De Nationaal Coördinator Terrorisme en Veiligheid (NCTV) is allang niet meer alert, maar uitermate paranoia, levend in een waan die de veiligheid in gevaar brengt. MH-17 is daar het voorbeeld van.
Dreigingsbeelden Terrorisme Nederland (DTN) worden gekenmerkt door een hitserigheid van een blogtekst of tweet zonder duidelijke bronvermelding en achtergrond. Het lijkt veel weg te hebben van een mening over de toestand in de wereld, een soort G.B.J. Hiltermann. Een mening die niet bedoeld is om angst weg te nemen, want een aanslag is immer voorstelbaar, reëel en wij zijn eigenlijk altijd voorkeursdoelwit en soms gelegenheidsdoelwit.
Wie tien jaar DTN doorspit, weet niet meer dan wat internationale kranten over mondiale zaken hebben gepubliceerd, enkel nog meer gestript van elke vorm van verdieping, duiding, analyse. De internationale context van het dreigingsbeeld wordt gepresenteerd zonder achtergrond, zonder duidelijke beredenering van verbanden, zonder bronnen, zonder concrete aanwijzingen. Maar met veel geruchten, berichten, voorstelbaarheden, aannemelijkheden en andere vage veronderstellingen over mogelijke gevaren zonder enige aanwijzing.
Aanslagen, brandstichtingen, mislukte aanslagen en complotten worden gepresenteerd als strijdmomenten op het wereldwijde battlefield. De rol van opsporings- en inlichtingendiensten wordt nooit nader benoemd, geanalyseerd, doorgrond. Ook discrepanties in de officiële versies van de incidenten komen niet aan de orde. We zijn steeds door het oog van de naald gekropen. Ook wordt er nergens rekenschap gegeven van de ‘collateral damage’, de vele burgerslachtoffers bij standrechtelijke executies in de zogeheten jihadistische strijdgebieden. We zijn in oorlog en bang en alles lijkt geoorloofd. De internationale terreur van het dreigingsbeeld.
Us against them
Waarom wordt het internationale nieuws in de NDT’s doorgenomen? Het antwoord van de NCTV is dat er een directe link is tussen groepen als al-Qaida, IS en radicale moslims in Nederland. Radicalisering via het internet, middels aanzuigende werking, terugkeerders, jihadgangers, wereldnieuws in het teken van radicalisering in Nederland, gekoppeld aan aanslagen.
Is er meer dan wereldnieuws in de vorm van vette koppen dat in de DTN’s wordt vastgelegd? Nee, wat er ter plaatste aan de hand is, is niet meer interessant. Het perspectief zijn de jihadistische strijdgebieden die de slagvelden van de mondiale oorlog tegen de terreur voorstellen. Lokale historie, omstandigheden en ontwikkelingen zijn niet van belang. Er wordt een bipolaire wereld geschapen, ‘us against them’, ‘you are with us or with the terrorists.’
Wordt duidelijk of inlichtingenbronnen of inlichtingen analyses een extra dimensie geven aan het dreigingsbeeld? In tien jaar dreiging wordt niet gepoogd grip te krijgen op de groeiende veenbrand die in het Midden-Oosten en noordelijk Afrika woedt. Er wordt gesproken over de-radicalisering, het tegen gaan van extremisme en polarisatie alsof het ziekten zijn, maar de eigen radicalisering van de dienst en van de Nederlandse overheid in relatie tot de war on terror en ten aanzien van de battlefields wordt niet onderzocht.
Overstijgt het internationale deel van de dreiging het niveau van een tweet over Poetin, Russisch materieel in Oost-Oekraïne, militaire vliegtuigen die uit de lucht zijn geschoten, protesten in Irak, de slag om Raqqa of ontwikkelingen in Noord-Mali? Nee, sommige aanslagen worden afgedaan met één regel, enkele incidenten krijgen meer aandacht, meestal om het eigen gelijk van de dienst aan te tonen. Zoals ‘terugkeerders’ die iets gedaan hebben en daarom het grote gevaar vormen.
De indruk ontstaat dat Europa onder vuur ligt, maar dat heeft vooral te maken met de voorkeur bij de NCTV. Alles buiten Europa, Canada, de VS en Australië wordt slechts zeer beperkt aangestipt, tenzij er een westerling slachtoffer van een aanslag of ontvoering is geweest. Wat voor indruk laat de terreurdienst achter ten aanzien van de ‘eigen’ inlichtingen verzameling, het uitwisselen van data tussen diensten onderling en de aanwezigheid van goede analisten die in staat zijn het diverse materiaal te duiden? Zou het bijvoorbeeld hebben uitgemaakt als de diensten die de NCTV coördineert een afgevaardigde in Kiev (MH-17) zouden hebben gehad?
Politiek document
De inlichtingen die de dienst presenteert, hebben het karakter van korte nieuwsberichten met zwaar aangezette koppen. Natuurlijk stelt de dienst dat in het kader van de ‘veiligheid van de staat’ het niet mogelijk is om bronnen te vermelden, alle inlichtingen prijs te geven en specifieker te zijn over gebeurtenissen. De terreurdienst krijgt haar informatie uit handen van politie- en inlichtingendiensten die hun informatie weer betrekken van buurtagenten, regionale en criminele inlichtingendienst medewerkers, geheime diensten van landen en andere bronnen. Ongeveer 70 tot 80 procent van de informatie is afkomstig uit openbare bronnen zoals kranten, lokale bladen, Facebook, Twitter, internet.
Het bipolaire wereldbeeld van de NCTV beïnvloedt het dreigingsbeeld zodanig dat twijfel, nuance en perspectief volledig ontbreken, vandaar de blinde vlek voor Oekraïne, de blinde vlek ten aanzien van de controle op wapenvergunningen, de blinde vlek voor de economische crisis. Alles is jihad en dreiging is synoniem aan radicaal jihadistisch extremisme. Hebben DTN’s daarom het karakter van een jaarverslag van een inlichtingendienst? Ja, misschien iets specifieker, maar verwacht geen nauwgezette informatie, duidelijke analyse, duiding of verdieping.
Een DTN is een dreigingsbeeld, een soort jaarverslag van de geheime dienst over de gevaren voor de staat, een soort weerbericht, waarbij een regenbui voorspelbaarder is dan de mogelijke gevaren of een aanslag. Iedere trouwe krantenlezer kan het zelf schrijven, en met een beetje politiek gevoel ook nog diverse politiek groepen, bewegingen of etnische gemeenschappen aanwijzen als zijnde ‘staatsgevaarlijk’.
Jaarverslagen van inlichtingendiensten zijn over het algemeen zeer vaag. Ze wekken de indruk dat de diensten veel weten, maar geven geen enkel inzicht in de werkelijke aard van die kennis. Het DTN lijkt daarop, al ontbeert het de typisch cryptische geheime dienst taal. Uiteindelijk zijn jaarverslagen van inlichtingendiensten en dreigingsbeelden politieke documenten, want de term staatsgevaarlijk is een rekbaar begrip in verschillende politieke contexten.
Potentieel jihadisme
Er vanuit gaande dat inlichtingendiensten een groot deel van hun informatie uit openbare bronnen putten, moet geconcludeerd worden dat eigenlijk steeds weer dezelfde set aan bronnen wordt geraadpleegd. Bronnen die het gevaar, de dreiging en de potentie van het jihadisme onderstrepen. Analyses die trachten anders aan te kijken tegen de ‘oorlog tegen de terreur’ zijn niet terug te vinden in dreigingsbeelden.
Daarnaast valt op dat de internationale component in het dreigingsbeeld van het ministerie van Veiligheid en Justitie groot is in verhouding tot de nationale component. Al-Qaida, al Nusra of een andere club zet in een online magazine (Inspire bijvoorbeeld), op sociale media of een live podcast dat Geert Wilders opnieuw de islam beledigd heeft en daarom onthoofd moet worden of dat Nederland gestraft moet worden. Deze tweet, fatwa, artikel of opmerking vindt zijn weg naar het eerst volgende DTN.
Probleem bij deze internationale context is dat de vraag in hoeverre er een relatie is met een dreiging voor Nederland onduidelijk is. In DTN-4 wordt bijvoorbeeld een fatwa van Abu Musab al-Suri aangehaald. Deze Syrische Spanjaard, geboren onder de naam Mustafa bin Abd al-Qadir Setmariam Nasar, zou in Pakistan zijn gearresteerd en door de Amerikanen aan Syrië zijn uitgeleverd waar hij nog gevangen zit. De coördinator schrijft dat ‘de authenticiteit van deze op internet geciteerde fatwa vooralsnog niet bevestigd kan worden’, maar is alvast in het DTN opgenomen, want de fatwa wordt door ‘veiligheidsautoriteiten serieus genomen.’
Dat is helder, deze fatwa wordt vermeld in het dreigingsbeeld, maar als de authenticiteit niet is gecheckt, wat zegt dit dan over de dreiging? Wat is het nut de fatwa op te nemen in het dreigingsbeeld? Bericht de coördinator ook in het volgende DTN dat de authenticiteit van de fatwa al dan niet is vastgesteld? Nee, de terreurdienst bericht niet langer over deze fatwa en ook niet over de heer Abu Musab al-Suri die blijkbaar zijn dreigingsdoel voor de terreurdienst heeft vervuld. Abu Musab al-Suri komt nooit meer in de dreigingsbeelden terug, zelfs zijn arrestatie en de uitlevering aan dictator Assad niet.
Voorstelbaar
Maak uzelf gek, lijkt het devies van de opstellers van het DTN. Dat de Nederlandse aanwezigheid in Afghanistan, Irak of Mali een directe bedreiging is voor de militairen aldaar (‘Nederlandse belangen’) is volstrekt logisch. ‘Wij’ doen namelijk mee aan een oorlog, een oorlog tegen de terreur, een burgeroorlog. In een oorlog vallen slachtoffers, vooral burgers, maar soms ook militairen. In Afghanistan en Irak woedt vooral een Amerikaanse oorlog, in Mali een Franse.
Dat burgerslachtoffers onder de Afghaanse bevolking door toedoen van Nederlandse militairen direct zullen leiden tot een massaslachting in het Utrechtse winkelcentrum Hoog Catharijne, is minder voorstelbaar, hoewel niet onaannemelijk. De broer van een slachtoffer zal heel boos zijn en de Nederlanders wat aan willen doen, maar pakt hij ook meteen een Kalasjnikov in de hand en de bus naar Nederland?
