Amnesty International investigations revealed that 18 people were killed and dozens injured, despite military claims that the 2020 coup was bloodless. The organisation has listed several instances of fatal shots being fired by security forces, backed up by witness testimonies and statements from the United Nations Stabilization Mission in Mali (MINUSMA) (pictured here in this file photo). Courtesy: UN Photo/Sylvain Liechti

By Alison Kentish
UNITED NATIONS, Apr 23 2021 (IPS)

It has been about a year since anti-government demonstrations and a coup in Mali, which saw 18 people, including a 12-year-old boy being killed. But there has been no justice for the families of those injured and killed by defence and security forces during last year’s May to August protests.

Today, Apr. 23, Amnesty International released the findings of a report into injuries and fatalities that occurred titled “Killed, wounded, and forgotten? Accountability for the killings during demonstrations and the coup in Mali”.

Following field and remote interviews with victims’ families, civil society representatives, journalists and members of the judiciary, it chronicled the use of deadly force by armed forces in the towns of Kayes and Sikasso, as well as the capital Bamako.

The military seized power in Mali after forcing President Ibrahim Boubacar Keita to resign. It was Mali’s fourth coup since independence in 1960 and its second in a decade. His resignation followed months of opposition protests in the capital and the soldiers who orchestrated the coup stated that it was done to save the country. The international community strongly denounced the ouster, with the soldiers promising to oversee a transition to new elections and elect an interim, civilian leader.

According to Amnesty International, investigations revealed that 18 people were killed and dozens injured, despite military claims that the coup was bloodless. The organisation says the lack of accountability is troubling.

“Many victims were hit or wounded in the chest, sometimes in the back. Many were bystanders or people at work or at home, indicating that security forces were not firing in self-defence or response to an imminent threat of death or serious injury – in contravention of international standards,” Amnesty International said.

The document lists several instances of fatal shots being fired by security forces, backed up by witness testimonies and statements from the United Nations Stabilisation Mission in Mali (MINUSMA). This included the May 6 killing of a man in Sikasso, a city in southern Mali.

“Despite this, the authorities have not investigated the use of firearms by law enforcement against demonstrators in Sikasso leaving the families of those killed without justice, truth and reparation,” the report said.

Five days after the Sikasso incident, violent protests against police deaths resulted in more bloodshed. According to the report, an off-duty police officer shot a 17-year-old who was fleeing detention. It adds that while the officer was suspended, the teen’s death sparked widespread protests, with angry mobs attacking police stations and government buildings. It states that police fired live rounds in the crowds, leaving a 30-year-old man and a 12-year-old boy dead.

The Amnesty report says that a lack of accountability for police deaths triggered uprisings in other areas in Mali, adding that in the capital, protests in July which turned violent were ‘heavily repressed by the authorities,’ adding that armed forces fired into throngs of demonstrators, leaving 4 people dead and dozens injured.

“Although some demonstrators threw stones at security forces, occupied public buildings and at times, refused to comply with orders given by law enforcement officials, it is clear from the cases documented by Amnesty International that most of the killings and serious injuries resulted from the excessive use of force by security forces,” the report said.

Demonstrators took to the streets with numerous grievances. There was anger over the results of the parliamentary elections, stringent measures in response to the COVID-19 pandemic, including restrictions to freedom of movement and peaceful assembly, high unemployment, security and social grievances.

However, among bystanders also became casualties, including Ibrahim Traore’, a 16-year-old boy, whom the report states was shot twice by police. His brother told Amnesty International that he was denied a copy of Traore’s autopsy report.

The rights group says it worked hard to ensure that it could put a name and face to the victims, so that they are not forgotten. It adds despite progress, accountability is lacking. They say that they have been told that investigations into lethal use of force by security forces were opened, but at the time, February 2021, those probes were in the preliminary stages.

Amnesty International says it is time for accuracy and accountability. It is calling on the transitional authorities to ensure impartial and prompt investigations into cases of excessive and lethal use of force by law enforcement officers, protect freedoms of expression and assembly according to international human rights standards and ensure law enforcement authorities respect the United Nations basic principles on the use of force and firearms by law enforcement officials.

“The Malian authorities must show their determination to fight impunity by first acknowledging these killings. Victims of illegal use of force and firearms and their families must be provided with justice, truth and full reparations,” Amnesty International said.

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A protestor in Myanmar holding up the three-finger salute of opposition to military dictatorship from the film “Hunger Games” which was popularised by the democracy protests in Hong Kong and Thailand. Courtesy: CC BY-SA 4.0

By Larry Jagan
BANGKOK, Feb 8 2021 (IPS)

Myanmar is in a deep political crisis. Over the past week — reminiscent of the pro-democracy demonstrations of 1988 — Myanmar’s citizens are openly and publicly challenging the country’s powerful military, whose coup earlier this month now threatens to stifle the country’s fledgling democracy.

Since the weekend, thousands of people have come out onto the streets in most of the country’s major cities in defiance of the military authorities: noisily opposing the coup and demanding that Aung San Suu Kyi’s National League for Democracy (NLD), which overwhelmingly won the November election, be allowed to form a civilian government.

These demonstrations of support for democracy are growing daily with thousands and thousands across Myanmar voicing their rejection of the military coup.

It is like 33 years ago when millions of students, civil servants, workers and Buddhist monks took to the streets demanding democracy. Those protests provoked the military to seize power in a coup in September that year.

