Category: Legal Judicial

The first surprise, for the Finnish conscripts and officers taking part in a NATO-hosted military exercise in the Arctic this spring: the sudden roar of a U.S. Marine helicopter assault force, touching down in a field right next to the Finns’ well-hidden command post.

The second surprise: Spilling out of their field headquarters, the Finnish Signal Corps communications workers and others inside routed the U.S. Marines — the Finns’ designated adversary in the NATO exercise and members of America’s professional and premier expeditionary force — in the mock firefight that followed.

Finnish camouflage for the Arctic snow, scrub and scree likely had kept the Americans from even realizing the command post was there when they landed, Finnish commander Lt. Col. Mikko Kuoka suspected.

“For those who years from now will doubt it,” Kuoka wrote in an infantry-focused blog of an episode he later confirmed for The Associated Press, “That actually happened.”

As the exercise made clear, NATO’s addition of Finland and Sweden — what President Joe Biden calls “our allies of the high north” — would bring military and territorial advantages to the Western defense alliance. That’s especially so as the rapid melting of the Arctic from climate change awakens strategic rivalries at the top of the world.

Sophisticated partners

In contrast to the NATO expansion of former Soviet states that needed big boosts in the decades after the Cold War, the alliance would be bringing in two sophisticated militaries and, in Finland’s case, a country with a remarkable tradition of national defense. Both Finland and Sweden are in a region on one of Europe’s front lines and meeting places with Russia.

Finland, defending against Soviet Russia’s invasion on the eve of World War II, relied on fighters on snowshoes and skis, expert snow and forest camouflage, and reindeers transporting weapons.

Russian President Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine in late February, along with his pointed reminder about the Kremlin’s nuclear arsenal and his repeated invocation of broad territorial claims stemming from the days of the Russian Empire, have galvanized current NATO nations into strengthening their collective defenses and bringing on board new members.

Finland — until 1917 a grand duchy in that empire — and Sweden abandoned longtime national policies of military nonalignment. They applied to come under NATO’s nuclear and conventional umbrella and join 30 other member states in a powerful mutual defense pact, stipulating that an attack on one member is an attack on all.

Putin justified his invasion of West-looking Ukraine as pushing back against NATO and the West as, he said, they encroached ever closer on Russia. A NATO that includes Finland and Sweden would come as an ultimate rebuke for Putin’s war, empowering the defensive alliance in a strategically important region, surrounding Russia in the Baltic Sea and Arctic Ocean, and crowding NATO up against Russia’s western border for more than 1,300 kilometers (800 miles).

“I spent four years, my term, trying to persuade Sweden and Finland to join NATO,” former NATO secretary-general Lord George Robertson said this summer. “Vladimir Putin managed it in four weeks.”

Biden has been part of bipartisan U.S. and international cheerleading for the two countries’ candidacies. Reservations expressed by Turkey and Hungary keep NATO approval from being a lock.

Russia in recent years has been “rearming up in the north, with advanced nuclear weapons, hypersonic missiles and multiple bases,” NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg said this month. “Russia’s threats, and Russia’s military build-up, mean that NATO is strengthening its presence in the north.’

Finland and Sweden would bring a lot to that mix. But they’re not without flaws.

Both countries downsized their militaries, cut defense funding and closed bases after the collapse of the Soviet Union lulled Cold War-era fears. As of just five years ago, Sweden’s entire national defense force could fit into one of Stockholm’s soccer stadiums, a critic noted.

But as Putin grew more confrontational, Sweden reinstated conscription and otherwise moved to rebuild its military. Sweden has a capable navy and a high-tech air force. Like Finland, Sweden has a valued homegrown defense industry; Sweden is one of the smallest countries in the world to build its own fighter jets.

Finnish Winter War

Finland’s defense force, meanwhile, is the stuff of legend.

In 1939 and 1940, Finland’s tiny, miserably equipped forces, fighting alone in what became known as the Winter War, made the nation one of few to survive a full-on assault by the Soviet Union with independence intact. Over the course of an exceptionally, deathly cold winter, Finnish fighters, sometimes cloaked in white bedsheets for camouflage and typically moving unseen on foot, snowshoes and skis, lost some territory to Russia but forced out the invaders.