Het woord voorstelbaar komt regelmatig voor en ja, als Nederland blijft meedoen aan de ‘war on terror’ dan is alles heel voorstelbaar aangezien deze oorlog geen grenzen kent, want voor ‘ons’ heeft het geen grenzen dus voor de ander, de tegenpartij, ook niet. Nederland neemt deel aan een wereldwijde oorlog. Ook ambassades, bedrijven, toeristen die werken of verblijven in landen als Jemen en Libië zullen een groter gevaar lopen betrokken te raken bij schietincidenten of aanslagen. Allemaal heel voorstelbaar aangezien er in die landen sprake is van een burgeroorlog.
Betekent dat ook dat het gevaar direct op Nederland is te betrekken? Syrië ligt op ruim 3.000 kilometer afstand van ons land, Libië op ruim 2.000 kilometer. Grote afstanden die misschien wel overbrugt worden door zogenoemde terugkeerders, maar zijn dat dan ook meteen aanslagplegers die de burgeroorlog willen verplaatsen? Voegt het opschrijven van de mogelijkheid, de voorstelbaarheid of reële kans op een aanslag iets toe aan het idee van de dreiging?
Gebeurtenissen elders hebben niet meteen hun weerslag in Nederland, meestal niet. Ebola in West-Afrika betekent niet meteen dat hier de epidemie om zich heen slaat, zelfs niet als iemand ziek wordt. Ditzelfde geldt voor bedreigingen. Bij ebola wordt geprobeerd de angst in te dammen, bij de vermeende dreiging wordt alles uitvergroot, de diensten en de industrie zijn daarbij gebaat. Hoe meer angst hoe beter.
Krachtmeting
De NCTV begon haar werkzaamheden in 2004, het jaar waarin Theo van Gogh werd vermoord en ondertussen Madrid hard werd geraakt als gevolg van aanslagen op treinen. In het eerste DTN komen deze aanslagen nog even terug in de vorm van een overzicht van de mogelijke targets (onder het kopje doelwitten), hard targets (diplomatieke en militaire objecten), soft targets (zoals het WTC in New York) en ‘doelwitkeuze zonder precedent’ (Theo van Gogh).
Bij de omschrijving van doelwitten wordt opnieuw niet vermeld dat we in principe in oorlog zijn, ‘in oorlog met terreur’, als dat al mogelijk zou zijn. Nederland heeft nooit afstand genomen van het Amerikaanse beleid. Na de invasie van Irak was Nederland er als de kippen bij om naast de Amerikanen actief mee te doen, ook al speelden we geen rol bij de directe invasie.
De oorlog tegen de terreur is een eindeloze oorlog, want terreur kan in wezen alles zijn. Wilders noemde in 2005 Marokkaanse Nederlandse jongeren al straatterroristen. We lopen daarom dagelijks door een oorlogsgebied, de wereld. De NCTV presenteert die dreiging alsof het westen geen rol speelt bij het creëren van het gevaar, alsof wij slechts slachtoffers zijn.
Aan de andere kant probeert de terreurdienst een soort strijd aan te gaan met een andere partij. De dreigingsbeelden schetsen het beeld alsof Nederland aan het armpje drukken is met al-Qaida, vaak kern al Qa’ida of kern-AQ genoemd. Het gaat dan om het duo Bin Laden al Zawahiri alsof het om een nieuw cabaretduo gaat, maar de coördinator is bloedserieus. Wat deze krachtmeting met de veiligheid in Nederland te maken heeft, is onduidelijk. Het lijkt er vooral op dat de NCTV de krachtmeting tussen de Amerikanen en al-Qaida probeert na te bootsen.
Bij die krachtmeting heeft de VS laten zien dat zij internationaal recht en mensenrechten aan de laars lapt. Dat die krachtmeting misschien tot gevolg heeft gehad dat Saddam Hoessein na tientallen jaren van Amerikaanse steun is opgehangen, en dat de Taliban is verdreven na tientallen jaren van Amerikaanse steun in de oorlog tegen de Russen, lijkt schril af te tekenen tegen de totale chaos die zich nu ontvouwt in Afghanistan, Irak en andere delen van het Midden-Oosten en noordelijk Afrika.
De unknown unknowns
Vanuit het standpunt van de ‘Rule of Law’, iets dat de laatste jaren in de dreigingsbeelden regelmatig ter sprake komt, is de samenwerking van Nederland met mensen, groepen en staten met een twijfelachtige status opvallend. In de Afghaanse oorlog van 2001 ondersteunden de Amerikanen met Nederlandse steun mensen als Abdul Rashid Dostum, Haji Muhammad Muhaqqiq, Abdul Rasul Sayyaf en Abdul Malik Pahlawan. Personen die bekend staan om hun terreur tegen de burgerbevolking in de gebieden die zij controleerden, en de vele mensenrechtenschendingen.
Eenzelfde cyclus van terreur lijkt zich in de afgelopen jaren opnieuw te herhalen door de nauwe samenwerking met dictaturen als Algerije, Saoedi-Arabië, Egypte en staten met een erbarmelijke mensenrechtenstatus, denk aan Jordanië, Turkije en Marokko. De NCTV-coördinator heeft het over bekende en onbekende dreigingen in de oorlog tegen de terreur van de kant van de terroristen, maar diezelfde Rumsfeld’s unknown unknowns doen zich voor bij de partners van contraterrorisme, namelijk de voorstelbare martelingen, standrechtelijke executies, doodseskaders, oneerlijke processen. Uiteindelijk zullen de unknown unknowns diep in het Nederlandse beleid sluipen.
Die unknown unknowns doen zich bij elke aanslag voor, maar niet in de vorm van de plegers, maar van de grote onbekende, de rol van opsporings- en inlichtingendiensten. In Madrid 2004 vielen 191 doden en naast veel meer ongerijmdheden bleek het dynamiet dat bij die aanslagen is gebruikt afkomstig van een politie-informant. Dit soort onbekende maar voorstelbare ongerijmdheden komen meestal niet aan het licht, in Spanje wel omdat daar een parlementair onderzoek naar de aanslagen heeft plaatsgevonden.
In Mumbia vielen bij diverse aanslagen in 2008 in totaal 164 doden. Daarbij zijn vragen gerezen ten aanzien van de rol van een Amerikaanse DEA-agent David Headley, die later weer in een ander terreurcomplot zal opduiken. Was hij een dubbelagent, bespeelde hij de Amerikanen, vertelde hij hen niet de volledige waarheid, of werd hij zelf bespeeld? De waarheid betreffende deze unknown unknows zal waarschijnlijk pas over vele jaren bekend worden, als overheidsorganen die waarheid al willen prijs geven.
Relatief weinig veroordelingen
Die grote onbekende is ook de melder van een terroristisch plot, waar de inlichtingendiensten en de politie massaal op los gaan. In de afgelopen tien jaar zijn hiervan in eigen land veel voorbeelden te vinden, van het Rotterdamse havenplot (juli 2005) tot aan het Ikea plot (2009) en het Somalische belhuis plot (2010).
In het buitenland vinden dit soort arrestaties ook regelmatig plaats. De Spaanse krant Infolibre becijferde dat slechts 10 procent van alle arrestaties op grond van terrorisme sinds 11-M (11 maart 2004) tot begin 2013 in Spanje hebben geleid tot een veroordeling. Veel van de mensen die niet worden veroordeeld, zitten net als de veroordeelden vaak maanden of jaren in voorarrest vast, zonder vorm van proces. En als ze dan veroordeeld worden, hangt er een zweem van ‘in de val gelokt’ rondom de zaak.
In Amerika is de rol van de FBI via informanten en infiltranten die mensen voorzien van plannen, wapens en explosieven bij terreurcomplotten gedocumenteerd in het boek The Terror Factory: Inside the FBI’s Manufactured War on Terrorism. In Spanje oordeelde de Spaanse Hoge Raad dat verdachten weinig motivatie hadden voor het plegen van een aanslag. Zij werden wel veroordeeld, maar kregen lagere straffen dan verwacht voor het vermeende transnationale netwerk. En vanwaar besteedde de Spaanse Hoge Raad aandacht aan het ‘gebrek aan motivatie’, wat betekent dat voor de werkelijke waarde van het terreur plot?
Bij een dreigingsanalyse past niet het vermelden van het bestaan van een transnationaal terrorismenetwerk met tentakels vanuit Marokko, Algerije en Pakistan tot in de diepste uithoeken van ons land, gelet op de opmerkingen van de NCTb over Algerijnse, Marokkaanse of Pakistaanse netwerken. Het zet aan tot polarisatie en het bejegenen van andere Nederlanders met achterdocht en haat. Het is des te kwalijker als die netwerken ook nog niet eens echt blijken te bestaan, maar slechts gebaseerd op geruchten of hersenspinsels van de terreurdienst zelf.
Context
Context is het woord dat als een rode draad ontbreekt in de dreigingsbeelden. Context is duiding, inzicht in de personen die als verdachten zijn gearresteerd, een beeld van de ‘mogelijke tegenstanders van het westen.’ Zonder context bestaat er slechts een spookbeeld van een ongedefinieerde ander, een duivel, een kwade genius, de as van het kwaad met gevaar, dreiging, angst en oorlog tot gevolg. Zonder analyse wordt de wereld plat, tweedimensionaal, verworden alle Jemenieten tot al-Qaida strijders en is er geen interesse meer voor wat er in die zogenoemde jihadistische strijdgebieden gebeurt.
Analyse en duiding van terroristische aanslagen is van essentieel belang. Het is daarbij vaak schimmig wat er is gebeurd en wie ervoor verantwoordelijk is. Bij een aanslag op een bus met Israëlische toeristen in Bulgarije schrijft de coördinator dan ook: ‘Op dit moment is nog niet duidelijk wie achter deze aanslag zit.’ Een dergelijke zin komt zelden voor in de dreigingsbeelden van de afgelopen tien jaar, terwijl het meestal niet kraakhelder is.
Neem de Döner-Morde, oftewel NSU-Morde in Duitsland. Acht Turkse Duitsers, een Griekse Duitser en een Duitse agent worden tussen 2001 en 2006 vermoord, naar later zou blijken door een rechts-extremistische groepering. Bij toeval werden de verdachten in 2011 aangetroffen, twee dood en een in leven. Het lijkt zo eenvoudig, dit waren rechts-extremistische terroristen, maar dan blijkt dat een informant een belangrijke rol heeft gespeeld bij de moorden en dat inlichtingendiensten allerlei bewijsmateriaal hebben vernietigd. Plotseling wordt het allemaal veel complexer.
