend to avert a similar situation.

Meanwhile, terrorist enclaves on Israel’s borders — Hezbollah in the north, Hamas in the south — aim tens of thousands of missiles at Israeli cities. And the Iranian regime, whose declared goal is the destruction of Israel, is moving ever closer to nuclear capability.

For many Israelis the sense of threat recalls May 1967, when Arab leaders vowing to destroy the Jewish state massed their armies on its borders. And while the international community remembers Israel’s stunning victory against those forces in June 1967, Israelis recall the terrible isolation of the weeks before, when even Israel’s friends offered little assistance.

Israel tends to take risks for peace when it believes the chance for peace is credible and when it senses a fair international climate. Israel withdrew from the Sinai desert — which is three times the size of Israel and which provided it with strategic protection — because Egyptian President Anwar Sadat convinced the Israeli public he was serious about peace. And when Eastern European and many Third World countries established diplomatic relations with Israel following the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991, Israel responded with an overture to the Palestine Liberation Organization that became the Oslo process.

But when the international community treats the Jewish state with contempt, Israelis tend to reciprocate. The result is a stiffening of hard-line attitudes.

In large measure, then, the future of a Palestinian state will be determined by whether Israelis perceive it more as existential necessity or as existential threat, and whether they feel the international community is receptive to their security concerns.

In one sense the U.N. vote is a useful reminder of the origins of the conflict. In 1947 the General Assembly voted for partition; it didn’t call for creating only a Jewish state but a Palestinian state as well. The Arab world rejected partition and tried to destroy Israel.

That rejection remains the core of the conflict. However problematic, settlements are not the main obstacle to an agreement. Both former Prime Ministers Ehud Barak and Ehud Olmert offered to uproot dozens of settlements and concentrate the rest in “blocs” along the border to enable Palestinian territorial contiguity. Palestinian leaders dismissed those offers.

In endorsing a diplomatic process that ignores Israel, the U.N. would, in effect, affirm the Arab world’s attempt to erase Israel’s legitimacy. And by encouraging Israeli despair, it could help turn Palestine into a permanent virtual state.

Fuente: Bitácora Almendrón. Tribuna Libre © Miguel Moliné Escalona

Despite China’s growth, its workers endure a fundamental evil

By Hsiao-Hung Pai, a freelance journalist and author of Chinese Whispers: The True Story Behind Britain’s Hidden Army of Labour (THE GUARDIAN, 20/09/11):

When I walk into Beijing’s migrant worker slums, five minutes from the high-rising financial centre and shopping malls, I understand what Ai Weiwei means when he calls Beijing “a city of violence” – violence against a large section of its working population and their families. “We live under the same sky, why are we not entitled to the same rights?” is a question many ask in Xinzhuang and other migrant neighbourhoods.

During the past month schools for children of migrant workers – who build the capital’s offices and mansions, clean its streets and guard its security – have been shut down, with more to follow in the coming weeks. Tens of thousands of migrant children are left without schools and nurseries to go to. Here in Beijing, two worlds exist in parallel. Those of rural origin – a third of the city’s 19 million population – are ruthlessly segregated from the urban dwellers, economically, socially and culturally. Despite the attempt to pretend this is a local issue and only local governments are responsible, the day-to-day injustices experienced by migrants are very much a result of central policies.

The system that has maintained the rural-urban segregation within China’s cities is hukou (household registration), set up in 1958 to control rural-to-urban migration. While rhetorically the peasantry was the “vanguard of the revolution” – and indeed the 1949 revolution wouldn’t have been possible without them – in practice, in China’s post-1949 drive to industrialisation, the peasantry became an unchangeable category of social class in the Maoist theory of the “four blocs of society” known as “new democracy” (xinminzhu zhuyi).

Peasants’ role was to produce and feed the cities and support the modernisation process of their motherland. Peasants’ class status was fixed – as shown on their ID – no matter what they might choose to do. “Wo shi nongmin [I am a peasant],” I’ve had migrant workers tell me about their class origin, as if it were a stamp on your body for life. It was impossible for peasants to move their hukou to the cities.

This class status hasn’t changed since Deng Xiao Ping‘s gaige kaifang (economic reforms and opening up), in the late 1970s. The countryside underwent de-collectivisation while it remained the nation’s production backyard. Agricultural production increased in the early stage of the reforms in “releasing the productive forces”, as Deng called it, but with rampant corruption and heavy taxation, the poverty deepened. Since the mid-1980s half of the 400 million rural working population have been pushed off the land, seeking a livelihood away from their villages.

As rural residents came to the cities, they immediately faced discrimination and exclusion. Migrant workers’ first welcome was being told to stand in the min-gong (peasant worker) queue inside train stations. And there was no way to disguise class origin: the migrants could be distinguished by their brown, tanned faces and bent backs (due to years of farm work). They spoke their own dialects instead of “proper” Mandarin. Many faced verbal abuse as soon as they arrived.

In the three decades of gaige kaifang, numerous barriers have been set up to discourage their migration: the strict requirement for the unaffordable temporary residency permit, and the random street search by police. Most migrants feel they are a hidden army of labour that supplies industries and urban life with their sweat and blood while enduring second-class status.

Today, when China boasts growth and foreign reserves, migrants continue to be burdened with the hukou system. The criteria for applying for a hukou remain harsh, and unreachable for most migrants, and many work for years without any status. Without hukou, they can’t access services in the cities such as healthcare, education and housing. While urban dwellers pay a minimal cost for medical care, many migrants have to return home for treatment. While urban children enjoy free primary education, migrants either aren’t entitled or can’t afford it – monthly tuition fees in a Beijing primary school would cost a migrant parent two-thirds of their wages.

A migrant activist told me: “These children aren’t treated as everyone else. They’re called the mobile students, who can’t go to state schools. Their parents have for years sent their children to privately run schools without proper facilities or curriculum.” In Haiding, Chaoyang and Daxing – the migrant-inhabited townships within Beijing – hundreds such private schools were set up. Some are run as makeshift charities, others profit-making, but they are inadequate to provide proper education. Yet education, in many people’s eyes, is the only way they can lift themselves out of poverty.

Some call hukou the fundamental evil. Even the government-funded National Development and Reform Commission admits it is an “institutional barrier” and believes it should be scrapped. However, these institutions aren’t in the position to change things. “Protection of migrant workers’ rights” is a rhetorical statement of state organisations, but the government has shown no wish to listen to migrant workers’ demands. The only officially recognised channel through which migrant workers can voice their discontent is by petitioning the local authorities – a centuries-old tradition. Little happens as a result. Self-organised protests are classified as “mass incidents” and often dispersed quickly.

Calls for change have so far fallen on deaf ears. Some suspect that migrant children’s schools are being closed as a disincentive to future migration. Migrant workers’ NGOs face constant government monitoring and pressure not to speak out. Meanwhile, the state-run trade unions are ineffective and seen by many workers as a “paper tiger”.

In recent years, migrants have raised their demands through protests, road blockages, sit-ins and spontaneous strikes. Although these have not always proved effective, workers have become more aware of their collective strength. In the past year they have won some improvements in wages and working conditions. Many migrant workers, now better informed, are far less willing to accept the status quo. As they grow in confidence, the regime will find it increasingly difficult to ignore their demands. China’s rulers should realise now that it is in their long-term interests to listen.