Again, the future of the country’s transition to democracy has reached a critical crossroads. After weeks of tension between the military and the elected civilian government of Suu Kyi, the Commander-in-Chief Senior General Min Aung Hlaing seized power in a military coup on Feb. 1 and assumed all government powers – of the executive, judiciary and the legislature – for 12 months after which fresh elections would be held and power transferred to the winner.

Protests started with noise & via social media

People spontaneously started to demonstrate their opposition to the coup by creating a cacophony of noise – beating drums, banging, blowing trumpets and singing in unison every night at 8pm. Since then the ‘banging brigade’ has got louder and louder, as the country’s main urban centres come to a standstill and all that can be heard is the rhythmic sound of the beating of pots and pans all showing their opposition to the military and support for Suu Kyi.

“Most people in Myanmar support the ideals of democracy and want the army to withdraw from politics permanently,” Shwe Yee Myint Saw, who has joined the street protests almost every day from when they started on the weekend, told IPS.

The vast majority of those who have taken to the streets are under the age of 30. “You see the youth of this country understand what we lost in 30 years of military misrule, and we can’t afford a repeat of that.”

Peaceful protest in #Myanmar . #HearTheVoiceOfMyanmar #SaveDemocracy pic.twitter.com/WN0e98ehdU

— khant thaw (@akthaw) February 7, 2021

As in 1988, the charismatic pro-democracy icon Suu Kyi – and leader of the NLD — is at the centre of the movement. She was detained last Monday, Feb. 1, when the military launched their coup and arrested her in an early morning raid. She remains under house arrest and has been charged for possession of illegally imported radios that were used without permission – six walkie-talkie radios were found in the search of her home after she was arrested. If convicted it would bar her from contesting any future elections, including those the military have promised to hold later next year.

Most of the country’s civilian leaders were also detained in these dawn raids. This included all key politicians, regional chief ministers, government ministers, the top leadership of the governing NLD, most national and local members of parliament, and hundreds of pro-democracy and human rights activists. Many of them have been released since and effectively sent home to house arrest.

In the past week the opposition to the coup has built momentum and a concerted campaign of civil disobedience grew through the use of social media.

“We have digital power, so we’ve been using this to oppose the military junta ever since the start of the coup,” human rights activist Thinzar Shunlei Yi, who is one of the main organisers of the ‘Civil Disobedience Movement’ which has taken Myanmar by storm since the coup, told IPS. “And we must continue to use it: to seek an immediate end to this culture of coups.”

Banks reopened in Yangon, Myanmar on February 2 after closing the day before. Credit: IPS / Yangon stringer

Health workers went on strike

The social media protests quickly snowballed into a civil disobedience campaign initiated by the country’s health workers. The day after the coup, the country’s health workers galvanised public resistance to the military by refusing to work under a military government.

“It isn’t that we don’t care about our patients – we certainly do — but we can’t work under a military government again,” Dr Mya Oo, a doctor at Mandalay General Hospital who went on strike the first day, told IPS. “We all feel we must do everything we can to stop this bullying and preserve our democracy.”

Support for the opposition movement has grown enormously ever since, affecting hospitals, schools and other government offices. Although the doctors and nurses in the two main cities of Mandalay and Yangon took the lead — refusing to work and gathering outside their hospital to protest against the military coup — it quickly grew to government ministries, schools and universities throughout Myanmar.

Pictures can be seen of staff congregating together in uniform, wearing the red ribbon of protest, and defiantly holding up the three-finger salute of opposition to military dictatorship from the film “Hunger Games” – popularised in the democracy protests in Hong Kong and Thailand. There has also been a flood of resignations from government posts.

Civilians on the street

It culminated over the weekend, when the campaigners took to the streets to demonstrate their anger at the coup and its leaders. Their main grievance is the army’s seizure of power has effectively annulled the results of last November’s election which Suu Kyi and the NLD convincingly won.

“We voted for Aung San Suu Kyi and now the military are trying to steal this election from us and put us under their harsh controlling power like before,” Sandar, a young university graduate, told IPS. “We won’t stand for it: we have tasted democratic freedom and we know it’s the only way for our country to develop,” she said.

In most urban centres across the country, there are massive demonstrations of support for Suu Kyi demanding the military respect the election results. More and more civil servants are joining the movement. And now there are calls for a general strike.

“The ‘civil disobedience movement’ is a non-violent campaign – started by young doctors across the country which has inspired everyone and has grown into a mass protest involving all sectors of society,” Thinzar Shunlei Yi told IPS. 

Suu Kyi is believed to have signalled her support for the movement in messages from her house arrest in the capital Naypyidaw, according to senior party officials. Late last week the NLD central executive committee released a statement supporting the current Civil Disobedience Movement.

“In order to take back the country’s sovereignty – invested in the people — and restore democracy, all the people of Myanmar people should support this political resistance movement — in a peaceful and non-violence way,” the statement read.

So far the authorities have been powerless to stem the movement. But as the momentum grows there are increasing fears of a major confrontation between the peaceful protestors and the security forces.

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General Muhammadu Buhari holding a broom at a campaign rally. Photo credit: By Heinrich-Böll-Stiftung (Flickr: Wahlkampf in Nigeria 2015)/CC BY-SA 2.0

By Lisa Vives
NEW YORK/ABUJA, Apr 2 2015 (IPS)

After several tension-filled months, a majority of Nigerians swept in an opposition leader and former military man, Muhammadu Buhari, to succeed incumbent President Goodluck Jonathan, whose failure to contain a terrorist wave in the northern states doomed his re-election chances.