Finns were responsible for up to 200,000 fatalities among invading forces versus an estimated 25,000 Finns lost, said Iskander Rehman, a fellow at Johns Hopkins’ Henry A. Kissinger Center for Global Affairs.

It helped fuel a Finnish national credo of “sisu,” or grit. Finnish Winter War veterans were recruited for the U.S. Army’s winter warfare training, Rehman noted.

Finland’s constitution makes rallying to the national defense an obligation of every citizen. Finland says it can muster a 280,000-strong fighting force, built on near-universal male conscription and a large, well-trained reserve, equipped with modern artillery, warplanes and tanks, much of it U.S.

The U.S. and NATO are likely to increase their presence around the Baltic and Arctic with the accession of the two Scandinavian countries.

“Just looking at the map, if you add in Finland and Sweden, you essentially turn the entire Baltic Sea into a NATO lake,” with just two smaller bits of Russia lining it, said Zachary Selden, a former director of the NATO Parliamentary Assembly’s defense and security committee who is now a national security expert at the University of Florida.

Likewise, Russia will become the only non-NATO member among countries with claims to Arctic territory, and the only non-NATO member of the Atlantic Council, an eight-member international forum created for Arctic issues.

Selden predicts a greater NATO presence in the Baltics as a result, perhaps with a new NATO regional command, along with U.S. military rotations, although likely not any permanent base.

Russia sees its military presence in the Arctic as vital to its European strategy, including ballistic missile submarines that give it second-strike capability in any conflict with NATO, analysts say.

The Arctic is warming much faster under climate change than the Earth as a whole, opening up competition for Arctic resources and access as Arctic ice vanishes.

Russia has been building its fleet of nuclear-powered icebreakers, aiming to escort expected future commercial shipping traffic through the melting Arctic, “as a way to create this toll road for transit,’ said Sherri Goodman, a former U.S. first deputy undersecretary of defense, now at the Wilson Center’s Polar Institute and at the Center for Climate & Security.

Goodman points to future threats NATO will need to be able to deal with as the melting Arctic opens up, such as the kind of shadowy, unofficial forces Russia has used in Crimea and in Africa and elsewhere, and the increased risk of a hard-to-handle Russian nuclear maritime accident.

NATO strategy increasingly will incorporate the strategic advantage Finland and Sweden would bring to such scenarios, analysts said.

Source: Voice of America

Governance Issues Should Be Addressed In Any Bailout

Egypt is seeking a new loan from the International Monetary Fund (IMF) to address the fallout from a sharp increase in prices that has had devastating impacts on people’s economic rights.

Recent IMF loans to Egypt, worth a combined US$20 billion, introduced a number of economic policy changes that increased the cost of living for low-income people while doing little to address structural problems, including a lack of transparency, the erosion of the independence of key state institutions including the judiciary, and the military’s heavy-handed involvement in the economy, which is shielded from civilian oversight.

Will this time be different and prioritize the human rights of Egypt’s citizens?

Last month, Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi appealed to “friends in Europe” to support him in telling international financial institutions (IFI) including the IMF that “the situation in our country does not tolerate the applicable standards at this stage.” The question is: which standards is al-Sisi seeking to evade?

At the press conference, al-Sisi defended the scope of government subsidies and warned against allowing the public to bear the consequences of the economic crisis, saying if prices continued to rise significantly it “will have serious repercussions on stability.” This suggests he may be resisting calls to further reduce subsidies that Egypt still maintains on fuel and food, both of which the government recently reduced, partly in the context of an IMF loan program. While al-Sisi’s apparent interest in protecting the public from the crisis is at odds with his history of implementing economic policies that chiefly benefit the elite, it is never too late to press back against IMF-driven policy changes that would further burden low-income people.

Reducing subsidies without first vastly expanding social protection could imperil the economic rights of millions of people. In a positive step, on July 26, Egypt’s Ministry of Solidarity announced temporary relief measures including cash transfers for 9.1 million low-income families, as well as an expansion of the two main cash transfer programs, Takaful and Karama, from 4.1 million to 5 million families. However, this still leaves a huge segment of the population unprotected from the crisis and the added burden of potential additional IMF-mandated measures that raise the prices of economic necessities.