Fuente: Bitácora Almendrón. Tribuna Libre © Miguel Moliné Escalona

The end of an era in Iran

By Ray Takeyh, a senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations (THE WASHINGTON POST, 19/09/11):

Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad arrives at the United Nations this week for what promises, once again, to be a belligerent address. Media speculation is sure to focus on his diminishing political fortunes — underscored by tensions with the judiciary over the fate of the two American hikers held since July 2009 — the shifting balances of power within the theocratic state and, as always, Iranian nuclear ambitions. Missing from this narrative is a key point: The Islamic Republic has entered its post-authoritarian stage.

To be clear, the clerical regime in Tehran is not embracing democratic principles, nor has it softened the forced repression central to its rule. The clerical regime is an untypical authoritarian state — different from, say, Syria — in that it relies on ideological conformity to arbitrarily apply its power. The momentous accomplishment of the Green movement is that it has exposed the regime’s systematic lies and turned an enduring light on its abuses. Opposition efforts since the 2009 presidential election have undermined the regime’s durability. Ultimately, Ahmadinejad’s bluster is irrelevant, as he is an inconsequential emissary of a regime uneasily heading toward the dustbin of history.

The Tehran regime’s pledge to harmonize pluralistic values with Islamic religious injuctions was always as fraudulent as democratic centralism or socialist legality. As with the Soviet Union, the theocratic regime needs more than brute force to survive. Its viability rests on its ability to permeate society with its hypocrisy. Within this Orwellian context, consider the Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei’s recent exhortation: “This year, we have elections at the end of the year . . . everyone should be vigilant and attentive in order to guard the elections as a gift of God.” In clerical mystification, fabricating electoral results is called safeguarding elections. The regime’s manufactured reality rarely observes limits. The state claims to uphold human rights standards, yet it presents show trials and other transgressions as sanctioned by divine ordinance. The regime claims to seek diplomatic accord with the West, yet its conduct is an affront to international convention. The clerical oligarchs claim to fear nothing, yet in fact they fear everything: their citizens, their neighbors, each other.

The real question is: Why does the regime hold so tenaciously to a narrative that convinces no one? The Islamic Republic, like all intensely ideological states, seeks to condition a citizenry that may not believe its absurd assertions but is willing to concede to them. If everyone tolerates the lies, then the society becomes conformist and obedient. As vicious as the regime’s police apparatus may be, it, too, requires a degree of popular self-regulation to efficiently carry out its functions. In other words, for the Islamic Republic to survive, the Iranian public must deny some basic truths. The Iranian people have cooperated for decades.

The Green movement, however, has crossed the boundaries of permissible discourse, shattering the national discipline by declaring that the emperor wears no clothes.

Through everyday acts of defiance such as work stoppages, student protests and denunciations through social media, the opposition contests the regime’s justifications, unraveling its fabrications and denigrating its claims of omnipresence. Such dissent is subversive, as it lifts the ideological veils that loyalists must cloak themselves in to endure and enforce regime commands. For instance, the Islamic Republic had offered its torturers the comfortable illusion of morality by saying that their brutal acts were designed to uphold a virtuous republic forged in the path of God. The Green movement’s ideological triumph has exposed the lie: State functionaries can no longer deceive their conscience. Khamenei and Ahmadinejad oversee an elite divided against itself, with first-generation revolutionaries and esteemed clerics joining the rank of dissidents and security organs unsure of their cadre.

On top of their domestic stress, Khamenei and his cohorts have to confront the contagion of the Arab Spring. Iran cannot remain hermetically sealed from the transitions taking place around it. The regime’s crude attempts to link the Arab uprisings to its own Islamist revolution underscore the depth of its concerns. For its part, the Green movement needs to respond to the challenge of the Arab awakening and move beyond de-legitimizing the regime into confronting it on the streets. As the region evolves and the Islamic Republic’s power structures continue to erode, change is likely to come full circle from where it all started — the streets of Tehran. The Green movement and the Arab Spring are intimately linked, sharing the same values and shaping each other’s destinies.

When Ahmadinejad takes the stage at the United Nations, the only thing that will become apparent is how the world — now including the Iranian people — has moved beyond his republic’s stale shibboleths and discursive postulates. In the end, Ahmadinejad speaks neither on behalf of the religion he is sure to invoke or the nation he purports to lead.

Fuente: Bitácora Almendrón. Tribuna Libre © Miguel Moliné Escalona

Some human rights questions for Iran’s president

By Karim Sadjadpour, an associate at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace (THE WASHINGTON POST, 19/09/11):

The media circus generated by Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s annual visit to the U.N. General Assembly in New York is a source of great frustration for many Iranians, who wish Western journalists would ask tougher questions about Ahmadinejad’s domestic practices. The following questions are culled from Iranian democracy and human rights activists who don’t have a chance to query the president directly:

Your boss, Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, was selected by a few dozen clerics more than 20 years ago. Do you believe that he — as his office has asserted — is the prophet’s representative on Earth?

Khamenei hasn’t left Iran since 1989. Nearly half of Iran’s population was born after 1989. Do you think this provides him with a good understanding of the modern world in which they live?

One of your key clerical backers, Ayatollah Mesbah Yazdi, proclaimed after your contested reelection in 2009 that obeying you was akin to obeying God. More recently he has asserted that you are under the influence of Satan. What explains Mesbah Yazdi’s, or God’s, fickleness?

There is evidence that your chief adviser, Rahim Mashai, helped secure loans for the leading suspect in a $2.6 billion bank fraud case, the largest embezzlement scandal in Iranian history. You came to office vowing to “cut off the hands” of the corrupt; how will you deal with Mashai?

Your opponents in 2009, Mir Hossein Mousavi, 69, and Mehdi Karroubi, 73, have been held incommunicado for nearly a year. On what basis are they confined? If they have no influence, as you have said, why are they under house arrest?

Somayeh Tohidlou, a 32-year-old female sociology PhD student, recently received 50 lashes in prison for having “insulted” you by campaigning for Mousavi in 2009. Do you believe that men lashing women for their political views is an appropriate form of punishment?

You said last September that “freedom is a divine right.” Does that apply to Iran’s Bahais, who are persecuted for practicing their faith, discriminated against in the workplace and imprisoned for attempting to educate their youth, who have been barred from university?

In March you claimed that Iran is “the best example for asserting human rights in the world.” So why has your government refused to allow the U.N. special rapporteur for human rights in Iran, Ahmed Shaheed, to visit your country and investigate allegations of human rights violations?

In a BBC survey of 27 countries, including non-Western nations such as China, Nigeria and the Philippines, Iran ranks as “the most negatively viewed of all countries rated,” even below North Korea, with just a 16 percent favorability rating. Why?

According to a recent Zogby poll, popular support for Iran in the Arab world has recently “plummeted.” Qatari Prime Minister Hamad Bin Jasim al-Thani described his country’s relationship with your government as “they lie to us, and we lie to them.” Why do you believe that you are “a source of inspiration” to Arabs?

Nongovernmental organizations, including Transparency International, Freedom House and the World Bank, have said that Iran’s rates of corruption, economic malaise and repression during your tenure are higher than those of Hosni Mubarak’s Egypt and Zine el-Abidine Ben Ali’s Tunisia. Are you confident you won’t share their fate?

Iran’s closest ally since the 1979 revolution, Syria, has brutally killed more than 2,600 citizens this year — including children — who were protesting for greater political freedoms. How do you reconcile your country’s close friendship with Bashar al-Assad’s regime, given your claim to stand for justice and the oppressed?

The anti-government protests in Iran on June 15, 2009, were significantly larger than any protests in the Middle East this year, yet you referred to the protesters as “dust and dirt.” Do you regret using that term?