Buhari had previously ruled Nigeria from January 1984 until August 1985 – a period in which there were widespread accusations of human rights abuses – after taking charge following a military coup in December 1983.

The Mar. 28 elections were observed by teams from the United States, United Kingdom, European Union, the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) and the African Union. Carl LeVan, an assistant professor at the School of International Service, American University in Washington, DC, took part in the National Democratic Institute’s election observation mission from the United States.“[President Muhammadu] Buhari has an unprecedented opportunity to recast the Muslim face of Africa at a time when violent terrorist movements have both perverted Islam and distorted Western foreign policies meant to be more multifaceted” – Carl LeVan, member of a U.S. observation mission for the Mar. 28 presidential election in Nigeria

Speaking with IPS, LeVan, author of Dictators and Democracy in African Development (2015), remarked on the surprise success of Buhari’s All Progressives Congress (APC) party that was only formed in February 2013.

“The defeat of Africa’s largest political party, the People’s Democratic Party, will bring the All Progressives Congress (APC) into power after barely two years of organising, mobilising and coalition building. (Muhammadu) Buhari will enter office with a strong mandate from the voters, having won four out of the country’s six geopolitical zones, and the APC will enjoy a comfortable majority in the Senate.

“Though a northern Muslim from Katsina, his support included the predominantly Yoruba southwest, where President Goodluck Jonathan recent delivered bags of cash to traditional rulers according to news reports and where the militant Odudwa Peoples’ Congress launched a wave of thuggery in recent weeks.”

The election upset was especially poignant for Nigerians of the northern states, the area most devastated by Boko Haram terror attacks. While some of the vote counting was impeccable, not all of the voting went smoothly. Observers told of protestors objecting to perceived rigging, harassment, ballot boxes snatched and over-voting.

“Even before the results were announced,” said LeVan, “voters in the north reacted with jubilation, and militant groups, including the Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta, began surreptitiously re-arming in the creeks of the south. Sources I met with over the weekend in Rivers State say they have seen caches of weapons in camps backed by militants such Ateke Tom and others.

“In addition to such seemingly minor procedural problems, the public was locked out of some collation (vote counting) centres. We also received credible reports of serious harassment. A soldier was killed in some of the violence in Port Harcourt, and a large protest took the state electoral commission by storm on Sunday.”

The opposition victory has been achieved but some are already wondering what the new leader, not known for his adherence to human rights, will prioritise.

According to LeVan, “Buhari has a mandate, and his most urgent challenge is to neither misinterpret nor abuse it.

“According to an Afrobarometer poll released on Mar. 23, 40 percent of Nigerians say the president ‘should be allowed to govern freely without wasting time to justify expenses’, and 25 percent say the president should ‘pass laws without worrying about what the National Assembly thinks’. Sixty-eight percent are not very or not at all satisfied with the way democracy is working.”

Recalling a recent national election won by a former dictator, LeVan said that “the last time Nigeria elected a former dictator, Olusegun Obasanjo in 1999, he spent his first term battling the National Assembly and quelling violence in the region that largely voted against him. But he also began building institutions and establishing trust with his sceptics.

“The last time Nigerians had Buhari at the helm, the jubilation quickly gave way to frustration, repression, and economic failure.

“Buhari’s ‘honeymoon’ will therefore be critical, and probably even shorter lived than his memories of 1984. He will need to do more than make grand rhetorical gestures to democracy; he’ll need to practice it and educate his own supporters about the advantages of the justice and fairness it offers, even where the cost may be the kind of efficiency the Afrobarometer respondents appear to be longing for.”

LeVan also urged the new president to “go south” in view of the fact that Nigeria has often been a divided country with loyalties to different regional centres and different religious and ethnic affiliations, because this would send a “valuable message to northerners that he is everyone’s president.”

By “going south”, he said, the newly-elected president “could also include a clear transition plan or policy for the status of the ongoing amnesty programme for the Niger Delta militants, who need reassurance that they do not need an Ijaw president [like President Goodluck Jonathan] in order to have “resource control” taken seriously, or to have environmental clean-up and developmental needs addressed.

“The sooner and more clearly they hear this message, the less likely will be the re-ignition of the Delta rebellions … This is also important because in a country partly divided along religious lines between north and south, Afrobarometer reports that trust in religious leaders at 29 percent is higher than in the National Assembly, governors, local governments, or even traditional rulers (16 percent).

“Christian Igbos in the east (who overwhelmingly rejected the APC) and minorities in the south need to know they can trust Buhari, and he needs their cooperation to govern peacefully and practically.”

LeVan also suggested that Buhari should “reset” national security strategy, perhaps by ”replacing key members of the national security establishment.

“While some continuity may help preserve institutionalised knowledge, particularly with regard to the recent ‘surge’ against Boko Haram, the mishandling of the Chibok girls’ kidnapping reduced confidence in the national security team, and the pressure applied to the electoral commission prior to the election delay has contributed to the perception that some soldiers and many advisers are partisan.”

Boko Haram has been displaced but not defeated, LeVan warned, and this means creating a “credible counter-insurgency strategy”.

Among others, such a strategy would include “sustained high-level interactions with the multinational coalition partners, and a repairing of bridges to the United States, United Kingdom and other allies with a stake in Nigeria’s peaceful prosperity.”