Publicaties van agenten van de Duitse inlichtingendiensten, zoals Geheime Informanten van Rolf Grössner, over de daden van de rechts-extremisten maken de situatie nog onheilspellender. Want waren nu die drie extreem-rechtse personen de terroristen of kwam het gevaar van een andere kant, van de inlichtingendiensten zelf die toekijken en niets doen zodra er strafbare feiten werden gepleegd?
De Döner-Morde maken duidelijk dat de wereld niet zwart-wit is, bij elk terreurplot is dit te zien. Want waarom wilde de zogenoemde lone-wolf Mohammed Merah van het Toulouse drama op het laatste moment bij de belegering van het appartement waar hij zich verschanst had, zijn DCRI (Franse AIVD) contactman spreken? Merah kan zijn verhaal niet meer navertellen, als hij dat al zou willen, de staat houdt de kaken stijf op elkaar. Wat rest is het beeld van een teruggekeerde jihadist die mensen doodschoot, de lone-wolf die toeslaat op scooter en met geweer, de terrorist die militairen en joden dood. Het bevestigt ons schrikbeeld, het dreigingsbeeld van de terreurdienst NCTV, maar is dat het verhaal?
Vernauwd bewustzijn
Verhalen die een vernauwd bewustzijn creëren van de wereld, een tunnel, waarin de vijftig grijs tinten niet meer zijn te ontwaren. Wat alleen zichtbaar wordt zijn de jihadistische kampen en vrijplaatsen, niet de achtergestelde Toearegs die strijden voor hun rechten. Wat alleen maar zichtbaar is, zijn de raketwerpers of man-portable air defense systemen (manpads) en niet de misschien moeizaam ontluikende democratie met Moslimbroeders in Egypte. Wat alleen maar wordt gezien is ISIL, ISIS of IS en niet de jarenlange onvrede onder de soennieten, hun vreedzame protest en de bloedige onderdrukking van demonstraties door de Iraakse regering met steun van het westen.
Het Westen, waaronder met name de VS, Groot-Brittannië en Frankrijk, heeft decennialang een belangrijke rol gespeeld bij het in stand houden van dictaturen in het Midden-Oosten. Nederland heeft ook gebruik gemaakt van die onderdrukkende regimes, en doet dat nog steeds. Er werd lange tijd met het regime van Assad handel gedreven, er werden zelfs producten geleverd die gebruikt kunnen worden voor de productie van chemische wapens. Er wordt handel gedreven met Saoedi-Arabië. De dictatuur van Algerije is als verlicht despoot toegetreden tot de partners bij het contraterrorisme-beleid en de ‘Rule of Law.’
Dat dit woede opwekt, is niet langer een vraag maar een logisch gevolg van het gevoerde economisch en geopolitiek beleid. De meeste mensen zullen die boosheid nooit omzetten in daden. Sommigen misschien wel als zij het plan, de wapens en de explosieven door een informant of infiltrant krijgen aangeleverd, maar zelfs dan, zo laten de Amerikaanse voorbeelden zien, twijfelen veel mensen bij het plegen van geweld.
Wie de ‘Rule of Law’ écht serieus neemt, zal afstand moeten nemen van in ieder geval de VS. Om diverse redenen, zoals de drone bombardementen/standrechtelijke executies, Guantanamo Bay, martelingen, rendition, gebrekkig rechtssysteem gebaseerd op plea bargain en vele andere zaken. Maar internationaal gezien vooral om het ontbreken van de erkenning van het Internationale Strafhof. Misschien niet het meest effectieve deel van de Verenigde Naties, maar als je ‘Rule of Law’ serieus neemt, zou je kunnen stellen dat erkenning van het Strafhof een ‘must’ is.
Verwrongen wereldbeeld
Wie het internationale beleid van de VS volgt, dat ook nog samenwerkt met landen als Algerije en Saoedi-Arabië, krijgt een verwrongen beeld van de rechtsorde, een rechtsorde die gebaseerd is op een ‘wij-zij’ denken en niet op rechtsstatelijk denken, waarbij een onafhankelijke partij ingebracht bewijs beoordeelt voordat iemand geëxecuteerd wordt.
Wie ‘terreurbestrijding als mensenrechten bescherming’ definieert, zoals de NCTV doet, en tegelijkertijd met dubieuze partners die bestrijding uitvoert, legt eerder de nadruk op de strijd in plaats van mensenrechten. De rechtsorde is er dan niet meer, wat rest is een bipolaire wereld waar geëist wordt dat er gekozen wordt: ‘Either you are with us or you are with the terrorists.’
Neem een van de laatste arrestaties van 2014 in Nederland. Twee echtparen met kinderen zouden volgens de overheid op het punt staan naar Syrië te vertrekken. Er vindt een terreuroperatie plaats. Deze arrestaties vloeien voort uit tien jaar dreigingsbeeld. Na de netwerken waren het de jihadisten, de uitreizigers, de terugkeerders, de niet-uitgereisde jihadisten en de mogelijk nog niet uitgereisde jihadisten.
Het klinkt allemaal als de woorden van Donald Rumsfeld: ‘There are known knowns. These are things we know that we know. There are known unknowns. That is to say, there are things that we know we don’t know. But there are also unknown unknowns. There are things we don’t know we don’t know.’ In potentie is iedereen een gevaar, zelfs kinderen, hoe jong ook. Een overheid die op deze wijze zegt ‘terreur’ te bestrijden is niet alleen de weg kwijt, maar creëert zelf terreur.
Er was in het geval van de aangehouden gezinnen geen directe dreiging in de zin van een mogelijke aanslag op wandelaar, fietser, auto, bus, trein, vliegtuig of een ander mens of object. Er was ook geen informatie ten aanzien van een directe aanslag op een al dan niet mogelijk doelwit. Er was alleen het gerucht dat de families Nederland zouden willen verlaten. Dat lijkt na deze staatsterreur meer dan logisch. Zou je in een land willen leven waarbij de wens om naar elders te verhuizen al genoeg is om als terrorist te worden bestempeld?
MH-17
Het gekke is dat het contrast met het neergeschoten lijnvliegtuig MH-17 niet groter kan zijn. De NCTV is bezig met families die willen verhuizen naar een regio die in oorlog is. Nu kun je daar bezwaar tegen hebben, maar om hen meteen lidmaatschap van een terroristische organisatie aan te wrijven, lijkt gebaseerd op een zwart-wit denken dat Syrië in twee kampen deelt: als je niet met ons bent, dan ben je een terrorist (‘if you are not with us you are with the terrorists’).
Nu is dat allemaal erg lastig in Syrië. Je hebt dictator Assad met zijn aanhang, vaak ook lid geweest van de As van het Kwaad zoals de Amerikanen het versimpelen. Dan zijn er de Koerden, vaak gelabeld als zijnde terroristen zoals de PKK. En diverse andere groepen, al dan niet gesteund door het ‘westen’, Iran, Saoedi-Arabië of een ander land. Dan heb je ook nog de Amerikaanse en ‘onze’ bombardementen met hun vele burgerslachtoffers. Allemaal partijen met bloed aan hun handen, dus misschien is afreizen naar een streek in oorlog niet de beste optie voor je kinderen, maar is dat terroristisch en past daar een operatie bij die mensen alleen maar vervreemd van enige rechtsorde?
In die dreiging denktrant is de NCTV bezig met deze families, terwijl een van haar taken is de bescherming van de burgerluchtvaart. Stel nu dat er een bericht was binnengekomen dat vliegtuigen bij bosjes uit de lucht werden geschoten in Oekraïne, wat zou dan een gepaste reactie zijn geweest? Waarschijnlijk het tot nader order vermijden van het luchtruim boven dat gebied, want je weet maar nooit. De doorsnee krantenlezer zal dit vorige zomer al eerder hebben geconcludeerd, aangezien de raketten daar al langer door de lucht vlogen.
Zou een verschil van enkele kilometers in vliegroute voor MH-17 een oplossing zijn geweest? In theorie wel, maar aangezien het strijdtoneel in het gebied zich ontwikkelde tot een volwaardige burgeroorlog en tevens dreigde te worden opgeschaald tot een oorlog tussen grootmachten, had een verstandig en nuchter nadenkende ambtenaar gesteld om tot nader order het gebied te mijden.
Niet paranoïa maar alert
Een NCTV-coördinator die angst en terreur zaait, zal zoiets niet bedenken. Die is bezig met legergroen op straat, met het toeschrijven van elk incident aan een steeds groter wordend jihadistisch leger en het achtervolgen van kinderen die naar Syrië willen vertrekken. Daarom is het ook interessant dat de coördinator geen woord vuil maakt aan Oekraïne in zijn dreigingsbeelden van 2014 want dat past niet in het denken van islamitische terreur die de wereld verovert.
Om dezelfde reden maakte zijn voorganger geen woord vuil aan de slachting in het winkelcentrum in Alphen aan de Rijn in 2011 of 30 april 2009 in Apeldoorn. Nee, Syrië en Irak staan in brand en dat heeft een aanzuigende werking, uitstralende werking, dat slaat op ons terug. Wensdenken van een paranoïde terreurambtenaar. Helaas voor de NCTV stonden die landen al langer in brand en mede door toedoen van het westen is het niet meer een brand, maar is de boel inmiddels geëxplodeerd.
Natuurlijk alleen maar goed voor de NCTV, die dan ook namens terreurambtenaar Schoof stelt dat we in 2015 niet paranoia moeten zijn, maar wel alert. Wat dat inhoudt blijft duister. Is iedereen plots inlichtingen- en opsporingsambtenaar in dienst van de terreurdienst? Het lijkt erop alsof de coördinator al tien jaar in een waan van zwart-wit denken leeft. Een Amerikaanse wereld die democratie zou brengen in landen als Afghanistan en Irak. Landen die in tien jaar dreiging niet meer weg te denken zijn uit de DTN’s.
Buro Jansen & Janssen
Find this story at 25 March 2015
The article as pdf