In leaked diplomatic cables, a senior Iraqi tribal leader asserted that your government has provided him and other Iraqi officials “short-term marriages” with Iranian women in order to garner influence. Does Iran use prostitution as a form of statecraft?

During your presidency Iran has had the highest per capita execution rate in the world, including recent public executions and executions of people accused of being homosexual. Are you proud of this record?

Ali Vakili Rad, who was convicted by the French in 1991 for the brutal stabbing death of 77-year-old Iranian democracy activist Shapour Bakhtiar in Paris, was given an official hero’s welcome at the Tehran airport upon his release from prison last year. Why does your government glorify assassins?

Fuente: Bitácora Almendrón. Tribuna Libre © Miguel Moliné Escalona

The G-20 Must Get Serious

By Gordon Brown, a former prime minister of Britain, Felipe González, a former prime minister of Spain and Ernesto Zedillo, a former president of Mexico (THE NEW YORK TIMES, 20/09/11):

The summer jitters, which brought memories from the panicky fall of 2008, have left little doubt about how fragile the recovery from the great crisis has been and how rocky the road ahead will continue to be. This should not be entirely surprising given the magnitude of the shock endured in 2008-2009. But it is also in good measure due to the failure by leaders of the major economies to deliver on key commitments to pursue coordinated action.

The Group of 20 was formed to undertake the collective responses deemed necessary to tackle the root causes of economic crises. At its summit meeting in November 2008, G-20 leaders themselves admitted that inconsistent and insufficiently coordinated policies propelled the catastrophe. Then and at two subsequent meetings, the leaders made concrete commitments to bring about that purported cooperation.

Among many pertinent pledges, the G-20 agenda for reform included: strengthening the International Monetary Fund’s mandate, scope, governance and surveillance authority; reinforcing each country’s system of financial regulation and supervision and making each system globally consistent; and a commitment to not just prevent an explosion of trade protectionism, but to conclude the Doha Round in 2010.

At the G-20’s September 2009 meeting in Pittsburgh, a framework for strong, sustainable and balanced global growth was adopted to ensure that fiscal, monetary, trade and structural policies were collectively coherent. The agreement was trumpeted as a milestone to improve international macroeconomic policy coordination.

In reality, and unless a significant rectification happens soon, the Pittsburgh announcement could go down in history as the beginning of the G-20’s journey toward sheer irrelevance. Far from seeing strong growth on the horizon, a new dip into recession in the developed economies and even renewed global financial havoc seem quite possible.

Reform of financial systems has proceeded unilaterally, not cooperatively. The one cooperative effort, Basel III, which sets stricter capital reserve requirements for banks, is still full of holes. Transformation of the Bretton Woods institutions has not moved along significantly. The Doha Round is even more of a zombie than it was before the G-20 pledged to conclude it.

In retrospect, the framework announced at Pittsburgh was doomed to fail, given the way the leaders called for it to be implemented. They opted for a mutual-assessment process relegating the I.M.F. to a purely advisory and secretariat role. Thus the content of the framework was at once made hostage to a complex and possibly unsolvable negotiation among the key players.

It should have been obvious at the outset that the largest contributors to the global macroeconomic imbalances — such as the United States, China and Germany — would try all along the way to influence the process in order to minimize their respective share of correcting those imbalances which are standing in the way of sustained growth. Given this approach, it took more than a year and a half just to agree on a general methodology to assess the sustainability of national economic policies, and the outcome is overly prescriptive on some aspects and ambiguous on others.

It is telling that exchange rates have been excluded from the indicators to be assessed. Considering that the pending task — identifying the causes of imbalances and agreeing on the policies to fix them — is much harder than agreeing on basic methodological questions, it is highly doubtful that an action plan can be agreed at the Cannes summit in early November.

In order to arrive at that action plan, the G-20 has recently asked the I.M.F. to conduct an analysis that is “independent,” a label that is unwarranted since such an analysis is subject to endorsement by the G-20 itself, and furthermore characterized only as a complement to the G-20’s own analysis.

From the outset, rather than relying on an ineffectual peer-review process, a third, trusted and independent agent should have been charged with producing the evidence, diagnosis and policy options that would be brought to the table for discussion and decision by the G-20 leaders.

But such a third party simply does not exist under present arrangements. The I.M.F., which in principle should play that role, is crippled by obsolete governance stemming both from its current articles of agreement as well as long-standing practices. At their London summit, G-20 leaders sensibly committed themselves to address the institution’s issues of relevance, effectiveness and legitimacy, but so far only modest steps to that end have been taken.

Inaction to reform the I.M.F. is not due to any lack of ideas. Rather, it is due to the reluctance among some of the key players to undertake changes that may lead them to relinquish long enjoyed power and influence at the I.M.F., even if this would result in an institution that could more effectively contribute toward those players’ own long term interests.

Still, unless the major economies are content to accept a scenario of a totally irrelevant or nonexistent I.M.F., the indispensable reforms will happen one day. It is, however, too risky to wait for those reforms to address crucial issue of macroeconomic policy coordination.

Urgent steps must be taken to alleviate the parsimony instilled until now in the G-20 process. The G-20 must do everything within its influence over the I.M.F. to enhance that institution’s independence in prescribing what policies must be implemented by each key member to contribute fairly towards an effective global growth pact.

The idea is to enable the I.M.F. at once to point out with candor and transparency what are the policy decisions that each of the large economies should be expected to undertake in their own interest and in coherence with the others’ contributions to balanced, substantial and sustained global growth.

Accordingly, the present strings imposed on the I.M.F. staff to name-and-shame the culprits of the global economic fragilities must be removed by a special, interim authority promoted by the G-20. This could be initiated through an exhortation to the I.M.F. managing director by the troika of past, present and future chairs, South Korea, France and Mexico, plus China and the United States, to release publicly its staff’s diagnosis and proposals before they are commented on with the I.M.F. executive board and the G-20 itself.

Admittedly, the practical value of a truly independent I.M.F. report on the rebalancing for growth of the global economy would be, at best, to provide a sharper focal point of comparison with the G-20’s own conclusions, but this step alone would constitute a significant improvement over the present situation.

It would also signal that the G-20 is beginning to acknowledge seriously the need for multilateral surveillance. That signal would be greatly reinforced if in addition to a robust action plan for policy coordination to execute a global growth pact, the G-20 leaders committed themselves at Cannes to pursue, with a precise timetable, the governance reforms necessary to empower the I.M.F. on a permanent basis with a significantly stronger surveillance capability and authority.

Fuente: Bitácora Almendrón. Tribuna Libre © Miguel Moliné Escalona

Obama must deal with Turkey-Israel crisis

By Morton Abramowitz, a senior fellow at the Century Foundation and U.S. ambassador to Turkey from 1989 to 1991 and Henri J. Barkey, a professor of international relations at Lehigh University (THE WASHINGTON POST, 17/09/11):

U.S. policy in the Middle East is f loundering. President Obama’s two most important allies in the region are on a collision course. It will not be resolved by the State Department’s injunction to Turkey and Israel to “cool it.”

Turkey’s importance to Washington is clear: its involvement in NATO and its forces in Afghanistan; its strong economic ties to northern Iraq; its ongoing cooperation against terrorism; and, most recently, its role in the NATO missile defense shield. The depth of the U.S.-Turkey alliance makes the crisis in Israeli-Turkish relations one that equally involves the United States.

Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan has expanded his confrontation with Israel beyond the 2010 Gaza flotilla incident and into a full-scale assault on Israel’s position in the region. He recently declared that the Turkish navy will escort Turkish vessels going to Gaza to provide aid. Washington did not grasp where Erdogan’s sustained verbal attacks on Israel were heading. He now directly challenges our major alliance in the Middle East, and how far he will go is unclear. Obama himself must acknowledge that the situation is a crisis. As the political climates in Turkey and the United States harden, Erdogan and Obama will find it increasingly difficult to compromise.

Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu said years ago that Turkey would construct a new order in the region. Erdogan followed this with criticism of interference in Middle Eastern affairs by “outside” powers, a clear shot at Washington. Erdogan’s rhetoric of late is about reducing Western influence in the region and teaching Israel a lesson for “irresponsible” or “immature” behavior.

Had Erdogan pushed only for an apology over the deaths of Turkish citizens in the May 2010 flotilla incident, Turkey’s actions would be understandable in the face of Israel’s unwise decision not to immediately resolve the problem. The recently leaked U.N. report on the flotilla affair sought to find a way for the sides to reconcile. Erdogan, however, is not interested in repairing the situation with Israel.

Erdogan is calculating that, as a NATO member, a European Union candidate country and the world’s 16th-largest economy, Turkey can move the Middle East in ways no other regional country can. He has significantly expanded Turkey’s trade and investment. He has successfully pivoted away from Libya and Syria, where he had been closely affiliated with the authoritarian regimes. He is wildly popular on the Arab street, and his address to the Arab League last Tuesday could well be a bid for the populist mantle last held by the late Egyptian president Gamal Abdel Nasser. His vigorous battle at the United Nations for a Palestinian statehood resolution is another step in his effort to isolate Israel.

By threatening to militarily contest Israel’s blockade of Gaza — which was deemed legal by the U.N. Palmer Commission — the Turkish government has laid down a serious challenge to American policy. Danger stems not just from potential miscommunication between those two countries but also from third parties with their own agendas, creating conditions for confrontation.

The eastern Mediterranean is already a caldron of competing claims and threatening rhetoric. Turkey’s minister for E.U. affairs warned this month that his country might stop Cyprus’s exploration for gas and oil, saying, “This is what we have the navy for.” Lebanon’s Hezbollah-dominated government is engaged in a verbal war with Israel over the latter’s gas discoveries off the coast at Haifa. Erdogan involved Turkey in negotiations between Cyprus and Israel on joint exploration opportunities when he told al-Jazeera this month that Israel would be prevented from exploiting the eastern Mediterranean’s oil and gas reserves on its own.

Washington is caught between two longtime allies. It cannot deal with the Israelis and Turks separately. Inaction is not a real option, as Israel could become a significant issue in the 2012 presidential campaign, especially if the United States is defeated in its opposition to a General Assembly vote to create a Palestinian state. The situation will generate concern on Capitol Hill and give Republicans another opportunity to attack Obama for not defending American interests and Israel.

Congress could also worsen the fray by reviving legislation regarding the Armenian genocide. A resolution recognizing the 1.5 million Armenians killed by Ottoman Turks has repeatedly failed to garner enough support for a floor vote. But its backers may calculate that the worsening conditions between Israel and Turkey would prompt the powerful Israel lobby to no longer support Turkey on this matter, raising the likelihood that the resolution would pass. Similarly, arms exports to Turkey will face greater scrutiny.

Obama may not have much time to prevent further deterioration. Israel has been seeking to build ties with Asia, Europe and the Americas; while the Arab Spring evolves, Israel is becoming increasingly isolated as countries such as Egypt and Jordan reassess ties. It is also floundering from the Obama administration’s mishandling of the peace process and of Israel in particular.

Obama’s meeting with Erdogan on Tuesday is crucial. He can take a few important steps. He should immediately deploy 6th Fleet ships from Norfolk to the Eastern Mediterranean to signal that the United States will not tolerate even inadvertent naval clashes. He needs to make clear to Erdogan that the United States will not side with Turkey against Israel and that Turkey’s current strategy risks undermining regional stability.

Obama could offer to work with Turkey and Israel to end the partial blockade of Gaza, provided Erdogan can persuade Hamas to abandon, once and for all, missile barrages and violence against Israel. Such a policy course would have wide international backing and give everyone some of what they want.

Erdogan has a choice: He can boost his domestic and regional popularity by deepening the confrontation with Israel or he could think beyond that by engaging in a constructive endeavor that will help regional stability.

Fuente: Bitácora Almendrón. Tribuna Libre © Miguel Moliné Escalona

Learning From Hammarskjold

By Brian Urquhart, a former under secretary general of the United Nations and the author of Hammarskjold, among other books (THE NEW YORK TIMES, 17/09/11):

The second secretary general of the United Nations, Dag Hammarskjold, died 50 years ago this weekend on a mission to the Congo, when his plane crashed on its landing approach to Ndola, now in Zambia, then Northern Rhodesia. In his eight years at the United Nations, he brought vitality to the world organization and established its secretary general as a major player in global affairs.

Hammarskjold’s resolute international leadership has never been equaled. He developed the role of the secretary general at a particularly dangerous point in history to such a degree that “Leave it to Dag” became a slogan, even as he ran the risk of arousing the ever-vigilant defenders of unlimited national sovereignty. The men who succeeded him (when, at last, will a woman be nominated?) have often been measured against Hammarskjold, and they have referred to him as a model for their own efforts.

When Hammarskjold arrived at the United Nations in April 1953, most of the members of the Security Council were under the impression that they had voted for a competent Swedish civil servant who would not rock the boat or be particularly active or independent. The next eight years were quite a surprise.

By 1953, the cold war had virtually paralyzed the Security Council. Regional conflicts were potential brush fires that could ignite a nuclear East-West confrontation, and Hammarskjold became an accepted go-between; his first success was to negotiate the release of the American airmen who had come down in the People’s Republic of China during the Korean War and been imprisoned as spies.

Some of the most powerful nations, including the United States, came to view Hammarskjold as an outstanding leader, even if they sometimes disagreed with him. Nikita S. Khrushchev’s Soviet Union and Charles de Gaulle’s France did not see him in this light. In a famous scene in the General Assembly, Khrushchev demanded his resignation. Hammarskjold refused and received a standing ovation.

Of all the people I have known, Hammarskjold was by far the most successful in organizing his public life and his widespread intellectual, spiritual and aesthetic interests into an integrated and self-sustaining pattern. Literature in three or four languages, music, the visual arts and nature were his beloved companions, and his posthumously published diary, “Markings,” showed that he was developing his own version of mysticism. His friend the sculptor Barbara Hepworth said, “Dag Hammarskjold had a pure and exact perception of aesthetic principles, as exact as it was over ethical and moral principles. I believe they were, to him, one and the same thing.” But Hammarskjold’s feet were firmly on the ground. “The United Nations was not created to bring us to heaven,” he told an audience in 1954, “but to save us from hell.”

Hammarskjold had few of the conventional trappings of a leader. For the secretariat, his authority was absolute because we respected the intellectual and moral effort and the judgment that went into his decisions, and the calmness and lack of pretension with which they were communicated. There is a photograph of him reviewing the first contingent of the first United Nations peacekeeping force on its arrival at Abu Sueir on the Suez Canal in 1956. His slight, lonely and profoundly unmilitary figure dominates the scene and leaves no doubt as to who is in charge. There was, I think, more than a touch of genius in Hammarskjold’s passionate and imaginative service. It is this that makes him so memorable.

