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1272. Nepal: Back to the Gun
- Publication Date:
- 10-2003
- Content Type:
- Working Paper
- Institution:
- International Crisis Group
- Abstract:
- With the collapse of the ceasefire and peace talks between government and Maoist insurgents, Nepal appears to be in for months more of bloody fighting. There are prospects for eventual resumption of negotiations since neither side can realistically expect a military victory, and there are indications of what a diplomatic compromise might look like. However, the international community needs to urge all sides toward compromise and press the government to restore democracy, bring the political parties back into the picture and control the army's tendency to commit serious abuses when conducting operations. Similarly, the Maoists should discontinue targeted assassinations, bombing and widespread extortion.
- Topic:
- Conflict Prevention, Government, Regional Cooperation, and War
- Political Geography:
- South Asia and Nepal
1273. Ethiopia and Eritrea: War or Peace?
- Publication Date:
- 09-2003
- Content Type:
- Working Paper
- Institution:
- International Crisis Group
- Abstract:
- The next few weeks will go far to determining whether Ethiopia and Eritrea resume a path toward war - which took some 100,000 lives between 1998 and 2000 - or solidify their peace agreement. Ethiopia must decide whether to allow demarcation of the border to begin in October 2003 even though the international Boundary Commission set up under the Algiers agreement that ended the fighting has ruled that the town of Badme - the original flashpoint of the war - is on the Eritrean side. The outcome will have profound implications for both countries and the entire Horn of Africa, as well as for international law and the sanctity of binding peace agreements and arbitration processes. The international community, particularly the U.S., the African Union (AU), and the European Union (EU), all of which played major roles in brokering the Algiers agreement, need to engage urgently to help Ethiopia move the demarcation forward and to assist both parties to devise a package of measures that can reduce the humanitarian costs of border adjustments and otherwise make implementation of the demarcation more politically palatable.
- Topic:
- Conflict Resolution, International Cooperation, Treaties and Agreements, United Nations, and War
- Political Geography:
- Africa, Europe, North Africa, and Ethiopia
1274. Nepal: Obstacles to Peace
- Publication Date:
- 06-2003
- Content Type:
- Working Paper
- Institution:
- International Crisis Group
- Abstract:
- Despite King Gyanendra's appointment of a new prime minister in June 2003, Nepal remains in a deepening political crisis. By turns conciliatory and confrontational, its royalist government, the Maoist insurgents and the recently ousted political parties have all proven capable of derailing the peace process if their concerns are not addressed. With political parties shut out of peace talks and the palace continuing efforts to keep them off balance and marginalised, party activists have increasingly taken to the streets. This has left the king in an awkward position: wishing to retain control of the government without appearing to be doing so. Such an approach is ultimately untenable, as the controversial appointment of Prime Minister Surya Bahadur Thapa makes clear.
- Topic:
- Peace Studies, Politics, and War
- Political Geography:
- Central Asia
1275. Taiwan Strait II: The Risk of War
- Publication Date:
- 06-2003
- Content Type:
- Working Paper
- Institution:
- International Crisis Group
- Abstract:
- China's underlying position on its cross-Strait relations, however strong its current commitment to peaceful diplomacy, is that Taiwan must make sustained, visible progress toward a peaceful settlement or risk a resort to armed hostilities. It has also indicated that any move by Taiwan that might demonstrate its substantive rejection of this new demand could well be the last straw.
- Topic:
- International Relations, Sovereignty, and War
- Political Geography:
- China, Taiwan, and Asia
1276. Complicity in Iraq: How Deep?
- Author:
- Jeffrey White
- Publication Date:
- 02-2003
- Content Type:
- Policy Brief
- Institution:
- The Washington Institute for Near East Policy
- Abstract:
- As war with Iraq looms closer, postwar questions are receiving increasing attention. Senior defense officials have been addressing such issues frequently, and the White House held a press briefing yesterday on "Humanitarian Reconstruction" in Iraq. One of these issues concerns individuals who have been complicit in the crimes of Saddam Husayn's regime. According to the Washington Post, the United States intends to conduct a "de-Baathification" program in Iraq similar in some ways to the "de-Nazification" program conducted in Germany in the wake of World War II. Although the details of this program are still to be worked out, the Post indicated that complicity in "human rights and weapons abuses" would be key criteria in determining which Iraqi officials would be permitted to keep their jobs.