Van nieuwsblog.burojansen.nl

Imam Elhadji Sekou Ba was one of the few people in his village of Barkerou who dared to speak out against the rise of Islamist militants in central Mali, denouncing in his sermons the young men taking up arms in the name of religion. Last Thursday, shortly after dinner, he was gunned down on his doorstep. Locals suspect the killing was carried out by the Massina Liberation Front (MLF), a new group blamed for a wave of attacks that is shifting Mali’s three-year-old Islamist conflict from the remote desert north ever closer to its populous south. The emergence of the new group, recruiting among central Mali’s marginalised Fulani ethnic minority, has sown panic among residents, forced some officials to flee, and undermined the efforts of a 10 000-strong UN peacekeeping mission to stabilise the West African state. Inspired by veteran jihadist Amadou Koufa, a radical preacher from the central Malian town of Mopti, the MLF has introduced a volatile new ethnic element to the Islamist conflict in a nation riddled with tribal tensions. Security experts fear that the rise of a jihadist group among the Fulani, whose 20-million members are spread across West and Central Africa, could regionalise the violence. “The risk is that links develop between Fulanis throughout the region and it could be the next major regional conflict,” said Aurelien Tobie, a conflict adviser formerly based in the Malian capital Bamako. “Everywhere Fulanis are marginalised, they have a strong identity and there are connections between them.” The assassination was the latest in a wave of killings in the Mopti region targetting those opposed to Mali’s array of Islamist groups. Many of the militants come from the ranks of jihadist fighters that seized the northern two-thirds of Mali in 2012 alongside Tuareg rebels. A French-led military intervention in early 2013 scattered the insurgents, after Paris said the Islamist enclave could become a launchpad for terror attacks on Europe. Some militants have since gone to Mali’s centre belt to regroup and recruit, using it as a staging post to strike at areas in the south once considered safe During the Islamist occupation of northern Mali, Mopti was the last bastion of government power before the lawless desert. That image was destroyed this month when armed men attacked a hotel in nearby Sevare and killed at least 12 people, including five United Nations contractors. One of the attackers wore an explosive belt that did not detonate, in the first suicide attempt outside the north. The army blames the MLF for the siege and at least two other attacks in Mali’s centre and south which are hindering attempts by the government and the UN peacekeeping force to restore order. The Sevare attack has also been claimed by a group led by veteran Algerian jihadist Mokhtar Belmokhtar, which has rebranded itself as Al Qaeda in West Africa. Experts say the claims are not mutually exclusive and there are fluid relations between Mali’s Islamist cells. “The strategy of those loyal to Koufa appears to be to empty the region of administrative leaders, government officials and others collaborating with the army to both establish their authority and, perhaps, recruit more easily,” said Corinne Dufka, West Africa Director at Human Rights Watch. ISLAMIC EMPIRE To achieve this, Dufka said, the Islamists are employing tactics of intimidation and targeted killings. She documented five summary executions of people accused of collaborating with the army this year. A resident said several other village leaders had fled to Bamako, fearing reprisals. Military sources say MLF is formed partly from local fighters who went north to fight three years ago but then returned to Mopti as French military pressure increased. Its leaders have been able to exploit local grievances among the locally dominant, semi-nomadic Fulani population to swell their ranks. Some Fulani, who represent 9% of Mali’s population, have obtained weapons from long-established militias set up to protect grazing lands. Similar Fulani militia exist across much of the arid Sahel belt stretching across west to east across Africa, from Senegal to Sudan. The MLF is believed to be closely allied with Malian Islamist rebel group Ansar Dine, whose leader Iyad Ag Ghali fought alongside Koufa during the northern occupation. Ansar Dine also has a group of fighters called the Massina brigade – a reference to the 19th century Fulani empire of Massina – and has claimed a series of attacks against UN peacekeepers and Malian army targets in Bamako and the border areas near Ivory Coast and Mauritania. Andrew Lebovich, visiting fellow with the European Council on Foreign Relations, says Mopti is an appealing area for radical groups’ expansion because of its historical importance as a centre for Islamic governance. Koufa’s speeches evoke the jihad led by Fulanis against the rival Bambara ethnic group to create the vast Massina Empire which spread across Mali, Senegal and Nigeria. Its capital Hamdallaye, near present day Mopti, now lies in ruins. Residents say there are few outwards signs of support for Koufa, whose whereabouts are unknown, although one local said cassettes of his sermons sell well in the market. Dufka says support for radical groups has been stirred by the army’s summary executions army of Fulanis accused of being jihadists. A UN human rights report documented signs of dried blood on the side of wells in Sevare in 2013. Mali never investigated the killings. FULANI REBELLION? Mali’s former defence minister, Soumeylou Boubeye Maiga, said the army was struggling to contain the rapid emergence of the militants. The government needed to improve intelligence gathering in the region and check on mosques. Aba Ibrahim Ba, a Fulani mayor from the commune where the imam was assasinated, said the government had done little to respond to the recent assassinations and the local population was in panic. He said he had been forced into hiding. “Besides reaching people by word of mouth, I cannot do anything else to stop this as it would be too risky,” he said. Reprisals seen to be targeting the Fulani community could play into the hands of extremists. Guillaume Ngefa, director of human rights in the UN mission MINUSMA, said at least 50 people had been arrested with alleged ties to MLF since December. This prompted complaints from a Fulani organisation that they were being targeted indiscriminately, he added. Alghabass Ag Intalla, a senior member of the Tuareg-led rebel coalition Coordination of Azawad Movements (CMA) and a former leader of Ansar Dine, said there was reason to fear the radicalisation of some Fulanis. “We see Fulanis as very marginalised in Mali, even from their own leaders,” he told Reuters. “They are forming a rebellion.”
Edited by Reuters
Find this story at 19 August 2015
Copyright http://www.polity.org.za/

Van nieuwsblog.burojansen.nl

Despite treaty, Tuareg and Arab rebels say that while they are denied territorial separation, the war will continue.
Mali, Foyta – Hammy Ag Ehya was a veteran soldier in the Malian army. But now he’s a rebel fighter who says he regrets only the 20 years he wasted defending Mali.
Around a campfire in the wilderness and while a lamb is being prepared for roasting, Ag Ehya and a few dozen of his comrades make sure they display their readiness for war in front of our camera.
Their leaders have just agreed on a new deal with the government, which is supposed to end the conflict.
But Ag Ehya and his co-fighters don’t seem to care about that process.
“Whoever talks of guarantees for ending the conflict only talks nonsense,” Ag Ehya says.
“That’s a big lie. This war cannot be ended with a stroke of a pen. As long as we’re denied territorial separation there will be no end to the war.”
In a few minutes, nearly two dozen army Toyota lorries drive into the makeshift base in northern Mali near the border with Mauritania.
They are fully loaded with fighters with light and heavy guns and rocket launchers.
‘Fight for independence’
Ag Ehya’s elder brother Himmety, who served even longer in the Malian army, stands beside him with a khaki turban around his neck toting an old Kalashnikov.
Tuareg and Arab rebels are in control of the major town of Kidal as well as large areas of northern Mali, also known as Azawad [Al Jazeera]
I ask if he thinks the agreement marks the end of the conflict.
It’s not Mali that gave us the weapons. We paid for them with our own blood. Now Mali wants to take them from us a second time. But its behavior during the previous experience is the cause of our rejection now.
“In fact this is the real beginning!” he says.
“Now we can start to take security matters in Azawad into our own hands. Then we will start the next phase, the fight for independence.”
Tuareg and Arab rebels are in control of the major town of Kidal as well as large areas of northern Mali, also known as Azawad.
Recently, they made new territorial gains, pushing the army further south.
The rebels announced an independent state in northern Mali in 2012. But under the present agreement, they get only a type of decentralised local administration.
The positive point Himmety referred to was that the agreement has given the rebels a share in the keeping of security in the north.
But on the other hand it implies an eventual integration into the official state apparatus and an eventual disarmament.
This is a prospect that provokes anger and uncertainty among the rebels.
“As long as there’s no separation there will be no disarmament,” the younger brother vehemently declares.
“It’s not Mali that gave us the weapons. We paid for them with our own blood. Now Mali wants to take them from us a second time. But its behaviour during the previous experience is the cause of our rejection now.”
The rebels say they agreed to disarm in the past after the peace treaty of 1993 and 1994, but instead of gaining their rights the army began to kill them.
Several peace agreements in the past have failed. This is why the people of the north are lukewarm about the prospects of success for the new agreement.
On June 15, several movement leaders held a rally at the Mbera camp for Malian refugees in south east Mauritania. But their efforts to sell the agreement to the people were rejected.
These are the same leaders who announced what they called the Independent Republic of Azawad three years ago.
Several months later in Burkina Faso, they signed a deal waiving their claim of independence in favour of limited self-rule.
Climate change, food shortages, and conflict in Mali
However, Mali’s government has failed to even discuss the self-rule demand.
The new treaty will allow only:
• The right to form local institutions in the north.
• More parliamentary representation for the north in Bamako.
• A role in the region’s security for armed movements.
• More economic and social development in the area.
The rebels’ demands that the government spend 40 percent of the national budget on development in the north has been rejected.
Painful concessions
In the face of such perceivably painful concessions, the rebel leaders have resorted to a rhetoric based on realpolitik.
“We think this is the most we can get at the moment in view of the current context and of the world community level of readiness to accept our demands as we put them” Redhwan Mohamed Ali, the deputy president of the rebel coalition Supreme Council for Azawad tells me.
Mali violence driving refugees into Mauritania
“So I think this is what’s available for us now.”But grass-root northern Malians have a different opinion.
“This document does not respond to our demands and those of our leaders,” says a young refugee.
“If they want a final solution they should separate us from Mali. Let us remain here in our drought-stricken Azawad and let them enjoy their green Mali. We don’t want Mali and we don’t want any reconciliation with it.”
A leading female social activist in the camp says: “It’s clear that we have been forced to sign this agreement. Indeed, we don’t see any single point in it that serves our interests.”
At the refugee camp which was first created a quarter of a century ago, there was a general feeling of deja vu.
How many agreements like this have been made in the past and how many of them have no sooner been signed than violated?
The people here tell me they have all lost count. But they know that the present agreement is not going to be different.
Source: Al Jazeera
17 Jun 2015 14:04 GMT | War & Conflict, Africa, Mali, Mauritania
Mohamed Vall
Find this story at 17 June 2015
Copyright http://www.aljazeera.com