The cold war, the Soviet Union and the “balance of terror” are gone, and with them, one hopes, the ever-present threat of nuclear war. But the potential combination of unconventional weapons and terrorism, climate change and environmental degradation, global shortages of basic resources and the possible breakdown of the economic order present immeasurable risks unless the world’s governments decide to address them seriously and together. Hammarskjold’s ability to focus international attention on essential questions would have found full scope in this intensely troubling time.

The excitement, danger and hope of Hammarskjold’s time at the United Nations are hard to recall and impossible to replicate. Governments reach agreement in the organization and outside of it to a far greater extent than before. The Security Council is exploring new ground under the concept of the “responsibility to protect.” The international and independent leadership that was Hammarskjold’s hallmark is conspicuously lacking.

What sort of person do governments want as the secretary general of the United Nations? For all the tributes pouring forth on this anniversary, there is no evidence that the members of the Security Council have ever tried to find another Hammarskjold. Can it be that eight years of dynamic leadership half a century ago was enough for them?

The Security Council has recommended, and the General Assembly has approved, a second five-year term for Secretary General Ban Ki-moon. But the process of finding his successor by an imaginative, widespread search procedure should start soon. In a time of ominous global problems, the example of Dag Hammarskjold could provide important guidance in that search.

Fuente: Bitácora Almendrón. Tribuna Libre © Miguel Moliné Escalona

Ten Reasons for a European ‘Yes’

By Martti Ahtisaari, a former president of Finland, U.N. mediator and the Nobel Peace Prize in 2008 and Javier Solana, a distinguished senior fellow in foreign policy at the Brookings Institution who served as secretary general of NATO and E.U. high representative for common foreign and security policy. Both men are members of the board of the European Council on Foreign Relations (THE NEW YORK TIMES, 17/09/11):

It is not often that Europe has the chance to play a pivotal role on the world stage. But as the Palestinians push for recognition as a state at the United Nations later this month, the European Union is finding itself courted by each side, and therefore more influential on the Middle East process than at any time since the Oslo Accords.

As ever, the biggest challenge facing the E.U.’s 27 member states is presenting a unified front. There are 10 compelling reasons for them to coalesce around a “yes” vote and keep the two-state approach to Middle East peace alive.

The critical vote is likely to be in the General Assembly, on a resolution to upgrade the Palestinians’ status from observer to non-member state. The Palestinians are likely to get a majority, but what matters more than the outcome of the vote is its size and composition.

The Israeli government is lobbying hard for a “no,” and the P.L.O., unable to significantly shape realities on the ground, hopes to at least show some diplomatic traction for its continued faith in the two-state approach. Europeans find themselves in the unusual position of being the key prize in this tussle.

The first reason why the E.U. 27 should vote “yes” is that the U.N. resolution is an attempt to keep the two-state solution alive. This solution is under attack from the steady expansion of Israeli settlements in the occupied territories, and from Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s belief that the conflict should now be accepted as “insoluble.” As a result this vote is not a meaningless distraction, but a reaffirmation that the peace process is meaningful.

The second reason for a European “yes” is that the Europeans have already invested hugely in the two-state solution that is under scrutiny, including the annual €1 billion aid to help build a functioning Palestinian state. Again, a “yes” is a reaffirmation that the project is worthwhile and can succeed.

The third reason for a “yes” is simply to respond positively to Mahmoud Abbas’ state-building achievements. Failing to vote “yes” would be to respond to demands for state-building by refusing to formally acknowledge where they have got to.

The fourth reason is about the Arab Spring. Anything other than a “yes” would expose Europeans to charges of double standards from both post-revolutionary governments and conservative Arab regimes (for different reasons) for failing to support rights for Palestinians while advocating them elsewhere.

Usefully, a “yes” also aligns European interests with European values (the fifth reason), as it resets regional relationships. Interests — including preventing jihadist terrorism, containing Iran, security energy supplies and retaining markets for our exports — would all be damaged by perceived hypocrisy on the Israel/Palestinian conflict.

Despite concerns from Atlanticists that a “yes” will damage relations with the United States, arguably it could also be in Washington’s interests (the sixth reason). The U.S. is unable to vote “yes” for evident domestic reasons, but the E.U. 27 doing so would strengthen America’s hand when dealing with Israel. In the words of William Hague, a healthy trans-Atlantic relationship would be solid rather than slavish.

The seventh and eighth reasons concern Israel. The Israelis’ objections to the vote — that it is unilateral and violates previous agreements — do not hold water, and are no reason for Europe not to vote “yes.” Although the vote would open up negotiating options for Palestine that are currently closed, overall it might even help Israel. Moves toward recognition of Palestinian statehood within 1967 borders would reinforce the legitimacy of Israel’s own existence.

Despite Israeli fears, it would not necessarily open an easier path for Palestinian recourse to the International Criminal Court, and might give Europe a position from which it could pursue a quiet understanding with the Palestinians that they would not pursue I.C.C. jurisdiction for a significant period, drawing the sting from this troubling issue.

The ninth reason for a European “yes” is that it would not make Palestinian violence more likely. Indeed, a combination of perceived failure and the influence of the Arab Spring could touch off a “third intifada.” Squeezed between Israel and the invigorating sight of televised uprisings, the Palestinian authorities need a sign of progress if they are to prevent frustrations turning to violence. European endorsement of their statehood would be a powerful public signal that progress is possible.

Finally, a “yes” at the U.N. does not entail bilateral recognition of Palestine. The vote is for upgrading representation at the U.N., and only individual states can bestow recognition on Palestine.

There is of course an 11th reason for a unified European “yes” vote. The world already has enough examples of European inability to play an effective international role. Optimists will hope that Europeans will, this time, surprise us all by doing the right thing and securing themselves a much-needed diplomatic success in the process.

Fuente: Bitácora Almendrón. Tribuna Libre © Miguel Moliné Escalona

viernes, septiembre 16, 2011

Visitado 19 veces Líbano: calma tensa a la espera de acontecimientos en Siria e Israel

Por Félix Arteaga, investigador principal de Seguridad y Defensa, Real Instituto Elcano (REAL INSTITUTO ELCANO, 16/09/11):

Tema: La tensión política interna ha ido aumentando en el Líbano tras forzar Hezbolá la caída del gobierno de Saad Hariri en febrero de 2011 y acusar formalmente el Tribunal Especial de Naciones Unidas para Líbano a miembros de Hezbolá del asesinato de Rafiq Hariri en 2005. Además, tanto los efectos de la desestabilización del régimen sirio como la propuesta de proclamación de un Estado palestino podrían acabar desbordando las tensiones acumuladas [1].

Análisis: La situación política, económica y de seguridad en el Líbano se estabilizó tras la guerra que asoló el sur del país en 2006 y que obligó al Consejo de Seguridad de Naciones Unidas a reforzar la Fuerza Provisional del Líbano (UNIFIL) en la que fuerzas españolas han venido participando desde entonces. A pesar de las oportunidades abiertas por la intervención, las luchas sectarias siguen dividiendo a la población, así como la injerencia en sus asuntos internos de Siria, Irán, Israel y Hezbolá, entre muchos otros que dirimen sus disputas bilaterales sobre el territorio libanés. La fragilidad del Estado contrasta con el poder militar y político de Hezbolá, un Estado dentro del anterior, que ha conseguido hacerse con el control de ambos gracias a la caída del gobierno de Saad Hariri en febrero de 2011, lo que ha radicalizado la bipolaridad en torno a las dos Coaliciones 8 de Marzo (en la oposición) y 14 de Marzo (en el poder).