In this context, said LeVan, a visit to the United States and the United Kingdom would be beneficial to reconnect with a disenchanted diaspora. “This will be important in the United States, where leadership in Congress has interpreted Boko Haram as a war against Christians, rather than a complex insurgency with many different victims and deep historical and socio-economic roots.

“Buhari has an unprecedented opportunity to recast the Muslim face of Africa at a time when violent terrorist movements have both perverted Islam and distorted Western foreign policies meant to be more multifaceted.”

LeVan also advised Buhari to pick a “credible, competent and diverse economic team”, noting that “in early 2014, the government of Nigeria (along with the World Bank and others) highlighted trends in economic diversification. The near crisis triggered by the decline in oil prices since then suggests either these claims were overstated or much more work needs to be done.

Buhari could reform the refinery and oil importation mechanisms, commit to publishing all of the federal governments revenue transfers to subnational units each month (like it used to), and pick a combination of experts from academia, the private sector and the bureaucracy to get the economy back on track.”

“A few obvious steps,” concluded LeVan, “would go a long way: reaffirm the independence of the Central Bank (whose governor was replaced last year), stabilise the currency, and consult the National Assembly about budget plans and fiscal crises … The rest is up to the Nigerian people, who spoke on Mar. 28. Voting was just the beginning.”

Edited by Phil Harris    

Any views expressed by persons cited in this article do not necessarily represent the views of, and should not be attributed to, IPS – Inter Press Service. 

An Egyptian army M1 Abrams tank placed near Tahrir Square during the 2011 Egyptian protests. Credit: Sherif9282 GNU license

By Thalif Deen
UNITED NATIONS, Aug 16 2013 (IPS)

The United States, which has refused to cut off its hefty 1.3 billion dollars in annual military aid to Egypt, continues to argue that depriving arms to the 438,500-strong security forces will only “destabilise” the crisis-ridden country.

There is perhaps a more significant – but undisclosed – reason for sustaining military aid flows to Egypt: protecting U.S. defence contractors.

Virtually all – or an overwhelming proportion – of the 1.3 billion dollars granted under Foreign Military Financing (FMF) is plowed back into the U.S. economy, specifically into the U.S. defence industry.

William Hartung, director of the Arms and Security Project at the Centre for International Policy (CIP), told IPS U.S. President Barack Obama’s refusal to cut-off military aid to Egypt while U.S. weapons are being used to murder protesters is “unconscionable”.

“The reasons given for continuing this aid no longer hold up to scrutiny. It is not a source of stability, as the Obama administration claims,” he said.

And it has certainly not given the United States any leverage to moderate the behaviour of the regime, said Hartung, who has written extensively on the politics and economics of the U.S. defence industry.

“One thing the aid has done and continues to do is to enrich U.S. defence contractors like Lockheed and General Dynamics,” he added.

With the exception of a tank factory built with U.S. assistance, he pointed out, the vast bulk of the roughly 40 billion dollars in U.S. military aid to Egypt over the past 30 years has gone straight into the coffers of U.S. weapons makers.

The sophisticated weapons systems already purchased by Egypt – with much more still in the pipeline – include F-16 fighter planes, E2-C Hawkeye reconnaissance aircraft, Apache and Sikorsky helicopters, C-130 transports, Sidewinder, Sparrow, Improved-Hawk and Hellfire missiles, M-1A1 Abrams and M60A1 battle tanks, and M113A2 armoured personnel carriers.

All of these weapons have either been delivered – or are in the process of being delivered – by some of the major U.S. defence contractors, including Lockheed Martin, Northrop Grumman, General Electric, Boeing, Sikorsky, General Dynamics, United Defence and Raytheon, among others.

Besides the 1.3 billion dollars in FMF outright grants, Egypt also receives 1.9 million dollars annually for International Military Education and Training (IMET) and about 250,000 dollars in Economic Support Funds (ESF).

Egypt also receives, at minimum cost as delivery charges, second-hand U.S. equipment under Excess Defence Articles (EDA) worth hundreds of millions of dollars annually.

The U.S. defence contractor General Dynamics is involved in helping Egypt co-produce the M1A1 Abrams battle tank, described as “one of the cornerstones of U.S. military assistance to Egypt”.

Additionally, there is an ongoing programme to continue upgrading equipment in the Egyptian arsenal and follow-on support and maintenance contracts for the upkeep of U.S. equipment.

In a piece published in Common Dreams online, Jacob Chamberlain, a staff writer, quotes a report from National Public Radio (NPR) as saying that every year, the U.S. Congress appropriates more than one billion dollars in military aid to Egypt.

“But that money never gets to Egypt. It goes to the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, then to a trust fund at the Treasury and, finally, out to U.S. military contractors that make the tanks and fighter jets that ultimately get sent to Egypt.”

So far, the Obama administration has penalised Egypt by suspending the delivery of four F-16 fighter planes (the Egyptian air force already has 143 F-16s, with the last order of 20 dating back to March 2010 still in the pipeline) and the cancellation of joint military exercises with Egypt scheduled for September.

The Obama administration has also refused to describe the military takeover of a civilian government as a “coup” because under U.S. legislation such a designation would automatically generate a cut off of U.S. aid.

As of Friday, the death toll from the military crackdown has been estimated at between 500 and 1,000, with nearly 4,000 injured.

Pieter Wezeman, a senior researcher with the Arms Transfers Programme at the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI), told IPS, “It is correct that the U.S. military industry benefits from U.S. military aid to Egypt.

“And it is correct that if the United States would stop altogether with supplying such aid to Egypt, that would have some effect on the turnover of the U.S. arms industry,” he added.