Van nieuwsblog.burojansen.nl

The Iranian-Saudi Proxy Wars Come to Mali
In schools, mosques, and cultural centers, Shiites and Sunnis are battling for African hearts and minds.
BAMAKO, Mali — In a country where two-thirds of the adults are illiterate, it is a privileged few who have the chance to study at the Mustafa International School.
Located in the western suburbs of Bamako, a few blocks from the U.S. Embassy, the college-level seminary has just 180 students — 150 men and 30 women. They engage in an intensive curriculum that encompasses theology, history, philosophy, Arabic, Farsi, and world religions. They work in the school’s computer suite, equipped with 12 desktop computers, and get three meals a day at the seminary’s expense. And they do it all under the watchful eyes of the late Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, former supreme leader of the Islamic Republic of Iran, whose likeness gazes down on them from his portrait, which hangs above the bookshelves of the school’s library.
These young students are part of Mali’s tiny Shiite community: a group of about 10,000 families nationally, in a country where the Sunni majority makes up an estimated 95 percent of the population of 15 million.
They’re also the stuff of Saudi nightmares.
Historically, West Africa has had a tolerant approach to religious differences, shunning — at least until recently — the sort of Sunni-Shiite sectarian rivalries that have plagued the Middle East in favor of a patchwork of beliefs that incorporate Sufism, Maliki Islam, and traditional animist practices. But Mali — home to seminaries with ties to Iran, like the Mustafa International School, and where diplomatic cables released by WikiLeaks this summer reveal that Saudi Arabia is scrambling to fund its own competing schools, mosques, and cultural projects — provides a case study in how the enmity between Sunni Islam and Shiite Islam may be being spread, via Iranian and Saudi proxies, to places thousands of miles from the Middle East.
Unlike most of Mali’s private schools and universities, which charge hefty fees, the Mustafa International School selects students from outside the capital and gives them free room and board. Few of the students hail from Mali’s elite families; rather, they are selected via tests administered to Shiite youth across the country. The highest achievers are offered the chance to continue their study in Iran.
The school is able to afford such generous support for its students because it is backed by an Iranian university in Qom, a city considered holy by Shiite Muslims and famed for its Islamic learning. The state-run University of Qom provides funding and sets the school’s curriculum, which covers various schools of Islamic thought, as well as Shiite jurisprudence.
“The teaching is very good,” said Adam N’Diaye, a 22-year-old student at the facility who recently converted from Sunnism. He aims to become a teacher when he graduates. A quick survey of his classmates revealed that most of his colleagues are aiming to become imams and missionaries.
It’s unclear how many schools and seminaries in Mali have ties to the Islamic Republic or just how close these ties are. There’s also no direct evidence to indicate that schools like the Mustafa International School are necessarily part of a larger effort by the Iranian government to make Shiite converts. Officials at the Iranian Cultural Center in Bamako declined to give any details about the number of educational institutions to which they have ties; the Saudi-based paper Al Yaum has previously reported that the cultural center runs 10 schools in Mali. Other sources place the number around 13.
Iran and Mali have a warm, if limited, relationship. When Iran’s then-president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, visited Bamako and Timbuktu in 2010, he spoke in glowing terms about solidarity between the two countries and signed a raft of agreements on development aid and Iranian investment in agriculture and extractive industries. The Mustafa International School’s director, Mohamed Diabaté, who studied in Iran and maintains links with clerics there, makes appearances on Malian television to talk about his understanding of Islam. (He argues that the Tidjaniya school of Sufism common across West Africa has roots in Shiite, rather than Sunni, teaching.)
The presence of Shiism here isn’t something Saudi Arabia is taking lightly. Among the nearly 60,000 diplomatic cables released by WikiLeaks on June 19 are a slew of documents detailing the kingdom’s fear of a “rising tide of Shiism” resulting from proselytization on the part of Saudi Arabia’s rival in the Middle East, Iran. Cables detailing specific Iranian charities, schools, and media outlets from Kazakhstan to Spain — as well as vague fears of “Shiite activities” elsewhere — show that Saudi diplomats see Shiism not only to be a vile heresy, but a movement inseparably tied to Iranian political clout. And even the smallest Shiite community is considered a threat.
“Despite the Iranian Embassy’s efforts [in Mali], there hasn’t been a lot of uptake, but it is possible that their thinking could spread in the future in a broader way and their Shiite activities could gain a base,” reads a cable from the Saudi Embassy in Bamako to the Foreign Ministry in Riyadh in early 2009. It recommends funding rival projects — mosques, schools, cultural programs, proselytization, and summer courses — to “strengthen the growing position of the [Saudi] kingdom” in Mali and promote Saudi Arabia’s image as “the protector of the noble Islamic faith.” It adds that this should be done “in a way that promotes peaceful coexistence between different ideologies and counters the Shiite spread.”
Mali offers a potentially rich source of converts to Shiism. “People in Mali love the family of the Prophet,” Diabaté said. The Tidjaniya Sufi order, which has a long history throughout West Africa, honors members of the Prophet Mohammed’s family as pure, devout individuals. It’s a small leap from that to the belief, fundamental to Shiism, that members of the Prophet’s family should have taken over leadership of the Islamic community upon his death. It’s a link that has not gone unnoticed in Riyadh.
“Iran is exploiting the Sufis’ love for the family of the Prophet in order to show Iran as a great Islamic nation that is an enemy of the infidels and supports all the Muslims,” reads the cable.
“Many Malians don’t realize the truth of Shiite thinking: fanatical, racist, and the enemy of other Islamic doctrines.”
But though the cables ring of paranoia, the notion that Mali’s tiny Shiite community has outsized political significance and links to Tehran seems to have found traction among some Sunni locals.
“There are not even 1 percent of the population who are Shiite in Mali. But there is a political presence, run by the Iranians,” said Mahmoud Dicko, the president of the High Islamic Council of Mali and one of the country’s most powerful clerics.
Dicko was among 30 senior Malian clerics who signed a 2008 open letter in support of influential Egyptian Sheikh Yusuf al-Qaradawi’s outspoken stance against Shiite evangelism. The letter warned of “the dangers of the rising tide of Shiism,” which aims to “turn Sunni societies Shiite, undermine their states, and impose Persian hegemony over them.”
Mali has raw memories of religious conflict. In 2012, an alliance of Tuareg separatists and Islamists linked to al Qaeda invaded the country’s northern half and imposed sharia law before being ousted by French forces. But a low-level insurgency has been rumbling on ever since. Militants have targeted the Malian army, U.N. peacekeepers, and foreign aid workers with drive-by shootings and roadside bombs. The extremist group Ansar Dine claimed responsibility for a deadly attack on a popular restaurant in Bamako in March and the killing of three soldiers in a village near the border with Mauritania in June.
Despite this, for most Malians the phenomenon of religious extremism is a foreign imposition. The fighters involved in the events of 2012 were from outside Mali, and the violence was an exception in a long history of religious tolerance here. Across West Africa, Sunni Islam, Sufism, and traditional animist practices have rubbed shoulders in relative peace for centuries.
One of Mali’s most prominent Baptists, Pastor Mohammed Yattara, is open about his apostasy, something that would be unthinkable across the Middle East and North Africa. Yattara converted from Islam to Christianity when he was 16. When he told his family he had become a Christian, his father disowned him and threw him out of the house. Yet the two stayed in touch until his father’s death, and Yattara’s act of leaving his faith has had few consequences for his personal security.
Among the Muslim majority, Sufi traditions and animist rituals remain important elements of religious practice. In poorer communities, few imams speak Arabic or are educated in the finer points of Islamic philosophy. Some fear that by funding schools, mosques, and much-needed infrastructure, foreign powers are creating divisions that once did not exist in this country, on the periphery of the Arab world.
Many in Dicko’s camp see institutions such as the Mustafa International School and the Iranian Cultural Center as a vehicle for Iranian political influence — an accusation Diabaté refuted, despite pictures of Khomeini in the school office, in the library, and on the back of his car.
“We will not accept the politicization of Islam,” he said. But he admitted that Shiites in Mali look to Iran for support in the face of Salafism. “Every state that represents a sect needs to protect its flock.”
Diabaté, sitting in a small office adjacent to the prayer hall and wearing the long brown robe and white turban of a Shiite scholar, explained how he “used to hate Shiites.” But in the late 1980s, he became part of a group of young scholars who participated in debates with Hassan Hambraze, then Iran’s chargé d’affaires in Bamako and son of a prominent Iranian cleric. In 1988, Hambraze was also responsible for sending a group of Malian students to the first Shiite school in West Africa. Diabaté converted and went on to study in Iran. On his return he became a prominent leader within Mali’s nascent Shiite community.
Today, he speaks of the country’s more hard-line Sunni leaders in conspiratorial terms: “The Salafi thinking is well known. They want to get into power and are planning for that. They plan to take control of the Islamic community.” After a pause, he added: “But we are not staying still. Everyone has their methods.”
Those methods seem clear: to proselytize and offer converts access to a good education and opportunities to travel and work in Iran. The Saudi strategy in Mali is more opaque (widespread rumors among Malians include tales of enormous checks coming from the Gulf to fund prominent Salafists). The diplomatic cables have thrown some light on Saudi activities in the country, which include funding for schools and preacher-training courses run by the Islamic University in Madinah and Imam Muhammad ibn Saud Islamic University in Riyadh.
Mali’s minister for religious affairs, Thierno Diallo, says he recognizes that Malian governments have long turned a blind eye to foreign-backed religious projects. Despite the country’s deeply religious population, Mali’s secular constitution means that the state has kept mosques at arm’s length. And while the government is aware of large sums of money entering Mali from unknown sources, it has few resources to reliably track them.
“It’s not documented,” he said, “and there’s no transparency. That’s a serious problem.”
Neither Iran nor Saudi Arabia has explicitly promoted violence in Mali. Diabaté, along with his Sunni counterparts, makes it clear that “Shiites, like everyone else, know that extremist groups in the north show no mercy.” Yet the creation of previously nonexistent sectarian identities for political ends leads to divisions that become associated with political agendas.
Imam Baba Diallo, another member of the High Islamic Council of Mali, said he wants to organize interfaith dialogue between the different sects but has yet to find funding. He looks grave as he talks about the potential consequences of inaction.
“If we fail [to heal the divide], the next war will be between Sunni and Shiite,” he said.
(This reporting was supported by funding from the International Reporting Project.)
BY PAUL RAYMOND, JACK WATLINGAUGUST 19, 2015
Find this story at 19 August 2015
Copyright http://foreignpolicy.com