Este ARI describe la evolución política interna, los juegos de influencia de terceros y sus implicaciones para UNIFIL y para el contingente español a la espera de lo que pueda ocurrir en Siria y en Israel durante los próximos meses.

Análisis: El Líbano ha disfrutado de una cierta estabilidad tras el final de la guerra civil y la firma de los Acuerdos de Taïf de 1989, que redistribuyeron las cuotas de poder de las diversas confesiones que el Pacto Nacional les asignaba desde la independencia (el nuevo reparto se hizo a partes iguales entre cristianos, por un lado, y musulmanes y drusos por otro). Sin embargo, no se pudo consolidar la estabilidad política debido a la ocupación siria y a su injerencia en los asuntos internos. El apoyo o la resistencia a la influencia de Siria condujo a un enfrentamiento sectario agravado por los atentados selectivos contra los parlamentarios antisirios en los que fueron asesinados ocho de los 68 miembros de la coalición gubernamental 14 de Marzo, empezando por el líder Rafiq Hariri en febrero de 2005 y terminando por Antoine Ghanim en septiembre de 2007, aunque también fueron asesinados políticos prosirios, como Saleh Aridi del Partido Democrático Libanés el 10 de septiembre de 2008.

Precisamente, el asesinato del ex primer ministro Rafiq Hariri produjo una ola de protestas contra Siria que le obligó a una retirada unilateral de sus fuerzas del territorio libanés. Tras la retirada, se ha mantenido un pulso por el poder entre la Coalición 8 de Marzo (chiíes de Hezbolá y de Amal junto con maronitas del general Michel Aoun) y la Coalición 14 de Marzo (suníes de Hariri, maronitas de Samir Geagea y de Amine Gemayel y drusos de Walid Jumblatt) que ha perpetuado la fragmentación y confrontación entre religiones, clanes y los grupos cristiano-suní y prosirio. Los atentados también se dirigieron contra miembros de las Fuerzas Armadas libanesas: el 13 de diciembre de 2007 dirigido contra el jefe de operaciones del Ejército, el general François el Hajj, responsable de las acciones de limpieza en el campo palestino de Nahr el-Bared en mayo de 2007, y el 13 de agosto de 2008 y el 29 de septiembre del mismo año sobre vehículos y personal en Trípoli. El Líbano vivió su último momento grave de tensión en mayo de 2008 cuando las milicias de Hezbolá se enfrentaron a los partidarios gubernamentales tras intentar el gobierno libanés acabar con su red de comunicaciones internas y con su control de los accesos al aeropuerto de Beirut (con una cifra aproximada de 89 muertos y 150 heridos). Los enfrentamientos armados rompieron una tregua que duraba 18 años desde que acabó la guerra civil en 1990 (en agosto de 2010 se produjo un enfrentamiento armado entre partidarios de Hezbolá y la organización suní Al-Ahbash en algunos barrios de Beirut pero que no llegó al nivel de violencia de los mencionados en mayo de 2008).

La situación política mejoró nuevamente a partir del Acuerdo de Doha, Qatar, de 21 de mayo de 2008, para modificar la ley electoral y redistribuir los escaños entre los distintos grupos religiosos (el Acuerdo aseguró a la Coalición 8 de Marzo 11 de los 30 miembros del gabinete libanés, lo que le permite vetar decisiones que afecten a sus intereses –como la de desarmar a sus milicias– o a los de Siria e Irán). El Acuerdo desbloqueó la elección del presidente Suleiman, la constitución de un nuevo gobierno de unidad nacional el 11 de julio y la puesta en marcha de un Diálogo Nacional desde septiembre de 2008 entre las partes libanesas. El 7 de junio de 2009 tuvieron lugar las elecciones generales con la victoria, inesperada, de la Coalición 14 de Marzo de Saad Hariri, a la que se unió el PSP de Walid Jumblatt, frente a la Coalición 8 de Marzo liderada por Hezbolá (71 de los 128 escaños frente a 57).

A pesar de su derrota electoral, Hezbolá siguió disponiendo de suficiente capacidad para controlar el Estado libanés, hacer de él un Estado islámico y aumentar la visibilidad de la influencia siria e iraní en la zona. Hezbolá continúa detentando un poder armado que no debería tener en aplicación de la Resolución 1599(2004) de Naciones Unidas. Disponer de capacidades militares le permite legitimar su papel de garante armado de la resistencia frente a Israel y le da una capacidad de influencia decisiva en los asuntos internos que se traduce en demostraciones de fuerza intimidatoria. Así, cuando a finales de 2010 se conoció que el Tribunal Especial creado por Naciones Unidas para investigar el asesinato de Rafiq Hariri en 2005, Hezbolá iba a implicar a miembros de Hezbolá, su líder Sayyed Hassan Nasralh amenazó con crear “una explosión” en Beirut y realizó nuevas demostraciones de poder militar que coadyuvaron al cambio de gobierno.[2] A pesar de las mediaciones saudí y siria, primero, y turca y qatarí después, o las concesiones del primer ministro Saad Hariri, Hezbolá consiguió derribar al gobierno el 12 de enero de 2011 forzando la renuncia de sus 10 ministros. Posteriormente, el apoyo druso permitió la elección del suní Najib Mikati como primer ministro el 5 de junio de 2011.[3]

Las injerencias y las malas compañías externas

Además de los clanes y facciones religiosas internas, en el conflicto libanés influyen otros actores externos como EEUU, Siria, Irán, Arabia Saudí e Israel. En los últimos meses, tanto la nueva Administración estadounidense como Arabia Saudí –tras la mediación egipcia y kuwaití– ofrecieron a Siria incentivos como el levantamiento de sanciones y fondos para el desarrollo o empleos para jóvenes suníes para que se distanciara de Irán y colaborara en la estabilización de Oriente Medio, Irak y Afganistán. Siria ha compartido con Irán la asistencia a Hezbolá pero ha tratado de evitar que actuar por su cuenta y, en ese sentido, servía de contención frente a los deseos de Teherán y de las facciones más radicales de la organización terrorista.

Así como la “primavera” árabe no tuvo ningún efecto directo de contagio sobre el Líbano, la desestabilización del régimen de los el-Assad sí que afectó al nuevo gobierno por la especial relación entre Siria y Hezbolá. El mismo gobierno que promovió en el Consejo de Seguridad la intervención militar contra el régimen de Gadafi es el que luego se ha opuesto a que Naciones Unidas o la Liga Árabe condenaran al régimen de Bashar el-Assad. Los líderes de Hezbolá han expresado su apoyo explicito a sus mentores de Damasco, aunque han desmentido que sus milicias apoyaran la represión del régimen sirio. De igual forma, los opositores suníes liderados desde París por Saad Hariri han negado su apoyo a los activistas sirios pero han condenado a las autoridades sirias por su represión contra la población. La caída del régimen de los el-Assad perjudicaría especialmente a Hezbolá, porque pondría en riesgo la continuidad del apoyo sirio y beneficiaría a la comunidad suní, pero en uno y otro caso existe el riesgo de que los enfrentamientos ya registrados entre las facciones libanesas en algunas ciudades deriven en un enfrentamiento abierto, lo que devolvería al Líbano a una situación de guerra civil.