Moreover, al-Sisi may be asking for help to evade a different set of IFI standards altogether. European governments should not help Egypt continue to avoid IMF efforts to address governance problems, such as the opaque economic dealings of the military and the erosion of the rule of law, which is critical for ensuring basic economic rights like the right to food. That the government is once again asking for a bailout after the IMF and other institutions have been pouring money into its economy for years makes it clear that until these problems are addressed, the IMF is pouring sand into a sieve.

Source: Human Rights Watch

Exiled Chadian rebel leader Timan Erdimi has returned to the country after a decade in exile in Qatar for talks aiming to pave the way for democratic elections. But boycotts by rebel and opposition groups remain major hurdles.

Erdimi, now 67, returned Thursday, ahead of Saturday’s anticipated landmark talk in N’Djamena, Chad’s capital. Erdimi, who heads the Union of Resistance Forces — widely known as UFR — is accused of leading an armed group that attempted to twice overthrow the Chadian government, in 2008 and 2019.

Comprising at least 40 rebel groups, Erdimi’s UFR signed a peace agreement on August 8 in Doha for talks that would pave the way for elections after 18 months of military rule in Chad.

But two of the biggest rebel groups are boycotting the negotiations forum. Agence France-Presse has reported that the two groups — Front for Change and Concord in Chad — triggered the 2021 offensive in northeastern Chad that killed longtime leader Idriss Deby Itno. The groups claim the forum is politically biased.

The upcoming talks also are expected to bring together 1,400 delegates from the military government, civil society opposition parties, and trade unions.

According to General Mahamat Idriss Deby, president of Chad’s transitional military council, the talks provide a chance for reconciliation in the fractured country.

The junta’s 18-month window for transition to democracy expires in October — a deadline that France, the African Union and other stakeholders have urged the president to uphold.

Source: Voice of America

Army Commander, General Joseph Aoun, on Thursday received at his Yarzeh office, the Director of Middle East and North Africa of the Foreign Office of the Federal Republic of Germany Dr. Tobias Tunkel, accompanied by German Ambassador to Lebanon Andreas Kindl, and the Embassy’s Military Attaché Lt. Col. Heino Matzken.

A cooperation agreement with the army was signed during the meeting.

On the other hand, Maj. General Aoun met with Head of International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) Delegation for Lebanon, Simone Casabianca Aeschlimann.

The army commander also met with MP Assad Dergham.

Source: National News Agency

The European Union is planning a five-fold increase in financial support to an African military mission in Mozambique, an internal EU document shows, as Islamist attacks threaten gas projects meant to reduce the EU’s reliance on Russian energy.

The energy squeeze due to the Ukraine war has added impetus to Europe’s scramble for gas off Mozambique’s northern coast, where Western oil firms are planning to build a massive liquefied natural gas (LNG) terminal.

The move also comes as the West seeks to counter Russian and Chinese influence in the southern African nation, three years after Russian private military firm Wagner withdrew most of its forces following a string of defeats by Islamist militants.

Mozambique has been grappling with militants linked to the Islamic State in its northernmost gas-rich province of Cabo Delgado since 2017, near LNG projects worth billions of dollars.

A southern African military mission and a separate intervention by troops from Rwanda have between them managed to contain the militants’ spread since being deployed last year.

But “the situation remains very volatile and smaller-scale violent attacks have continued in various districts,” the EU document dated Aug. 10 said.

The paper prepared by the European External Action Service (EEAS), the EU’s de facto foreign ministry, recommends 15 million euros ($15.3 million) of EU funding to 2024 for the mission of the Southern African Development Community’s (SADC), a bloc of 16 African nations of which half a dozen sent troops to Mozambique.

The mission is expected to be extended for six or twelve months at a SADC summit in Kinshasa starting on Wednesday, according to the document, which adds that EU support for the Rwandan mission would also be proposed in the coming months.

An EU spokesperson confirmed additional financial support to the SADC mission had been proposed, but declined to comment further as the matter was still being discussed by EU governments.

The proposal needs the backing of the 27 EU governments, whose military experts are scheduled to hold a regular meeting on Aug. 25.