However, he said, “I am doubtful if arms industry lobbying [or] concern for the arms industry is a reason of any significance for the U.S. to not halt all FMF aid to Egypt.”

There are several reasons, he said, including a temporary stop which would have only a minor effect.

“After all, some of the equipment that has been contracted for can be produced and stored by the U.S. government – which is, after all, the entity that signed the contracts with the U.S. industry – until the situation in Egypt changes.”

Presumably, funding not earmarked can be withheld and would benefit the industry later, he added.

Moreover, said Wezeman, the U.S. has embargoed major buyers of U.S. arms and cut military aid before, despite the obvious costs for the industry.

The best examples are Iran in 1979 – although that was arguably as well a decision by Iran at that time – Pakistan in early 1990s and India in 1963.

Citing other examples, he said, in the case of Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates (UAE), the U.S. has foregone some major deals due to the fact they did want to supply certain advanced equipment. For example, it is generally assumed that France clinched a major deal for combat aircraft in the late 1990s because it included 300 km range cruise missiles which the U.S. had refused.

Military aid to countries like Greece has diminished from high in the 1980 and ’90s to a very low level now.

Wezeman said although 1.3 billion dollars a year is a lot of money, it is relatively small compared to the current cutbacks in U.S. military spending and the sequestration issue, which will have a much bigger effect on the U.S. arms industry.

The revolutionary aspirations for justice, dignity and hope that Egypt’s young people brought to the world in January 2011 were crushed Wednesday by the military’s bloody crackdown.

Declaring a State of Emergency and putting the army on the streets is a sure sign that the January 2011 revolution, which toppled Hosni Mubarak, has been upended. Many Egyptians are worried that key elements of the Mubarak regime are back in the saddle. Egypt may be sliding into civil war and state failure.

Muhammad El-Baradei’s resignation as vice president indicates that Egyptian liberals who supported the military in ousting former democratically elected president Mohamed Morsi are becoming clear-eyed about the military’s intention to scuttle the post-Mubarak democratic experiment.

General Abdel Fattah al-Sisi’s appointment of over a dozen and a half retired army generals as governors throughout Egypt is yet another sign that the military is here to stay.

The massive street demonstrations, which al-Sisi called for as a “mandate” to depose Morsi, would soon reappear demanding his own ouster. It will again mobilise the Muslim Brotherhood and their supporters.

No matter how much they despise the Muslim Brotherhood, Egyptian liberals now realise that military rule cannot be synonymous with democracy.

In an op-ed posted on IPS and LobeLog a month ago, I warned of the strong possibility of the military hijacking democracy in Egypt. The army did just that Wednesday, 44 days after it ousted Morsi from office.

Prominent liberal leaders who are currently serving in al-Sisi’s provisional government protested for months against the rule of the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces or SCAF. Following the fall of Mubarak, the military under General Mohamed Hussein Tantawi engineered their return to power and defended their autocratic rule in the name of combating instability and chaos. They were forced out by street protests.

This time around, the military again used a similar argument to repeat the same pattern. In addition to the appointment of new governors, al- Sisi and interim President Adly Mansour have brought back rules and procedures as well as senior elements from the Mubarak era.

Once the military emasculates the revolution, the Egyptian people will be out in the streets demanding a return to genuine democracy. Because of civil strife, factional divisions, and rogue elements from the old regime, it might be too late to recapture the revolution of 2011.

The Barack Obama administration endeavored but failed to broker a deal between the military and the Morsi supporters, including releasing Muslim Brotherhood prisoners, and respecting the right to peaceful protests and assembly. The failure signals Washington’s diminishing influence over the Egyptian military despite the billions in foreign and military aid Egypt receives from the United States.

Whether in Egypt or Bahrain, the United States has been caught in the middle of deeply divided countries. According to media reports, some Egyptian revolutionaries and some pro-government Bahrainis are no longer interested in receiving U.S. aid.

In Egypt, U.S. aid is perceived as supporting military dictatorship. In Bahrain, U.S. military presence is perceived by pro-regime elements as empowering the pro-reform movement, including the Shia opposition, and restricting the government from cracking down on the opposition.

Secretary of State John Kerry’s statement condemning the bloody violence perpetrated by the military and police against peaceful sit-ins was forceful but ineffective. The military has already done its nasty deed without any fear of international condemnation.

The Egyptian military has co-opted most of the Egyptian media and is feverishly attempting to win over international media. The regime has restricted media activities and banned some international journalists from operating in the country.

Unfortunately, three international reporters were killed on Wednesday during the one-day bloody crackdown.

U.S. policymakers should ask what leverage, if any, Washington still has to influence events on the ground. Despite its perceived weakened position in the region, the United States continues to have a special relationship with the Egyptian military. If the Egyptian military wants to bring the country back from the brink, it should take several urgent steps. Washington most likely would stand ready to help if called upon.

First: The bloody confrontations with peaceful protesters, including the Muslim Brotherhood and other opponents of the recent coup, should stop immediately.

Second: A return to civilian rule through parliamentary and presidential elections should be accomplished within a few months. All political groups and parties, including the Muslim Brotherhood and other Islamist groups, should have the opportunity to participate in these elections without fear or intimidation.

Third: All political prisoners, including deposed president Morsi and the leaders of the Muslim Brotherhood, should be released immediately and be invited to participate in national reconciliation talks under the auspices of al-Azhar.