Por su parte, Irán ha mantenido abierto el frente libanés para presionar a EEUU, Israel y Arabia Saudí. Durante su visita en octubre de 2010 al Líbano, el presidente iraní, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, reiteró su apoyo a Hezbolá, firmó 17 acuerdos comerciales y económicos y acusó al Tribunal Especial de Naciones Unidas de estar al servicio de estadounidenses e israelíes. Irán ha tratado de cortocircuitar cualquier aproximación entre Siria y Arabia Saudí debido al juego suma-cero entre suníes y chiíes en Oriente Medio. Irán apoya estratégica y económicamente a Hezbolá (se estima que recibe 10.000 millones de dólares anualmente para su labor asistencial) aunque últimamente se ha especulado sobre su apoyo a otros grupos insurgentes y con una restricción en el flujo de fondos desde Teherán con los que Hezbolá financia su clientelismo social y humanitario.

A pesar de lo anterior, las relaciones entre Líbano e Israel habían mejorado razonablemente. Entre julio y agosto de 2008 se llegó a un acuerdo humanitario que permitió intercambiar prisioneros y restos mortales entre Hezbolá e Israel y la entrega de datos sobre las bombas de racimo dispersadas durante 2006. Posteriormente restablecieron sus relaciones diplomáticas en octubre de 2008, intercambiaron embajadores entre abril y mayo de 2009, firmaron acuerdos de paso e intercambios económicos en julio de 2010 y crearon el mes siguiente una comisión para delimitar la frontera común. No obstante, la normalización no ha producido efectos prácticos y a los problemas de delimitación de las fronteras terrestres se unió el de las marítimas cuando Israel desvió la línea de boyas para ocupar más espacio de cara a los yacimientos energéticos que se han localizado en la plataforma continental.

El conflicto sirio también ha reducido las expectativas de un posible acuerdo entre El Líbano e Israel para la devolución de los Altos del Golán o de las Granjas de Shebaa (Israel pretende devolvérselas a Siria pero ésta atribuye su propiedad al Líbano). También existe la posibilidad de que Irán empuje a Hezbolá a actuar para disminuir la presión internacional sobre Siria o que Israel actúe contra Hezbolá para aliviar la presión social y política interna. Frente a esta acumulación de tensiones, las Fuerzas Armadas libanesas no disponen de orientación estratégica ni suficiencia presupuestaria, con lo que no pueden ser capaces de garantizar la estabilidad libanesa por sí mismas. El presidente Suleiman ha reconocido la necesidad de modernizar su armamento y ha recibido ofertas de Irán y Rusia. EEUU también se ofreció a apoyar la modernización pero ha retirado su oferta, al igual que Francia, tras consumarse el acceso al poder de la Coalición 8 de Marzo liderada por Hezbolá. Como resultado, las Fuerzas Armadas libanesas seguirán disponiendo de menor capacidad militar que las milicias de Hezbolá y tendrán dificultad para prevenir los enfrentamientos entre facciones, por no hablar de la dificultad de controlar a grupos palestinos como Fatah al-Intifada y PFLP-GC que siguen armados y a los que no se han podido desarmar por la fuerza ni por las negociaciones dentro de la Mesa de Diálogo Nacional.

La seguridad libanesa vista desde UNIFIL

El incremento de cascos azules facilitó la retirada israelí y la llegada de las Fuerzas Armadas libanesas para controlar el espacio situado entre el río Litani y la Línea Azul de separación. Hasta ahora, UNIFIL ha cumplido su misión con un número limitado de incidentes graves: lanzamientos de cohetes sobre territorio israelí, ataques contra vehículos de las tropas de UNIFIL y numerosos incidentes sobre la frontera. Son incidentes aislados a pesar de los esfuerzos de UNIFIL (los más graves se produjeron el 2 de agosto de 2010 en El Adeisse, cuando un incidente sobre la Línea Azul provocó tres víctimas libanesas y una israelí en el primer enfrentamiento armado desde 2006. Los informes del secretario general reflejan las tensiones periódicas entre las fuerzas de UNIFIL y la población afín a Hezbolá como las registradas en julio de 2010 para protestar por su presencia o evitar sus actividades (la última conocida el 6 de abril de 2011 cuando la población de Aita as Shaab impidió la entrada de una patrulla francesa) pero no existe una situación de acoso organizado a las fuerzas de UNIFIL.

A 30 de junio de 2011 participan en UNIFIL 12.349 militares y 1.000 civiles. España lidera el Sector Este (véase la Figura 1) aportando el Mando y Cuartel General, incluidos los sistemas de mando y control para encuadrar al Grupo Táctico español, en el que se integra un pequeño contingente salvadoreño, el resto de fuerzas indias, nepalíes, indonesias, malasias y camboyanas y un grupo de oficiales serbios. Además, el general de división Alberto Asarta está al frente de UNIFIL, con lo que es el jefe de la Misión (Head of Mission) y jefe de la Fuerza (Force Commander). En la operación Libre Hidalgo participan 1.032 militares españoles con carácter permanente (medio centenar en Naqoura) dentro de los más de 4.000 de la Brigada Multinacional Este y del Cuartel General de UNIFIL, lo que sitúa a España como el quinto contribuyente de personal sobre el terreno, habiendo rotado unos 12.800 miembros hasta la fecha por el contingente. Este sufrió un atentado el 24 de junio de 2007 que le causó seis muertos y dos heridos. Su autoría sigue sin conocerse y ni la investigación libanesa ni la de la Audiencia Nacional española confirman ni deniegan la reivindicación de al-Qaeda (en agosto de 2007 Ayman al-Zawahri apoyó el atentado en una cinta de video y en abril de 2008 reiteró sus amenazas contra UNIFIL). El coste financiero hasta finales de 2010 ha sido de 791 millones de euros, de ellos 173 millones correspondientes a 2010 y otros 46 millones a través del Plan de Desarrollo de Naciones Unidas.

El Ejército libanés trata de controlar las actividades armadas y el tráfico de armas en la zona fronteriza y por vía marítima pero todavía no ha cumplido el mandato de las resoluciones 1.559 (2004) y 1.701 (2006) de desarmar a todas las milicias incluidas las de Hezbolá (en las dos primeras misiones pueden contar con la colaboración de UNIFIL pero la segunda es de su responsabilidad exclusiva). Los dirigentes libaneses se comprometieron en mayo de 2008 a negociar el desarme dentro del Diálogo Nacional pero el proceso se encuentra estancado y las Fuerzas Armadas libanesas son conscientes de que cualquier intento de desarme por su parte podría desencadenar un enfrentamiento abierto con Hezbolá y otro interno entre sus distintas afinidades cristianas, suníes, chiíes y drusas de sus miembros.

Mientras la presencia de fuerzas libanesas apoyadas por las de UNIFIL ha impedido la presencia abierta de milicias armadas de Hezbolá en la zona de despliegue, continúan produciéndose sobrevuelos diarios israelíes de aviones, tripulados o no, sobre territorio libanés que UNIFIL sólo puede denunciar. Israel justifica la invasión del espacio aéreo libanés por la necesidad de vigilar el rearme de Hezbolá, una acusación que Hezbolá no niega y que las autoridades israelíes afirman que se están produciendo tanto al norte del río Litani como dentro del área de operaciones de UNIFIL (véanse las estimaciones israelíes de construcciones subterráneas de Hezbolá en la Figura 2). En abril de 2010 Israel acusó a Siria de facilitar el acceso de Hezbolá a misiles Scud que se almacenarían en territorio sirio o en el norte del Líbano y también ha acusado a Irán de facilitar medios aéreos no tripulados a Hezbolá, así como de mantener unos 4.000 miembros de los Guardianes de la Revolución en suelo libanés y entrenar a miembros de Hezbolá en suelo iraní.

