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Press Freedom in the Philippines: Death by a Thousand Cuts
by Philippa Kaur 11 March 2021, 13:11
In less than two years, the editor-in-chief and CEO of the independent news site Rappler, Maria Ressa, has been issued 10 arrest warrants. The latest accusations against her involve tax evasion and failure to file accurate tax returns, which she testified against on March 4, 2021, before the Court of Tax Appeals. In addition, Ressa faces numerous other charges, including illegal foreign ownership of Rappler Holdings Corporation — the Philippine Constitution restricts foreign ownership of mass media in the country, subject to congressional regulation. The charges amount to 100 years of prison time if she is found guilty. This latest flurry of persecution is a continuum of the country’s troubling history of suppressing press freedom.
The most high-profile case against Ressa, who is Filipino-American, concluded last year when she was found guilty of cyber libel. After an eight-month trial, Ressa, alongside Rappler journalist Reynaldo Santos Jr., was handed the verdict by the Manila Regional Trial Court on June 15. Ressa denied the charges, and both were released on bail pending appeal. However, they face up to six years in prison unless all appeals are rejected. The case against Ressa and Santos involves the latter’s article published in 2012 by Rappler, which made allegations of businessman Wilfredo Keng’s ties to then-Philippine Chief Justice Renato Corona. Santos’ article also alleged Keng’s involvement in illicit activities that include drug and human trafficking.
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Based on information published locally by the Philippine Star in 2002 and an intelligence report by the National Security Council, Santos’s piece was published approximately four months before the Cybercrime Prevention Law came into effect in 2012. Its republication in 2014 due to a correction of a typo allowed for the court to give its guilty verdict to Ressa and Santos Jr. retroactively. The case has garnered attention and criticism from local and international media communities. Ressa herself claims the verdict and the numerous charges against her and Rappler are politically motivated. In her statement to the BBC, Ressa lamented, “I think what you’re seeing is death by a thousand cuts — not just of press freedom but of democracy.”
A Dangerous Place
Since his election in 2016, President Rodrigo Duterte’s war on drugs has drawn criticism both nationally and abroad. According to The Guardian, tens of thousands of deaths in the Philippines are estimated to be the result of extrajudicial killings prompted by the president’s anti-drug crackdown. Rappler has been at the forefront of extensive coverage and criticism of the campaign. The correlation between Rappler’s reporting and the number of charges against Ressa has fueled the narrative of intimidation tactics by the Philippine government against the free press.
The Philippines has a long history of suppressing various forms of free speech and political activism. The current wave of persecution carries echoes of the martial law years during the dictatorship of Ferdinand Marcos in the 1970s 1980s, when journalists and activists were arrested and interrogated by the military and a media lockdown was implemented as newspapers and radio stations were ordered shut.
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In more recent years, hundreds of farmers, trade union leaders, activists and environmentalists have been targeted by the Philippine government. According to a report by the UN Human Rights Office, at least 248 activists have been killed in the Philippines between 2015 and 2019. While Maria Ressa’s high-profile case has regenerated national and global outrage, it is only the tip of the iceberg when it comes to how treacherous an environment not only the media, but human and democratic rights defenders have to navigate in the country.
The Philippines ranks 136 out of 180 countries on the Reporters Without Borders (RSF) World Press Freedom Index. After the 2009 massacre of 32 journalists in Maguindanao province ordered by a local warlord, RSF has regularly deemed the country as one of the most dangerous places in Asia for journalists. Adding insight to Maria Ressa’s criminal libel case, the organization noted that “Private militias, often hired by local politicians, silence journalists with complete impunity.” Freedom of the press is guaranteed under the country’s constitution, yet in 2018, the Philippine Centre for Media Freedom and Responsibility tallied 85 attacks on the media by the Duterte administration, including death threats, killings and attempted murder.
President Duterte’s public remarks against the media also contribute to the grim state of press freedom in the country. In 2016, the president stated: “Just because you’re a journalist you are not exempted from assassination, if you’re a son of a bitch. Freedom of expression cannot help you if you have done something wrong.” In 2018, responding to a Rappler reporter, Duterte was captured saying, “you have been throwing trash… If you are trying to throw garbage at us, then the least that we can do is explain how about you? Are you also clean?”
The Cybercrime Prevention Law, which was used to convict Ressa, has itself been criticized by the public as having the potential to further threaten freedom of speech and expression. Signed into law by then-President Benigno Aquino III on September 12, 2012, the legislation was primarily established to address crimes such as hacking, identity theft, child pornography and cybersex. Its additional provisions caused worry amongst the public for expanding its legal parameters to include any libelous speech or statements made by citizens on their private social media accounts. Senator Tito Sotto, who at the time was being attacked on social media for alleged plagiarism, is noted for suggesting the inclusion of the libel provision in the law. According to GMA News Online, “There were fears that even retweeting an offensive comment could land one in jail.”
Since the implementation, the law has been cited to charge journalists other than Ressa for cyber libel, including Ramon Tulfo and RJ Nieto. Prior to Ressa’s verdict, Councilor Archie Yongco, from the province of Zamboanga del Sur, was found guilty of cyber libel in March 2020 based on a scathing Facebook post against a rival politician. Although he deleted his post just minutes after its publication, screenshots of his comments were used as evidence in the case. Yongco faces up to eight years of imprisonment and is the first individual to be given a guilty verdict under the Cybercrime Prevention Law.