Fourth: The Egyptian military regime fully realises that a stable Egypt is pivotal to Middle East stability, but that enduring domestic stability cannot be imposed by the barrel of a gun. If Egypt does not return to civilian rule, descending into chaos, political violence, civil war, and possibly state failure is not unthinkable.

Emile Nakhleh, a former Senior Intelligence Service Officer, is a Research Professor at the University of New Mexico and author of “A Necessary Engagement: Reinventing America’s Relations with the Muslim World and Bahrain: Political Development in a Modernizing Society.”

U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon. Credit: UN Photo/Rick Bajornas

By Thalif Deen
UNITED NATIONS, Aug 14 2013 (IPS)

Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, who has refused to describe the Egyptian army’s ouster of a democratically-elected government last month as a “military coup”, lambasted the country’s security forces for Wednesday’s massacre of civilians in the streets of Cairo.

He condemned in the “strongest terms” the violence that occurred when the Egyptian military used force to clear Cairo of sit-ins and demonstrations."Disaster has befallen Egypt." -- Chris Toensing, editor of the Washington-based Middle East Report

“While the U.N. is still gathering precise information about today’s events, it appears that hundreds of people were killed or wounded in clashes between security forces and demonstrators,” he added.

Asked why Ban still refuses to describe the army takeover as a “coup”, U.N. associate spokesperson Farhan Haq told IPS, “No real comment on that; I think the language of the statement speaks for itself.”

According to reports out of Cairo, the death toll was around 149 – and rising. The number of injured has been estimated at over 1,400.

Egypt’s acting Vice President Mohamed El-Baradei, Nobel Laureate and a former director general of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), has resigned.

“Disaster has befallen Egypt,” Chris Toensing, editor of the Washington-based Middle East Report, told IPS.

The country’s agony is a boon to the army, the secret police and other elements of the “deep state”, he added. Over the last two years, with the eager cooperation of state-run and private media, they have painted themselves as national saviours in the minds of a majority of Egyptians, Toensing said.

“Today’s massacres, sadly, will cement that image for the near future,” he said.

“It is the nastiest trick in the autocrat’s book. Cry ‘after us, the deluge’, then disappear from public view and watch the deluge occur, so as to ride back on a white horse,” said Toensing. “As for the shameful U.S. position, it simply proves that the real U.S. ally in Egypt is the army, as has been the case since Camp David, if not before.”

He said the meek calls for restraint from Washington, Europe and the United Nations are reminiscent of nothing so much as the similar pabulum issued when Israel mounts an assault on Gaza or the West Bank.

The U.S. brokered the 1979 Camp David peace treaty between Israel and Egypt, delivering billions of dollars’ worth of economic and military aid to both countries.

An Arab diplomat told IPS that Ban apparently is toeing the official U.S. line that last month’s military ouster of Egypt’s first freely-elected president, Mohamed Morsi, was an attempt to “restore democracy”.

U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry told reporters last week: “The (Egyptian) military was asked to intervene by millions and millions of people.

“The military did not take over, to the best of our judgment – so far,” he added.

If the administration of President Barack Obama had described the take over as a “coup”, it would have been forced to cut off all U.S. aid to Egypt, amounting to over 1.5 billion dollars annually, under current U.S. legislation.

The U.S. fear is that such a drastic step would further destabilise the country, which is already in the throes of a major political crisis.

Dr. Toby C. Jones, associate professor in the Department of History at Rutgers University, described the U.S. position on Egypt as “hypocritical”.

“The U.S. primarily approaches its relationship with Egypt through the framework of security and strategic interests – thus the military, not human rights or democracy,” he told IPS.

He said the Obama administration has exactly who it wants in power in Cairo.

“Of course, American officials would prefer that they behave better and avoid the kind of violence that is taking place now, but not enough to denounce it strongly or consider political alternatives,” said Jones, who has a doctorate in Middle East history from Stanford University.

Asked about a proposal for Security Council intervention in Egypt, U.N. deputy spokesperson Eduardo del Buey told reporters Wednesday that would be a decision for the Council members to take. “The secretary-general will not opine on that,” he said.

In a statement released Wednesday, Ban said that only days ago, he renewed his call for all sides in Egypt to reconsider their actions in light of new political realities and the imperative to prevent further loss of life.

Ban said he regrets that Egyptian authorities chose instead to use force to respond to the ongoing demonstrations. He conveyed his condolences to the families of those killed and his wishes for a full and speedy recovery to those injured.

The secretary-general also said he is well aware that the vast majority of the Egyptian people, weary of disruptions to normal life caused by demonstrations and counter-demonstrations, want their country to go forward peacefully in an Egyptian-led process towards prosperity and democracy.

In the aftermath of today’s violence, he urged all Egyptians to concentrate their efforts on promoting genuinely inclusive reconciliation.

While recognising that political clocks do not run backwards, the secretary-general said he also believes firmly that violence and incitement from any side are not the answers to the challenges Egypt faces. With its rich history and diversity of views and experiences, it is not unusual for Egyptians to disagree on the best approach forward, he added.

What is in important, in the secretary-general’s view, is that differing views be expressed respectfully and peacefully.

To his regret, that is not what happened today.

Ervand Abrahamian, a leading historian of modern Iran, has recently explored the 1953 Anglo/American-sponsored coup that overthrew Iranian Prime Minister Mohammad Mosaddeq.

The 28 months under Abrahamian’s scrutiny in The Coup: 1953, The CIA, and the Roots of US-Iranian Relations form a defining fault line in Iranian history.