Sin embargo, no hay evidencias contrastadas de tráfico de armas al sur del río Litani o que el contrabando de armas se efectúe a través de la frontera terrestre entre Siria y el Líbano, a pesar de que puede ocurrir porque la Fuerza Fronteriza libanesa carece de los medios y la formación necesaria para garantizar el control completo de la frontera común que ejerce desde el 1 de abril de 2010 (informe LIBAT). Tampoco por vía marítima, pese a que la Fuerza Naval de Naciones Unidas ha solicitado información a más de 38.000 buques desde 2006, de los que las fuerzas navales libanesas han inspeccionado a unos 1.000 sin verificar el contrabando de armas. En consecuencia, los informes del secretario general de Naciones Unidas[4] reiteran que no han recibido evidencias que comprueben las acusaciones israelíes, evidencias cuya recogida corresponde a las autoridades y fuerzas libanesas.

Fuera del área de responsabilidad de UNIFIL, preocupa el incremento de capacidades y presencia militar de Hezbolá junto con la presencia de armas palestinas dentro y, sobre todo, fuera de los campamentos de refugiados. También representan una fuente de preocupación los grupos del Frente Popular para la Liberación de Palestina-Comando General y Fatah al-Islam o que grupos chiíes acaben actuando fuera del control de sus líderes tradicionales o que yihadistas controlados por al-Qaeda actúen contra los “cascos azules. Los lanzamientos de cohetes sobre Israel son otra fuente de riesgo aunque en los últimos meses no se han producido desde 2009, cuando su lanzamiento condujo a disparos de artillería de represalia por las Fuerzas de Defensa israelíes, con conocimiento o sin él de UNIFIL.

La situación del contingente español

El contingente español está dedicado habitualmente a vigilar la zona de separación y a patrullar su zona de responsabilidad: unos 60 km de Línea Azul con una profundidad de entre seis y 25 km. En la zona de despliegue español, no tienen presencia armada abierta los miembros de Hezbolá aunque desarrollan misiones de inteligencia vigilando las actividades de UNIFIL y conservan la infraestructura que utilizaron para resistir la invasión israelí (véase la Figura 3). Además, continúa progresando una colonización chií de la zona inmediata a la Línea Azul mediante la adquisición de inmuebles y terreno por Hezbolá y sus partidarios a precios superiores a los de mercado, lo que dificulta la labor de UNIFIL y favorece la implantación de Hezbolá. A pesar de lo anterior, el contingente español desarrolla su actividad con normalidad y los soldados salen a las poblaciones vecinas. Cuando se produce un incidente serio se aumentan las medidas de protección y se suspenden las salidas para reanudarlas de forma controlada cuando mejoran las condiciones de seguridad.

La misión española de apoyo a la paz en El Líbano ha ido cumpliendo los objetivos previstos en el mandato de Naciones Unidas: ha permitido y apoyado el despliegue de las fuerzas armadas libanesas en el sur del país, ha vigilado la zona de separación y evitado los enfrentamientos directos, graves y prolongados entre las partes. La actuación imparcial de UNIFIL en la zona, su coordinación con los gobiernos libanés e israelí, le han ganado la confianza –o evitado la desconfianza– de la población chií mayoritaria en su zona de acción y de las autoridades israelíes, respectivamente. A pesar de que los israelíes continúan sobrevolando el espacio aéreo libanés y de que las milicias chií desarrollan misiones de inteligencia en la zona, la situación en la zona de despliegue es mucho más estable que fuera de ella. Las rotaciones españolas continúan con normalidad y en la actualidad se encuentran desplegados el Cuartel General y un Batallón de maniobra de la Brigada de Infantería Acorazada Guadarrama XII (en el que se integra una compañía de Infantería de Marina).

Escenarios de evolución

Las tensiones internas han derivado en hostilidad contenida por la superioridad militar de Hezbolá, una hegemonía que podría alterarse como consecuencia de la caída del régimen alauí de Damasco o la disminución de la influencia iraní en la zona. El cambio de poder de manos chií a suníes en Siria afectaría al equilibrio de poder en el Líbano. Ya se han registrado algunos conatos de enfrentamientos en ciudades con población mixta pero el líder del Movimiento Futuro, el defenestrado Saad Hariri, ha comenzado también a agitar la acusación del Tribunal Especial, algo a lo que se opuso mientras estaba en el poder para no perderlo. El cambio de alianzas podría alterar la capacidad de disuasión militar de Hezbolá y propiciar un enfrentamiento armado.

Por otro lado, Israel sigue denunciando el reforzamiento de la capacidad y estructura militar de Hezbolá y teme que Irán empuje a Hezbolá a atacar a Israel para retrasar o vengar la caída del régimen de Bashar el-Assad o en apoyo a Hamas si la reclamación de un Estado palestino en septiembre de 2011 conduce a un enfrentamiento entre Hamas e Israel. Hezbolá no ha dejado de mantener la presión sobre Israel y el jeque Nasralh pidió a sus partidarios que se prepararan para reconquistar la Galilea en febrero de 2011 y en mayo del mismo año el “Partido de Dios” permitió que activistas palestinos asaltaran las vallas fronterizas para conmemorar el día de la Nakba. El régimen sirio e Hezbolá seguirán provocando a Israel, como lo hicieron el 15 de mayo de 2011 cuando animaron a manifestantes palestinos a saltar la valla fronteriza en Maroun al-Ras, al sur del Líbano sobre la Línea Azul, y el Ejército israelí abrió fuego matando a siete e hiriendo a 111. En sentido contrario, preocupa que la creciente contestación social de la población israelí anime a su gobierno a iniciar una aventura militar contra Hezbolá, una aventura con la que se saldaría de paso el fracaso y la humillación de las Fuerzas Armadas israelíes por Hezbolá en 2006. Un enfrentamiento abierto por Hezbolá o un ataque preventivo de Israel colocaría a las tropas de UNIFIL, incluidas las españolas, en una situación comprometida.

Conclusión: La presencia militar internacional se prorrogará indefinidamente mientras que no se cumplan los objetivos de desarme fijados en la resolución 1701 del Consejo de Seguridad. La estabilización militar es una condición necesaria, pero no suficiente para reconstruir la nación libanesa. La actuación de UNIFIL ha creado oportunidades de estabilidad y prosperidad para la población libanesa que el sectarismo interno y la rivalidad exterior han hecho fracasar. Atrapados en medio de las tensiones que se acumulan, la población y las fuerzas internacionales, sólo pueden esperar que los acontecimientos en Siria e Israel de los próximos meses no compliquen aun más la situación. Habrá que esperar junto a ellos.

[1] El presente ARI es un resumen del documento que aparece en el Especial del Real Instituto Elcano sobre misiones internacionales españolas en la página web y que se elaboró en colaboración con los miembros de un Grupo de Trabajo ad-hoc.

[2] Los detalles sobre la implicación de cuatro miembros de Hezbolá se encuentran en la acusación del Tribunal Especial para el Líbano de Naciones Unidas (8/VII/2011).

[3] Para un análisis de los efectos del cambio de gobierno, véase Julia Choucairer (2011), “Líbano: implicaciones del nuevo equilibrio de fuerzas”, ARI nº 30/2011.

[4] Para el último informe del secretario general de Naciones Unidas sobre el Líbano véase Consejo de Seguridad (2011), “Sixteenth Report of the Secretary-General on the Implementation of Security Council Resolution 1701 (2006)”, S/2011/406, 10/VII/2011.

Fuente: Bitácora Almendrón. Tribuna Libre © Miguel Moliné Escalona