A SADC official also confirmed a request for EU support, but added SADC countries would continue to provide key financial support to the mission.

French oil giant Total TTEF.PA is leading an international consortium to extract gas off north Mozambique’s shores and liquefy it at an LNG plant under construction, from where it would be exported to Europe and Asia.

Gas projects threatened

Mozambique has the third largest proven gas reserves in Africa, after Nigeria and Algeria. The EU fears that without support for the military interventions, Mozambique may again lose control of its restive north.

The Islamists have recently stepped up attacks.

The EU has already pledged to provide the country’s army with an additional 45 million euros ($45 million) of financial support, and has so far made available to the SADC mission 2.9 million euros of funding.

The fresh EU support would be limited to “equipment not designed to deliver lethal force,” including radars, mine detectors, boats and medical supplies, the EU document said, in spite of SADC’s needs for lethal material.

Despite delays caused by militant activity, Total still plans to begin production in 2024 from gas reserves estimated in trillions of cubic feet (tcf), more than the amount of gas the EU imports annually from Russia.

Italian oil firm ENI ENI.MI expects to begin shipments from a nearby offshore gas field this year, using a floating LNG terminal which can process only limited amounts of gas.

Other major oil firms, including U.S. giant ExxonMobil XOM.N are also operating in the region.

The funding is also meant to discourage local authorities from seeking help again from Russia, or from China.

The EU is also supporting the training of Mozambique military forces through its own defense mission in the country.

Source: Voice of America

Kenya’s tightly contested presidential election led to growing tensions between supporters of the two main candidates William Ruto the president-elect and Raila Odinga. Experts say claims of election fraud are likely to see the results challenged in court.

The losers of last week’s presidential election and any Kenyan citizen have seven days to file their petition at the Supreme Court.

The electoral commission chair announced William Ruto as the winner of last week’s presidential vote. He garnered 50.49% of the vote his main challenger Raila Odinga got 48.85%.

Odinga’s chief returning officer disagreed with the results and claimed their win was stolen.

It’s unclear whether Odinga will challenge the results at the Supreme Court, but the country’s law allows Kenyans to challenge the results and file their own petition.

Omwanza Ombati, an electoral law expert, says those who oppose the win can ask the court for directions and must be aware there is a limited time.

“The orders that are available for grant by the court are scrutiny and recount and also to nullify the return of William Ruto, president-elect. [It] is a very narrow petition in terms of what you can seek,” he said.

In Kenya, the petitioners have seven days to file their case at the Supreme Court, and the respondents have four days to answer those allegations. The court is required to make a ruling in two weeks.

Political commentator Martin Andati says the commission had its own flaws and some of the irregularities witnessed in the process will be laid out.

“The process has been fairly open,” he said. “There have been challenges, attempts to infiltrate the system, there have been claims of numbers being padded, there have been claims in some places you will hear some numbers they were supposed to be 10,000 but declared 1,000. So, those kinds of allegations will definitely come up and arise at the Supreme Court. So, the people who have the power and the mandate to resolve those issues are the Supreme Court.”

In 2017, the Supreme Court nullified the presidential results after a successful petition by Odinga.

There were protests and celebrations after the announcement of the presidential results.

There was also chaos at the electoral commission tallying center when the chief was about to announce the winner of the election. The election split the commission in four, disagreeing with the presidential results called out by the electoral chief.

Ombati says the division of the commission does not have a huge impact in terms of the law but damages the electoral body’s credibility and reputation.

“The presidential returning officer is the chairperson of the commission, and that sole responsibility is not shared among other commissioners. So, it’s him who makes the decision in terms of return, it’s him who signs the certificate of the winner. In terms of the split going by our history, it creates doubts in large parts of the population about what went on, remembering this was an election that was evenly split across the country. So, I think it aggravates the situation for those who do not believe in their loss,” he said.

Some observers say the electoral dispute and the division at the electoral agency have taken away from the gains Kenya made in its electoral reforms after the post-election violence of 2007-08, which led to deaths, displacement and inter-communal fighting.

The international observers have urged those aggrieved with the process to take the legal route and called on political leaders to calm their supporters as the process concludes.