- Topic:
- Security, Religion, and War
- Political Geography:
- United States, Iraq, Middle East, Arabia, and Germany
1277. Deaths in Wars and Conflicts Between 1945 and 2000
- Author:
- Milton Leitenberg
- Publication Date:
- 08-2003
- Content Type:
- Working Paper
- Institution:
- The Judith Reppy Institute for Peace and Conflict Studies
- Abstract:
- "A Beastly Century": It was a phrase used by Margaret Drabble, a British novelist, in an address to the Royal Society of Literature in London, on December 14, 2000. But of course it was no more than a human century. In 1994, the historian Eric Hobsbawm wrote that 187 million people were "killed or allowed to die by human decision" in what he called the "short century"-a period of about 75 years from 1914 to 1991. The period chosen by Hobsbawm spanned the beginning of World War I to the dissolution of the Soviet Union and the end of the Soviet occupation of its Eastern European "allies." Given that Hobsbawm is a Marxist historian, his choice of the category "by human decision" was particularly significant. However, the sum that he provided was low by just about 29 million people for the full twentieth century, during which approximately 216 million people died in wars and conflict and, in very large numbers, "by human decision." The data to support this statement are presented in the following pages and in a detailed table beginning on page 43 of this document. The purpose of this study is to provide the derivation of the numbers in that table and to briefly discuss several instances in the past decade or so when large numbers of deaths could unquestionably have been averted by international action.
- Topic:
- Conflict Prevention, Peace Studies, and War
- Political Geography:
- Soviet Union and London
1278. Options to Finance the Additional War Costs
- Author:
- Leonard E. Burman and Jeff Rohaly
- Publication Date:
- 09-2003
- Content Type:
- Working Paper
- Institution:
- Urban Institute
- Abstract:
- The President has requested an additional $87 billion to finance the war and reconstruction costs in Iraq. Commentators and some members of Congress have expressed an interest in options to offset these additional costs so as not to add on to the burgeoning budget deficit, which CBO estimates to be $480 billion in fiscal year 2004. This note considers four options to raise approximately enough revenue to finance the additional war costs. The estimates are approximate because they do not account for additional tax avoidance that higher rates might provoke, a significant factor in official revenue estimates.
- Topic:
- Government, Political Economy, and War
- Political Geography:
- United States and Iraq
1279. War with Iraq?
- Author:
- Peter Van Ness, Hugh White, Stuart Harris, Amin Saikal, and Peter C. Gration
- Publication Date:
- 11-2002
- Content Type:
- Working Paper
- Institution:
- Australian National University Department of International Relations
- Abstract:
- What curious path has brought us to this point? Just over a year ago, terrorists from the amorphous transnational Al Qaeda network killed thousands of Americans and other nationals by flying planes into New York's World Trade Center, the Pentagon in Washington, and a field in Pennsylvania. Today, the United States is preparing to launch a war against the state of Iraq, emphasising the grave and imminent danger posed by Saddam Hussein's weapons of mass destruction, but animated also by a long-standing goal of 'regime change'. What explains this 'statising' of the so-called 'war against terrorism'? What risks does it pose for regional and world order?
- Topic:
- Security, Terrorism, War, and Weapons of Mass Destruction
- Political Geography:
- United States, Iraq, and Middle East
1280. Easternization Meets Westernization: Patriotic Youth Organizations in French Indochina during World War II
- Author:
- Anne Raffin
- Publication Date:
- 06-2002
- Content Type:
- Journal Article
- Journal:
- French Politics, Culture Society
- Institution:
- Conference Group on French Politics Society
- Abstract:
- Although colonizers generally repressed emergent national movements as potential vehicles of national liberation, the French encouraged patriotic mobilizations in Indochina in the early 1940s as a way to counteract Thai irredentists, Vietnamese revolutionaries, and Japanese occupiers and their claims of "Asia for Asians." Here, colonial authorities sought to build allegiance to the empire by "patriotizing" youth attitudes through sports activities and youth corps. Participation in such youth organizations mushroomed in Indochina between 1940 and 1945, gaining over a million members in that short span.
- Topic:
- War
- Political Geography:
- Japan, China, and Asia