Van nieuwsblog.burojansen.nl

France, Mali’s former colonial ruler, is going back to its old colonial ways, writes Kane.
As representatives of the Malian government and various rebel groups meet in Algiers for peace talks, violence in northern Mali continues and so does the French military presence.France launched its military intervention in Mali in January 2013 with the mandate to stop an uprising of various militant groups in the north, threatening the stability and sovereignty of the country. The goal was then to free the northern part of the country from jihadist occupation, bring back peace, and restore Malian sovereignty on the whole territory. Although France’s defence minister announced that the so-called “Operation Serval” had “fulfilled its mission”, Mali is hardly a peaceful place today. As Mali fell into a media blackout, France announced it was reorganising its military presence into “Operation Barkhane”. No
As representatives of the Malian government and various rebel groups meet in Algiers for peace talks, violence in northern Mali continues and so does the French military presence.
France launched its military intervention in Mali in January 2013 with the mandate to stop an uprising of various militant groups in the north, threatening the stability and sovereignty of the country. The goal was then to free the northern part of the country from jihadist occupation, bring back peace, and restore Malian sovereignty on the whole territory. Although France’s defence minister announced that the so-called “Operation Serval” had “fulfilled its mission”, Mali is hardly a peaceful place today.
As Mali fell into a media blackout, France announced it was reorganising its military presence into “Operation Barkhane”. No one seems to be asking why the French are still there, how long they will stay and more importantly – doesn’t their intervention constitute a form of neo-imperialism?
France in Mali
Back in early 2013 many Malians gave an enthusiastic welcome to French soldiers, when they came to “rescue” this crisis-torn West African country. Much has changed since then. In their January 2014 book, La Gloire des Imposteurs, Malian activist Aminata Dramane Traore and Senegalese novelist Boubacar Boris Diop explain this initial enthusiasm for the war with the Malians’ shock and panic in the face of the invaders from the north who were destroying historic monuments, killing and mutilating people.
But as the authors pointed out, Mali might be facing an even bigger threat: the former colonial ruler going back to its old colonial ways on Malian territory. After all, it is just hard to believe that France selflessly sent its soldiers to face danger in a faraway African country for the sake of “saving it”. The question that Malians have to ask themselves is: Do they prefer having to fight against jihadists for a long time, or having their sovereignty challenged, and their territory occupied by an ancient colonialist state or partitioned to satisfy a group allied with the colonial power?
This is not the first time France has gotten involved in its former “colonial territories”. And it is always the same scenario: Some excuse is found in order to deploy on the ground to protect economic interest, occupy strategic points or defend an ally among the local politicians. The story is well known from Djibouti all the way to the Ivory Coast!
In July, France signed a new defence agreement with Mali, which would allow it to maintain a considerable military presence in the country. The agreement’s eleven pages of mostly general statements say that French military troops and civil servants will be allowed to stay in Mali, build military bases, operate, if needed, with Malian troops, etc., for the next five years. The five years term, as written in the document, is renewable.
With this agreement Mali has started to reverse the decolonialisation project of its first president Modibo Keïta, who made sure the last French soldier departed his country in 1961. Keita was a firm nationalist and while almost all the newly independent West African countries at that time signed defence pacts with their former “master”, he only consented to an agreement on economic and cultural cooperation with France. Keita didn’t allow French military bases or troops on Malian soil.
The Malian presidents that followed him also resisted French pressure for a defence agreement. Although Paris demanded repeatedly, three different presidents of Mali – Moussa Traore, Alpha Oumar Konare and Amadou Toumany Toure – refused, despite huge diplomatic and economic pressure. The most France could get in Mali was a 1985 military cooperation accord which allowed France to give military training and technical assistance to Malian troops.
These presidents seemed to be following a doctrine that gave a boost to the Malian people’s self-esteem. However, now it is clear that the “Operation Serval” against the jihadist has given France an unexpected opportunity to achieve an old regional military scheme.
As Senegalese commentator, Babacar Justin Ndiaye – known as one of the most influential analysts on military questions in West Africa – has pointed out: Mali was intentionally weakened to prepare the French military operation “Serval”. “Serval”, which, in turn, has prepared the ground for operation “Barkhane”, announced by the French just as they were wrapping up the previous one in July. This new operation is based from Chad and will cover Mali, Burkina Faso, Mauritania and Niger.
Peace negotiations?
After having defeated the invaders, and chasing them out of Timbuktu and other northern cities, and disarming factions of the rebellions, the French military surprisingly (or not) banned the Malian army from Kidal, the central city of the northern Azawad region. The territory is claimed by different rebel groups, but it is under the de facto control of the MNLA (National Movement for Liberation of the Azawad).
France allowed the rebels to occupy the area, reorganise and later gain a place at the post-war negotiations table. The first round of peace talks supervised by France took place in mid-July in Algiers between Malian authorities and various rebel groups. The Malian government has always rejected negotiating with rebels who call for cessation, yet this time it had to accept the talks.
As is well known, France has openly supported the MNLA for a long time and the MNLA is profusely covered by French media, which presents a sympathetic romanticised image of the rebels. The leaders of the MNLA are frequent visitors to the French capital and quite welcome on French TV, which likes to show people in MNLA-controlled territories amicably accepting French troops.
Although France enjoys considerable sway with the different groups in the peace talks, it is finding it increasingly harder to mediate, as disagreements between the rebel groups continue to arise. During the first round of talks, for example, various groups had to be separated and accommodated in different five star hotels in Algiers to avoid hostility.
The purpose of this latest round of talks is to find a peaceful solution to the crisis in northern Mali. But whether such a solution will be for the best interests of all Malians, is unclear, given that France has not excluded partition – as the Malian government had demanded.
French interests in Sahel
French support for the MNLA is not surprising, at least not geopolitically. France wants Niger protected from the insurgencies sweeping across the Sahel region, and it is ready to support the MNLA, which in return would prevent the expansion of jihadist groups towards the borders of Niger, the world’s fourth largest producer of uranium. Coincidentally or not, France generates more than 75 percent of its electricity through nuclear plants.
Unsurprisingly, Niger is host to France’s biggest economic interest of in the region and therefore its security is a foreign policy priority for the French government. The French corporation Areva mines uranium in Niger and it is currently investing 1.9bn Euros in the development of the large uranium deposits in Imouraren. Protecting the eastern borders of Niger was indeed among the major reasons behind French President François Hollande’s decision to get involved in the conflict in Mali. The May 2013 car bomb attack on one of Areva’s operations must have further convinced him that it was the right thing to do.
Thus it only made sense to wrap up the Mali-focused “Operation Serval” in order to unroll “Operation Barkhane” with a wider geographic scope. The provisions of the new defence agreement forced on the Malian government naturally allow for whatever the French need in order to sustain their new operation in the region.
It should not come as a surprise that France decided on Chad as the centre for the new operation. After all, Chad has a history of hosting French military operations. French military presence in Chad began in 1968, when former president Francois Tombalbaye asked Charles de Gaulle, in the name of the defence pact between his country and France, to intervene with “Operation Bison” against a rebellion in the northern regions of the country. In 1986, the French military intervened again with “Operation Epervier”, this time against Muammar Qaddafi who was invading from the north. The French have never left ever since.
Nowadays, a small number of French soldiers are based at Niamey airport, where a small American military crew launches drones to survey the region, tracking jihadist groups.
Just after “mission accomplished” was announced on “Operation Serval”, Holland took a trip into the region, getting reassuring support from heads of state for his anti-terrorism campaign. The “terrorist threat” is a great opportunity for France to put its hands on West Africa again militarily, politically and, even economically. The US, of course, is in with the French, supporting them and even lending another friendly drone operation from Niger’s capital.
As France is expanding its military control of the region, there are few who are objecting or ringing an alarm bell warning that the colonial “master” has come back.
06 Sep 2014 12:26 GMT | War & Conflict, Politics, US & Canada, Burkina Faso, Chad
Pape Samba Kane is a Senegalese journalist and political analyst.
Find this story at 6 September 2014
Source: Al Jazeera

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The USA, Germany, and other European Union countries’ continuing ‘blind-spot’ to endemic torture in Uzbekistan ensures that appalling abuses will continue unabated, said Amnesty International in a new report published today.
The report, Secrets and Lies: Forced confessions under torture in Uzbekistan, reveals how rampant torture and other ill-treatment plays a “central role” in the country’s justice system and the government’s clampdown on any group perceived as a threat to national security. It warns that police and security forces frequently use torture to extract confessions, to intimidate entire families or as a threat to extract bribes.
“It’s an open secret that anyone who falls out of favour with the authorities can be detained and tortured in Uzbekistan. No one can escape the tendrils of the state,” said John Dalhuisen, Amnesty International’s Europe and Central Asia Director, launching the report in Berlin.
“What is shameful is that many governments, including the USA, are turning a blind eye to appalling torture, seemingly for fear of upsetting an ally in the ‘war on terror’. Other governments, like Germany, appear to be more concerned with business opportunities and not rocking the boat.”
“Strategic Patience” a shameful strategy in the face of human rights violations
As the 10th anniversary of the May 2005 Andizhan mass killings of hundreds of protestors approaches, Amnesty International’s report highlights how the USA and EU governments, including Germany, have put security, political, military and economic interests ahead of any meaningful action to pressure the Uzbekistani authorities to fully respect human rights and stop torture by its authorities.
EUROPE
European sanctions imposed on Uzbekistan after the 2005 mass killings in Andizhan were lifted in 2008 and 2009, revoking travel bans and allowing arms sales to resume despite no one being held to account for the killings. The last time EU foreign ministers even put Uzbekistan’s human rights record on the agenda was in October 2010.
Germany in particular has close military ties with Uzbekistan. In November 2014 it renewed a lease for an airbase in Termez to provide support to German troops in Afghanistan. On 2 March 2015, Germany and Uzbekistan agreed a €2.8 billion investment and trade package.
The attitude of Uzbekistan’s international partners to the routine use of torture appears at best ambivalent, and at worst silent to the point of complicity. The USA describes its engagement with Uzbekistan as a policy of “strategic patience”, but it is perhaps better described as strategic indulgence. The USA, Germany, and the EU should immediately demand that Uzbekistan clean up its act and stop torture.
John Dalhuisen, Europe and Central Asia Director, Amnesty International
USA
In January 2012, the US government waived restrictions on military aid to Uzbekistan originally imposed in 2004, due in part to the country’s human rights record. This year the military relationship between the two countries strengthened significantly with the implementation of a new five-year plan for military cooperation.
In December 2014, the US Assistant Secretary of State for Central Asia, Nisha Biswal, said Washington exercised “strategic patience” in relations with Uzbekistan.
“The attitude of Uzbekistan’s international partners to the routine use of torture appears at best ambivalent, and at worst silent to the point of complicity. The USA describes its engagement with Uzbekistan as a policy of “strategic patience”, but it is perhaps better described as strategic indulgence. The USA, Germany, and the EU should immediately demand that Uzbekistan clean up its act and stop torture,” said John Dalhuisen.
“The international ban on torture is absolute and immediate. Yet while Germany and the USA foster closer ties with Uzbekistan, people are being snatched up by police, tortured into confessing to trumped-up charges, and subjected to unfair trials. As long as Uzbekistan uses torture-tainted evidence in court, it will remain a torture-tainted ally.”
Torture endemic in Uzbekistan’s criminal justice system
Amnesty International’s report is compiled from more than 60 interviews conducted between 2013-2015 and evidence gathered over 23 years. It lifts the lid on the use of sound-proof torture cells with padded walls used by the secret police, the Uzbekistani National Security Service (SNB), and documents the continued use of underground torture cells in police stations.
The police and secret police use horrific techniques, including asphyxiation, rape, electric shocks, exposure to extreme heat and cold, and deprivation of sleep, food and water. The report also documents elaborate, prolonged beatings delivered by groups of people, including other prisoners.
One man, who was never told the reason for his arrest, described what happened after he was taken to the basement of a police station in the early hours of the morning:
“I was in handcuffs with my hands behind my back … There were two police officers beating me, kicking me, using batons, I lost consciousness. They beat me everywhere, on my head, kidneys… When I lost consciousness they would throw water on me to wake me up and beat me again.”
Security forces targeting entire families
The report documents widespread use of torture and other ill-treatment, with victims including government critics, religious groups, migrant workers and business people. The authorities sometimes also target victims’ extended families.
Zuhra, a former detainee, told Amnesty International how security forces targeted her entire family, most of whom remain in detention today. She was regularly called to report to the local police station, where she was detained and beaten to punish her for being a member of an “extremist family” and force her to reveal the whereabouts of male relatives, or to incriminate them. She said:
“There is no peace in our house. We wake up in the morning and if there is a car in front of our door, our hearts beat faster… There are no men left in our house. There are not even any grandchildren left.”
Arbitrary brutality in an unaccountable justice system
New testimony received by Amnesty International exposes the institutionalized use of torture and other ill-treatment to elicit confessions and incriminating evidence about other suspects.
People are often tried using evidence extracted from torture. Judges extort bribes for lenient sentencing and the police and secret police use the threat of torture to demand huge bribes from detainees and prisoners.
Turkish businessman, Vahit Güneş, was accused of economic crimes including tax evasion and connection to a banned Islamic movement, charges which he denies. He was held for 10 months in secret police detention, where he says he was tortured until he signed a false confession. He was tortured again when the secret police wanted to extort several million US dollars from his family in exchange for his release.
The response he received when he asked for a lawyer illustrates the unfair and arbitrary nature of Uzbekistan’s justice system:
“One of the prosecutors said: ‘Vahit Güneş pull yourself together. In the whole history of the SNB no one has been brought here and found innocent and released. Everyone who is brought here is found guilty. They have to plead guilty.’”
Vahit Güneş described the dehumanizing conditions, psychological intimidation, beatings and sexual humiliation of detention:
“You are not a human being anymore. They give you a number there. Your name is not valid there anymore. For instance my number was 79. I was not Vahit Güneş there anymore, I was 79. You are not a human being. You have become a number.”
“You are not a human being anymore. They give you a number there. Your name is not valid there anymore. For instance my number was 79. I was not Vahit Güneş there anymore, I was 79. You are not a human being. You have become a number.”
Vahit Güneş, torture survivor
Torture continues unabated and unpunished since 1992
Although torture is against the law in Uzbekistan, it is rarely punished. Even the government’s own figures show the scale of impunity for torture, with only 11 police officers convicted under Uzbekistani law from 2010-2013.
During this time 336 complaints of torture were officially registered, of which just 23 cases were prosecuted and six taken to trial. To make matters worse, the authorities charged with investigating those complaints are often the same ones accused of torture, severely limiting the likelihood that victims will ever receive justice and reparations.
Amnesty International is calling on President Islam Karimov to publically condemn the use of torture. The authorities should also establish an independent system for inspections of all detention centres and ensure that confessions and other evidence obtained by torture or other ill-treatment are never used in court.
Background
This report is the fourth in a series of five different country reports, after Mexico, Nigeria and the Philippines, to be released as part of Amnesty International’s global Stop Torture campaign, launched by Amnesty International in May 2014. In the past five years alone, Amnesty International has reported on torture and other ill-treatment in 141 countries.
15 April 2015, 11:00 UTC
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Find the report here
Copyright Amnesty International