Ervand Abrahamian. Courtesy of Baruch College.

His book is particularly timely given the striking parallels between the debates he recounts and those surrounding the current dispute over Iran’s nuclear dossier.

Competing narratives

The overthrow of Iran’s democratically elected prime minister, who oversaw the nationalisation of Iran’s oil industry, significantly impacted Iranian collective memory and political culture.

While some Western analysts trace the roots of current U.S.-Iranian hostilities to the 1979 Revolution and the hostage crisis, for Iranians it begins with the coup, with the memory of Mossadeq representing a future denied.

In recent years, Western scholars and journalists have put forth a narrative asserting that U.S. policymakers recognised the shortcomings of British strategy in the age of postcolonial nationalism and had pressured London to accept Iran’s legitimate demands prior to 1953.

According to this argument, U.S. diplomats pressed both sides towards compromise and presented innumerable proposals that sought to reconcile British mandates with Iranian imperatives.

Such narratives also place the responsibility for the failed negotiations squarely on Mossadeq for his intransigence – even attempting to trace this to his aristocratic background or presumed martyrdom complex.

Abrahamian effectively challenges this understanding by providing a detailed account of the 1953 coup from its genesis to its aftermath.

The most impressive aspect of the book is its diligent scholarship and exhaustive use of primary sources.

The lion’s share of Abrahamian’s narrative is substantiated by declassified documents from U.S. and British national archives and those of the Anglo-Iranian Oil Company (AIOC) – an antecedent of the modern BP.

To this he adds interviews from oral history projects, biographies, memoirs and the private documents of key individuals both Western and Iranian.

If Abrahamian has an axe to grind, he does so with facts and figures.

For him, the dispute was a zero-sum struggle for control over Iran’s oil industry.

Abrahamian underscores “control” as the operative word underlying the crisis, as it appears repeatedly in internal government documents, and is used by all parties to articulate their objectives.

For Iran, national sovereignty was equated with control over its oil industry.

For the British, the nationalisation of Iran’s oil meant the loss of their control over the global market during a period of imperial contraction.

The United States had as much invested in the crisis as Britain.

The U.S. thus participated in the coup not as a means of curbing communist expansion in Iran, as is often stated, but because of the repercussions that oil nationalisation could have in other parts of the world.

For this reason, Abrahamian argues, the negotiations were destined to fail.

Detailing a number of proposals made to Iran, Abrahamian demonstrates how much of what is lauded today as Anglo-American fair compromises were deemed even by some in the West as “raw deals” – at best meaningless oxymorons, at worst deceptive smokescreens.

These proposals were predicated on the principle of conceding to Iran “general authority” while maintaining “executive management” in British hands.

As the British ambassador to Washington reported in 1951, U.S. policymakers “suggested accepting the pretense and the façade of nationalisation while maintaining effective control.”

In other reports, he would replace “façade” with “cloak”.

An exception was a package offered by Assistant Secretary of State George McGhee, which was deemed acceptable by Mosaddeq during his 1951 visit to the United Nations.

But the incoming Tory government in Britain rejected it as “totally unacceptable”, insisting that it was “far better not to have an agreement than to have a bad one”.

Accounts like this debunk arguments that it was Mosaddeq’s absolutist rhetoric and intransigence that militated against a judicious resolution of the crisis.

Mossadeq’s legacy

For Abrahamian, the career politician and legal scholar Mosaddeq was a leader accountable to his people.

His actions were dictated by Iran’s national rights, interests and security.

Given the significance of oil to the economic livelihood of Iranians and their exploitation by the AIOC, Mosaddeq could not give ground at the whim of great powers.

Moreover, he was a willing participant in the negotiations.

As Abrahamian details, Mosaddeq offered compensation, sale of oil to the AIOC and the employment of foreigners.

This is significant because Western arguments against nationalisation highlighted Iran’s lack of skilled labour to manage the installations.

Throughout “The Coup”, Abrahamian approaches every episode in the crisis with due treatment.

His narrative locates the coup firmly inside the conflict between imperialism and nationalism.

While this refreshing perspective clears away much of the Cold War cobweb of existing literature, an outright rejection can be limiting and insufficiently nuanced.

The viewpoint Abrahamian provides and the one he counters must be viewed as complementary in providing a comprehensive understanding of the period rather than mutually exclusive.

Then and now

It’s impossible to read “The Coup” without relating what’s passed to the present.

The events leading up to 1953 involved sanctions, affirmations of Iranians’ sovereignty, the assertion of great power demands and interests and even the beating of war drums.

In 1952, a British press attaché in Tehran strongly urged the Foreign Office to keep a “steady nerve” and wait for Mosaddeq’s fall.

She insisted, “Our own unofficial efforts to undermine him are making good progress. If we agree to discuss and compromise with him, the effort will strengthen him.”

Such rhetoric might resonate with contemporary pundits whose analyses hinge on regime change in Iran.

One moral that can be extracted from “The Coup” is that negotiations only work when all parties involved are genuinely dedicated to the process.

On Iran’s side today, both the intention and the means seem to be present.

Nicknamed the “diplomatic sheikh”, Hassan Rouhani won the presidency following Jun. 14 elections on a platform of moderation, stating at the ballot box that he had “come to kill extremism”.

In his public statements he sharply criticised Iran’s inflexible stance on the nuclear issue and called for a more constructive dialogue.