Source: Voice of America

President Cyril Ramaphosa has today Tuesday, 16 August 2022, arrived in Kinshasa, Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) on a Working Visit to participate in the 42nd Ordinary Summit of the Southern African Development Community (SADC) Heads of State and Government.

Regional leaders are expected to deliberate on the region’s development under the theme “Promoting industrialisation through, agro-processing, mineral beneficiation, and regional value chains for inclusive and resilient economic growth”.

The theme underscores efforts to strengthen implementation of the SADC Regional Indicative Strategic Development Plan (RISDP) 2020–2030.

South Africa leverages SADC as its primary foreign policy vehicle for achieving regional development and integration within Southern Africa.

At the same time, SADC is guided by the SADC Vision 2050 and the Regional Indicative Strategic Development Plan (RISDP) (2020 – 2030), the Industrialisation Strategy and Roadmap, and the Regional Infrastructure Development Master Plan.

The SADC Summit will take place on 17 and 18 August 2022 at Palais du Peuple (Parliament Building) and SADC Member States will receive an update on progress made in the implementation of these strategic policies and previous Summit decisions, since the last meeting in August of 2021 held in Lilongwe Malawi.

Given the frequency of natural disasters in the region, the Summit is expected to adopt a Memorandum of Agreement on the establishment and operationalisation of the SADC Humanitarian and Emergency Operations Centre (SHOC) to be hosted in Mozambique.

In recognising the role played by non-state actors in this sector, the Summit will consider a proposed SADC Mechanism for Engagement with Non-State Actors.

This year’s Summit will also consider the status of ratification, accession and implementation of SADC Agreements and Protocols by member states.

The Summit will also deliberate on a proposed amendment to a protocol on the development of tourism in the region, as well as an amendment to the Treaty of the Southern African Development Community that entails recognition of the SADC Parliament as a SADC Institution.

President Ramaphosa, in his capacity as the outgoing Chair of the SADC Organ on Politics, Defence and Security Cooperation and Facilitator of the Lesotho Peace Process, will lead discussions of the SADC Organ Troika Summit, which is responsible for promoting peace and security in the region.

The Summit will be preceded by meetings of the Standing Committee of Senior Officials and the Finance Committee; the Council of Ministers, as well as a SADC Public Lecture and Organ Troika Summit.

During the Summit, President Félix Tshisekedi Tshilombo of the DRC will take over the chairpersonship of SADC from President Lazarus Chakwera of the Republic of Malawi.

Malawi assumed the Chair on 17th August 2021 during the 41st SADC Summit held in Lilongwe, Malawi.

President Ramaphosa is accompanied by Minister of International Relations and Cooperation, Dr Naledi Pandor; Minister in The Presidency, Mondli Gungubele; and Deputy Minister of Defence and Military Veterans, Thabang Makwetla.

Source: The Presidency Republic of South Africa

Digital authoritarianism is a growing global trend, yet there is little comparative data on how the phenomenon is playing out in different countries around the world. The Unfreedom Monitor is an initiative by Global Voices Advox to understand, map, and make comparisons on the phenomenon in different contexts, including Sudan. This paper explores the challenges that Sudanese people face in the digital space by studying the motives, methods, and tools of authoritarians and the responses of the people as they attempt to bypass digital authoritarianism.

The study combined the Global Voices’ Civic Media Observatory method with qualitative analysis of the contextual issues around digital authoritarianism to define the main contours of digital authoritarianism in Sudan. The paper finds that fear of accountability, fear of losing power, protection of private and family interests, protection of existing alliances, and other ideological reasons drive Sudanese autocrats to copy the techniques of authoritarians in other contexts

Many of the tools and methods deployed in Sudan are deployed to extinguish online activities. The methods are not limited to censorship, and disinformation, but also include coordinated inauthentic behaviour (CIB), revoking access, and enacting loose laws. The government also uses laws to enable digital authoritarianism and give its tactics the cover of legality. The government has access to all telecommunication infrastructure (data centers and offices), which threatens cyberspace safety and users’ privacy. Yet there is resistance. This research found that the citizens inside and outside Sudan used various methods to circumvent digital repression and defend themselves from the violence of the state, physically and in cyberspace.

Source: Global Voices