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Four men broke into Yusuf’s apartment in the Uzbek capital of Tashkent in July 2009 and started beating him, before putting him in handcuffs and taking him to the local police station. Yusuf says this was not the first time he was attacked and detained, but on this occasion he was questioned by officers for three days, who took a long baton to his head and used a plastic bag to suffocate him.
He refused to sign a confession saying that he’d plotted to overthrow Uzbekistan’s constitutional order, but was ultimately convicted in court on drug charges and slapped with a fine.
Yusuf’s story of torture and abuse at the hands of Uzbek authorities is just one of 60 testimonies compiled in a damning report out on Wednesday from Amnesty International alleging that “rampant torture” is an integral part of the justice system in the Central Asian country.
The organization slammed the US and European Union (EU), claiming they are turning a blind eye to “endemic torture” in Uzbekistan — pinning this ambivalence on the country’s role as an ally in the War on Terror.
“Uzbekistani people are routinely and systematically tortured there, it’s a regime that uses torture flat out, straight up, with no nuance,” Julia Hall, Amnesty’s expert on counter-terrorism and human rights, who led the two year investigation, told VICE News.
Related: The toxic Uzbek town and its museum of banned Soviet art. Read more here.
Beatings, asphyxiation, needles inserted under finger or toenails, electric shocks, and rape are some of the torture techniques allegedly employed by President Islam Karimov’s regime that were highlighted by the human rights organization. The head of state has been in power since 1990, months before the country — which shares its southern border with Afghanistan — declared its independence from the Soviet Union.
Authorities also reportedly use various psychological approaches, including intimidating detainees awaiting charges in detention centers with dogs. A letter given to Amnesty last year describes one inmate’s torture experience after being beaten in his kidneys, legs, and face.
“I was in such pain, I was cold and naked, I thought I would not survive. On the third day, when I asked one of the officers to give me something to drink, he marched me from the basement [to the courtyard], tied me to a dog kennel, pointed to the dog’s feeding bowl and said: ‘If you want to eat and drink, help yourself,'” the letter reads. “He left me tied to the kennel. I stand, next to me sits a hound and every time I move it starts barking, so that I don’t dare move.”
Uzbekistan has long been criticized for its human rights abuses, with Human Rights Watch calling the country’s record “atrocious.” Hall told VICE News that anyone who criticizes the government becomes a target. Free speech is heavily curtailed, with activists and journalists often caught in up in the mix. Muhammad Bekzhanov, the editor-in-chief of an opposition party newspaper, has been in prison since 1999, making him one of the longest-imprisoned journalists globally.
While accusations against Karimov’s regime are nothing new, Hall said that the boost to global anti-terrorism efforts has given it a new feel. According to her, human rights abuses and the crackdown on people in Uzbekistan has been severe in the past few years, as Muslims and others have been labeled terrorists and subsequently targeted.
Related: Reporters without borders unblocks censored news sites. Read more here.
“It was kind of under a new frame after 9/11, governments like Uzbekistan in Central Asia, and governments all over the world could invoke national security at rogue under the veil of terrorism,” Hall added. “Other governments saw Uzbekistan as an ally in the War on Terror, and were less inclined to criticize the Uzbek government for human rights violations.”
In the last decade, a series of countries around the world have lifted a series of sanctions against the regime. After the 2005 Andijan Massacre — during which authorities killed hundreds of protesters — the EU imposed sanctions on Uzbekistan, including bans on arms sales and travel. These measures, however, were pulled in 2008 and 2009.
A 2004 US ban on military aid was revoked in 2012. Up until 2005 the US maintained a base near the country’s border with Afghanistan. The Tashkent regime pulled the plug in 2005, but allows the government to move goods for humanitarian purposes through Uzbekistan.
The US State Department qualifies Uzbekistan as an authoritarian state, outlining human rights problems in a 2013 report, listing issues including torture, harassment of religious minorities, and denial of due process or a fair trial. The report also highlights violence against women, prolonged detentions, and life-threatening prison conditions.
According to Hall, foreign governments have been cautious in their approach to Uzbekistan, in what she said is an attempt to keep the country on their side, especially as it will be a key ally as the war in Afghanistan appears to come to a close.
At the same time, Uzbekistan has cracked down in the face of the Islamic State’s violent campaign in Iraq and Syria. While no official estimates exist for the number of Uzbek fighters in the group’s self-declared caliphate, the government — along with others in Central Asia — recently raised concerns about the threat of the group entering the country. Plus, as Hall notes, the country’s citizens have a history of traveling to foreign wars, like in the case of Bosnia and Chechnya.
“It’s not a new phenomenon, but the rise of the Islamic State is a new threat,” she explained. “[But] we weren’t really looking at armed groups trying to establish a caliph, so you’re looking at something quite different in ISIS. The threat is real but there is no threat that can ever justify torture.”
Moving forward, Amnesty is asking Karimov to condemn the use of torture. The rights group is also asking the US and EU member countries to bring human rights and torture into discussions with officials. Hill noted that the United Nations is also in the country.
“We have asked them to make sure in every meeting they have with Uzbek authorities that human rights are on the table, we’re not even sure human rights are on the agenda,” She said. “They cannot go into total isolation, they are part of international community, but the reality is there is no pressure to clean up.”
By Kayla Ruble
April 16, 2015 | 2:05 pm
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UN peacekeepers guilty of sex crimes have long been treated with impunity, cementing a long-standing problem. The organisation must get its house in order
Appalled by horrific descriptions of sexual abuse by UN peacekeeping forces, the organisation’s secretary general spoke passionately about the need to stop such crimes in its ranks.
“We cannot rest,” he said, “until we have rooted out all such practices. And we must make sure that those involved are held fully accountable.”
These words sound very much like the ones spoken by the UN secretary general Ban Ki-moon last week in response to reports of sexual abuse by peacekeepers in Central African Republic (CAR).
But they were spoken more than a decade ago. It was a previous secretary general, Kofi Annan, who first pledged to eliminate the scourge of sexual abuse from the UN.
Sexual exploitation by UN peacekeepers remains ‘significantly under-reported’
Read more
Annan, to his credit, did more than just deplore the problem: he announced a zero-tolerance policy, commissioned a seminal report on the issue, and helped the UN to institute several reforms.
Yet the sex abuse scandals have continued. Earlier this month, Amnesty International found credible evidence that a UN peacekeeper in CAR sexually assaulted a 12-year-old girl during a 2am search of her family’s home. The girl says he dragged her out to a secluded part of the courtyard, slapped her when she began to cry, tore her clothing, and raped her. Her claims are supported by medical evidence.
On Wednesday, the UN revealed more allegations of abuse of girls or young women by peacekeepers in CAR.
In response to the earlier revelations, Ban sacked the head of the peacekeeping mission in the country and called an emergency meeting of the UN security council to address the matter.
Heads do not often roll at the UN. The public spectacle of one of their own being forced to resign must have been unedifying for UN peacekeeping chiefs elsewhere. At a minimum, though, it should encourage increased vigilance of the sexual abuse problem.
Sadly, it has become crystal clear over the past two decades that CAR is not the only country where sexual crimes have been carried out by the very individuals charged with protecting the local population from harm. The list of countries in which cases of sexual abuse and exploitation by UN peacekeepers have been reported is now quite long, with abuse apparently systemic in some.
In Haiti, for example, a recent study (pdf) found that members of the UN peacekeeping mission engaged in “transactional sex” with at least 229 women in exchange for necessities like food and medication. The same study said that between 2008 and 2013, nearly 500 allegations of sexual exploitation and abuse had been made against UN peacekeeping personnel, one-third of which involved minors.
In his resignation letter, the head of the UN mission in CAR alluded to the possibility that sexual abuse by peacekeeping forces might be a “systemic problem” requiring a structural response. This is certainly the case.
At the root of the problem is impunity: almost none of those suspected of criminal responsibility for crimes of sexual violence face a real threat of criminal prosecution for their crimes. At the UN, many cases do not receive a thorough and immediate investigation. But even if a UN inquiry finds a suspect responsible for rape, there are almost no consequences.
Typically, the alleged perpetrator is sent back home and the case ends there. Because of questionable rules regarding peacekeeper immunity, the onus is generally on the troop-contributing country to undertake prosecutions. They rarely, if ever, do so.
India was recently in the news for punishing a few of its soldiers for sexual abuses that took place in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, but those were military disciplinary measures, not criminal sanctions. And the number of cases bore no relation to the magnitude of the incidents.
A much more aggressive approach to justice for such crimes is needed. Concrete and effective preventive measures must be instituted. Accountability must be made real and public, not just theoretical. Countries need to feel meaningful pressure to bring sexual abuse cases before their civilian courts; if they fail to do so, they need to be publicly outed. There has to be follow-up and transparency.
Because accountability starts from within, the UN should take a critical look at its own failures in dealing with sexual abuse. It has already taken a step in that direction by setting up a review panel to examine its handling of allegations of sexual exploitation and abuse in CAR. Either that panel’s mandate and powers should be expanded, or its work should be followed by a more comprehensive, investigative assessment of the UN’s response to sexual exploitation and abuse allegations.
As Ban has said, “enough is enough”. After years of discussion, promises and strategies, the UN must solve the problem of sexual abuse by peacekeepers, once and for all.
Joanne Mariner
Thursday 20 August 2015 12.27 BST Last modified on Tuesday 25 August 2015 17.03 BST
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© 2015 Guardian News and Media Limited