During his tenure as Iran’s chief nuclear negotiator, Iran signed two agreements with the UK, France and Germany to suspend enrichment and reprocessing activities, temporarily and voluntarily, in exchange for technical and economic incentives.

The show of popular force behind Iran’s president-elect is bound to allow the state a degree of flexibility in its negotiations and ability to grant concessions.

In short, if Washington is indeed committed to a diplomatic resolution of the impasse, the time to act is now.

*Reyhaneh Noshiravani is a doctoral candidate at King’s College London, where she studies Iranian foreign policy and Persian Gulf security.

Despite the death of Muslim Brotherhood members, others from the group say they will continue to hold peaceful protests until Morsi is reinstated as president. Credit: Khaled Moussa al-Omrani/IPS.

By Adam Morrow and Khaled Moussa al-Omrani
CAIRO, Jul 18 2013 (IPS)

The ouster of Egypt’s first freely elected president by the military has led some to warn of a possible Algeria-style civil war. Local analysts, however, dismiss the likelihood of the “Algeria scenario” occurring in Egypt.

“For one, Egypt’s Islamist current is much less extremist than Algeria’s was when civil war erupted in that country,” Cairo-based political analyst Tawfiq Ghanem told IPS.

Numerous comparisons have been drawn with Algeria, where in 1992 the army took over after cancelling elections that Islamist parties were poised to win. The move triggered a decade of fierce civil war between various Islamist groups and the army-backed government, in which tens of thousands of people are thought to have been killed."Egypt's Islamist current is much less extremist than Algeria's was when civil war erupted in that country."

Ghanem, however, dismissed the possibility of such a scenario playing out in Egypt. “Egypt’s Islamist current, including both the Muslim Brotherhood and the allied Al-Gamaa Al-Islamiya (which formally renounced violence in 1997), are much more moderate in outlook than their Algerian counterparts were,” he said.

“What’s more, Egypt’s main Islamist factions are considerably more disciplined and have more control over their members than Algeria’s Islamic Salvation Front had at the time.”

Ghanem also pointed to Egyptians’ “historical antipathy to violence.”

The Algeria conflict brought numerous atrocities, including the gruesome mass murder of civilians in remote areas of the country – acts widely blamed at the time on breakaway militant Islamist factions. While the government had used such incidents to justify its oppressive policies, evidence later emerged suggesting possible government involvement in the crimes.

Ghanem did not rule out the possibility that “third parties” – not excluding foreign intelligence agencies – “might exploit the current tense situation in Egypt to stage terrorist acts in hopes driving the country towards more violence and chaos.”

Egypt’s remote Sinai Peninsula has witnessed almost daily attacks on army and police installations since Morsi’s ouster, in which at least 13 people have been killed (although reports emanating from Sinai remain difficult to confirm).

On Tuesday, Jul. 16, Israel – in line with the terms of the 1978 Camp David peace treaty – granted Egypt permission to deploy two additional infantry battalions to North Sinai with the ostensible aim of “combating terrorism”.

As a massive pro-Morsi sit-in in Cairo enters its third week and with more demonstrations planned for this Friday, the Muslim Brotherhood has reiterated its strategy of pursuing strictly peaceful means of protest.

“We will continue to resist this military coup with peaceful protests. We will not respond to any provocations,” the group said in a statement earlier this week. “We will escalate our resistance through peaceful pressure using all available means.”

Further heightening tensions, Egypt’s nebulous “Black Block” movement – a black-clad anti-Islamist group known for its readiness to adopt violent tactics – declared on Jul. 16 that it would forcibly disperse pro-Morsi rallies if security forces had failed to do so by the last day of Ramadan on Aug. 8.

According to Ghanem, whichever side ends up resorting to violence will lose the battle for public opinion. “Whoever is perceived as the aggressor will lose the sympathy of the Egyptian street – along with their short- to mid-term political future.”

Dozens have already been killed and hundreds injured since the controversial ouster of Mohamed Morsi, elected a year ago in Egypt’s first post-Mubarak presidential poll.

The clashes come amid massive pro-Morsi demonstrations, marches and sit-ins nationwide – some of them reportedly drawing hundreds of thousands – to demand the ousted president’s reinstatement.

The exact size of the rallies remains difficult to gauge due to a general media blackout on most pro-Morsi activity.

Following the army’s “removal” of Morsi, a host of Islamist leaders – especially those from the Muslim Brotherhood, the group from which Morsi hails – were rounded up by the authorities. The ousted president himself remains detained by the army at an undisclosed location.

Morsi’s opponents describe the Jun. 30 protests that led to his ouster as Egypt’s “second revolution,” reflective of the “popular will.” Morsi’s supporters see it as a military coup against a democratically elected president; a “counter-revolution” planned and executed largely by elements still loyal to the Mubarak-era ‘deep state’.

It is the second time since the January 2011 revolution that Egypt’s military has stepped in to reverse an Islamist electoral victory. Shortly before Morsi’s election, Egypt’s then-ruling Supreme Military Council dissolved the lower house of parliament – three-quarters of which was held by Islamist parties – based on a court ruling widely seen as politicised.

“First they dissolved the democratically elected lower house of parliament, then they mounted a military coup that kidnapped the elected president,” the Muslim Brotherhood declared in statement this week, “all without any reference to the people.”

On Jul. 16, Mansour appointed a government of “technocrats” drawn almost entirely from Egypt’s liberal opposition. Islamist parties and groups, meanwhile, led by the Brotherhood, refuse to engage in the army-backed political process, and insist Morsi is Egypt’s legitimate head of state.