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Three more accusations levelled against peacekeepers in CAR a week after Ban Ki-Moon asked UN head of mission to resign.
UN peacekeepers earlier had been accused of sexually abusing children in Bangui and in the eastern part of the country [AP]
Three young females, including a minor, have accused United Nations peacekeepers of raping them in the Central African Republic, the global body has announced, taking the number of allegations to 13 since the UN stationed troops in the country in September.
The announcement on Wednesday comes a week after Ban Ki-Moon, UN secretary-general, removed the head of the peacekeeping mission in CAR over the handling of a series of similar allegations in the conflict-wracked country.
Vannina Maestracci, spokesperson for the secretary general’s office, told reporters that families of the three young females made the allegations on August 12 and that the alleged rapes occurred in “recent weeks”.
Similarly, a statement from the peacekeeping mission said UN headquarters was “immediately informed” of the allegations and that it was collecting “all available evidence”.
The alleged rapes occurred in the city of Bambari, where peacekeepers from the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) are stationed.
The CAR is still battling daily clashes between rival militias in the country’s hinterlands [Reuters]
Congo’s UN ambassador, Ignace Gata Mavita wa Lufuta, told The Associated Press news agency that three members of Congo’s military have been accused and that he had just met with UN officials about looking into the allegations.
He didn’t address the allegations but said it’s “not normal” that vulnerable people would be victims of those meant to protect them.
Congo’s troops serve in no other UN peacekeeping missions, and its nearly 900 troops were accepted into the mission in CAR at a time when few countries were volunteering people to serve in the chaotic country, which has been ripped by unprecedented violence between Christians and Muslims.
Last August, the New York-based Watchlist on Children and Armed Conflict said Congo’s troops, which were already in the country as part of an African Union mission, should be excluded from the UN mission.
The advocacy network pointed out that Congo’s armed forces have been noted in Ban’s annual report on conflict-related sexual violence. They were included again this year.
Last week, following the removal of the head of the CAR peacekeeping mission, Ban met with the Security Council and the heads of all UN peacekeeping missions to discuss new measures to swiftly investigate alleged sexual assaults and hold peacekeepers accountable.
Ban’s actions came after Amnesty International accused UN peacekeepers in CAR’s capital this month of indiscriminately killing a 16-year-old boy and his father and, in a separate incident, of raping a 12-year-old girl.
Related: Are UN peacekeepers doing more harm than good?
UN peacekeepers earlier had been accused of sexually abusing children in Bangui and in the eastern part of the country.
The peacekeeping mission is also being investigated over how it handled child sexual abuse allegations against French troops last year, in which children as young as nine said they had traded sex for food.
Maestracci, the UN spokeswoman, said that so far, the peacekeeping mission has received 13 allegations of possible sexual abuse and exploitation since UN troops began arriving last year.
Under an agreement with the UN, countries have the sole responsibility to prosecute their troops taking part in peacekeeping missions, but if they take no action to investigate, the UN can step in. Even then, the UN only has the power to repatriate troops and suspend payments to countries for troops who are accused.
In at least one case of alleged sexual abuse or exploitation by a peacekeeper in CAR, a country repatriated its accused citizen, the UN said.
20 Aug 2015 08:33 GMT
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Copyright http://www.aljazeera.com

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The United Nations’ (UN’s) troubled peacekeeping mission in Central African Republic has been hit with new allegations of rape by peacekeepers, including one underage victim, a UN spokesperson said on Wednesday. Last week the head of the Central African Republic (CAR) mission, known as MINUSCA, was sacked after a series of allegations of sexual abuse and excessive use of force by peacekeepers. MINUSCA chief Babacar Gaye was replaced by Parfait Onanga-Anyanga, who was named the mission’s acting chief. “A new series of disturbing allegations of misconduct have recently come to light,” UN spokesperson Vannina Maestracci told reporters. “The events allegedly took place in recent weeks,” she said. “These new allegations concern a report that three young females were raped by three members of a MINUSCA military contingent.” She said one of the women was a minor and the incident occurred in Bambari, where troops from the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) are deployed. The allegations were reported to MINUSCA’s human rights division on August 12 by the families of the three women, Maestracci said. UN sources, speaking on condition of anonymity, confirmed to Reuters that the accused troops were from DRC. The sources said the United Nations in New York was made aware of the allegations on August 17 and the Congolese authorities the same day. “The troop contributing country has been asked to indicate within 10 days if it intends to investigate the allegations itself,” Maestracci said. “Should the member state decline to investigate or fail to respond the United Nations would rapidly conduct its own investigation.” MINUSCA has been asked to preserve all evidence. Maestracci said that since its establishment in April 2014, MINUSCA has received 61 allegations of possible misconduct. That includes 13 cases of possible sexual exploitation and abuse. She said that so far two UN police officers and four soldiers have been repatriated on disciplinary grounds, which is in addition to 20 soldiers who were sent home “on administrative grounds” for suspected excessive use of force pending the conclusion of an investigation.Allegations of misconduct by UN troops are not new. UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon has vowed to crack down on abuse and misconduct by peacekeepers and is pushing to ensure greater transparency and accountability by governments of those found guilty of such behavior.
Edited by Reuters
Find this story at 20 August 2015
Copyright http://www.polity.org.za/

Justitie op Justitie en Veiligheid

Er zijn in tien jaar tijd maar liefst 277.726 ID-boetes uitgeschreven. Van alle boetes zijn er uiteindelijk 135.188 betaald hetgeen de overheid rond de 6 miljoen euro heeft opgeleverd.

In het najaar van 2007 publiceerde Buro Jansen & Janssen een informatiekrant over de toepassing van de Wet op de Uitgebreide Identificatieplicht (WUID) die 1 januari 2005 werd ingevoerd. In de publicatie kwamen uiteenlopende verhalen aan bod van burgers waaruit duidelijk werd dat de WUID op grove wijze door de politie wordt ingezet. Sommige dagbladen kopten naar aanleiding van de J&J-krant dat de overheid miljoenen binnensleept aan opgelegde boetes vanwege het niet dragen/tonen van de ID-kaart. Zo zou op basis van de cijfers over 2005 de overheid 1,3 miljoen euro hebben verdiend aan ID-boetes.

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TERRORISM is increasing. According to the Global Terrorism Database at the University of Maryland, groups connected with Al Qaeda and the Islamic State committed close to 200 attacks per year between 2007 and 2010, a number that grew by more than 200 percent, to about 600 attacks, in 2013.
Since 9/11, the study of terrorism has also increased. Now, you might think that more study would lead to more effective antiterrorism policies and thus to less terrorism. But on the face of it, this does not seem to be happening. What has gone wrong?
The answer is that we have not been conducting the right kind of studies. According to a 2008 review of terrorism literature in the journal Psicothema, only 3 percent of articles from peer-reviewed sources appeared to be rooted in empirical analysis, and in general there was an “almost complete absence of evaluation research” concerning antiterrorism strategies.
The situation cries out for the techniques of prevention science. For a given problem (like terrorism), prevention science identifies key risk factors (like alienation), develops interventions to modify those risk factors (like programs to promote positive relations with the dominant culture) and tests those interventions through randomized trials. Using this methodology, scientists have identified interventions that effectively prevent problems as diverse as antisocial behavior, depression, schizophrenia, cigarette smoking, alcohol and drug abuse, academic failure, teenage pregnancy, marital discord and poverty.
Jon Baron, who leads the Coalition for Evidence-Based Policy, which advocates for the use of randomized trials to evaluate government programs, reports that his organization has been able to identify only two experimental evaluations of antiterrorism strategies. One of them, a field experiment reported in a paper from a World Bank office in 2012, randomly assigned 500 Afghan villages to receive a development aid program either in 2007 or after 2011. The aid program had significant positive effects on economic outcomes, villagers’ attitudes toward the government and villagers’ perceptions of security. The aid program also reduced the number of security incidents, though that effect was not maintained after the program ended and was observed only in villages that were relatively secure before the program began.
Thus the study found an unequivocal but limited benefit of an aid program in reducing insurgent violence. I say “unequivocal” because randomizing villages to receive or not receive the aid made it extremely unlikely that differences in attitudes and security resulted from anything other than the aid program itself.
The second study was published last year in The Economic Journal. The researchers randomly assigned neighborhoods and villages in Nigeria to have, or not have, a campaign to reduce pre-election violence. The campaign made use of town meetings, theater and house-to-house distribution of material. The study found that the campaign increased empowerment to counteract violence and voter turnout, and reduced both perceptions of violence and the intensity of violence.
Imagine how much more we would know about the prevention of terrorism if even a small proportion of the hundreds of antiterrorism efforts implemented worldwide in the past 15 years had been properly evaluated. As it is, we can say almost nothing about their efficacy. Do we know whether drones are increasing or decreasing the rate of terrorists’ attacks? Whether our current surveillance activities are thwarting more terrorists than they are radicalizing young people?
In 2012, the National Institute of Justice (the research arm of the Department of Justice) began a program to study domestic radicalization. Over the first three years it has funded nearly $9 million in research. While the studies underway will undoubtedly contribute to our understanding of the risk factors that contribute to radicalization, none of the projects funded thus far are adequately evaluating a strategy to prevent radicalization.
One of the projects, for example, is an effort to increase awareness of risk factors for radicalization as well as civic-minded responses to them among members of the Muslim community. The program’s impact will be assessed by comparing outcomes for those who never participate, those who participate once and those who participate multiple times. If the project finds that those who participated multiple times were less radicalized than those who never participated, you might be inclined to conclude that the program is working. But experience from evaluation research over many years has taught us that such a difference could just as likely be because those who were less inclined to become radical were more likely to participate.
The only way to really be confident that it is the program that is making the difference is to randomly assign some people to get it and others not. That way any differences are very unlikely to be caused by pre-existing differences between the two groups.
Estimates of the cost of the war on terror have varied between one and five trillion dollars. Surely we can invest a tiny fraction of that in improving our antiterrorism strategies through rigorous experimental evaluations.
Correction: March 15, 2015
The Gray Matter feature last Sunday misstated an estimate for the growth in the annual number of attacks by groups connected with Al Qaeda and the Islamic State. It was more than 200 percent, not more than 300 percent.
MARCH 6, 2015
By ANTHONY BIGLAN
Find this story at 6 March 2015
© 2015 The New York Times Company

Dupont op Justitie en Veiligheid

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Dupont op Justitie en Veiligheid

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