A Series of Threats
The guilty verdict against Maria Ressa and Reynaldo Santos Jr. was compounded by a series of legislative threats against the media in 2020. On July 10, the House Committee on Legislative Franchises voted against renewing the franchise license for the broadcasting network ABS-CBN. Ressa, commenting on the closure of the broadcaster, stated: “what happened to ABS-CBN can happen to all of us. Journalists, we have to hold power to account.… We need to continue to demand accountability.”
Shortly after the closure of ABS-CBN, there were public concerns over the introduction of the Anti-Terrorism Act of 2020 that came into effect on July 18. The act allows the state to arrest and imprison suspects without a warrant. The alarm among citizens came from the act’s expanded definition of terrorism that broadly includes “engaging in acts intended to endanger a person’s life” and causing damage to public property. Similar to the provisions of the Cybercrime Prevention Law, the new legislation poses threats to users on social media who express political sentiments or dissent. In this case, however, fears are not related to being accused of libel but of so-called red-tagging — the practice of targeting or blacklisting suspected members of the Communist Party of the Philippines and the New People’s Army, both of which have been declared as terrorist organizations by the government.
The legislation, compounded by the Duterte administration’s worrisome human rights record, incited widespread fears of the decline of freedom of speech and expression. Social media users who criticize the government also voiced concern over the act, especially since the head of the Armed Forces of the Philippines, Lieutenant General Gilbert Gapay, expressed interest in including social media in the ambit of the law. Local and international press freedom advocates have filed petitions with the Supreme Court in Manila to reject the legislation, calling it unconstitutional.
After nearly a year of grappling with the COVID-19 pandemic and an economic downturn caused by lockdown measures, the Philippines continues to navigate numerous challenges. Maria Ressa’s and Rappler’s legal battles, as well as the continuous frictions between the Duterte administration and the media, exacerbate fears over the erosion of democratic rights and press freedom during these uncertain times.
The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect Fair Observer’s editorial policy. More
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The Western Sahara Conflict and Great Power Competition
by Philippa Kaur 11 March 2021, 11:51
On December 10, 2020, then-US President Donald Trump recognized Moroccan sovereignty over Western Sahara, circumventing a decades-long UN-sponsored peace process for the territory. In return, Morocco agreed to normalize relations with Israel.
The US-brokered agreement goes beyond a simple quid pro quo for Trump’s Arab peace deals. It represents a US investment in a North African security partner that is key to Washington’s conception of great power competition. Trump’s decision pulls Morocco closer to the US and the European Union. It also brings Rabat closer to the United Arab Emirates’ spheres of geopolitical influence in Africa and the wider Arab world. At the same time, the decision gives the EU cover to further align with Morocco.
Yet Trump’s gift to Morocco could have unintended consequences. Algeria might deepen its relationship with Russia and China, increasing their presence in the Maghreb region. The Biden administration is scrutinizing past deals signed by the previous president, and the decision pertaining to Morocco might come up for reconsideration.
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The Moroccan kingdom conceives of its neighborhood’s stability in terms of a strong grip on Western Sahara, the continued development of the southern territory’s resources, and limited terrorist threats in and around its porous Saharan borders. In late November 2020, the US committed to investing $3 billion in Morocco — through the Development Finance Corporation — and designated the country as a regional hub for its Prosper Africa trade and investment program. A month later, the US committed to selling four sky guardian drones to Morocco, which expands its intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance (ISR) capacity. By acknowledging Moroccan sovereignty over Western Sahara, allotting Morocco more development funding and providing increased ISR, the US bolsters neighborhood stability as seen by King Mohammed VI.
In turn, increased stability for Morocco may reverberate across its littoral Sahara — a vacuum for terrorists and a potential target of Russian intrigue. New US development initiatives could amplify previous Moroccan actions in the region, such as the delivery of COVID-19 aid packages to Mauritania and Burkina Faso in June 2020. New ISR capacity will also see the increased interdiction of traffickers and terrorists, whose roles progressively overlap. These actions will not decisively change the nature of conflict plaguing the Sahel region, located just south of the Sahara Desert. But even marginal gains for Moroccan stability would decrease power vacuums for Russia to exploit with the Wagner Group, a private military company Moscow uses to surreptitiously advance its foreign policy.
Europe and the Gulf
Trump’s decision also provides political cover for the EU to overcome obstacles in its relationship with Morocco, which retains advanced status under the union’s European Neighborhood Policy. The Brussels-Rabat relationship is fraught with disputes over whether goods from Western Sahara should come under the jurisdiction of the EU-Morocco free trade agreement. Rulings in 2016 and 2018 by the European Court of Justice decreed that EU-Morocco trade and fishing agreements would only remain valid if they excluded goods originating from Western Sahara, contradicting the Moroccan autonomy plan for the territory.
Washington’s recognition of Moroccan sovereignty gives political cover to European states, including France, that lean toward the autonomy plan. European judicial decisions do not derive from US decrees, but if key EU member states were to change their stance on Western Sahara, the legal basis of the earlier court rulings could also differ. If so, like the US, the European Union would find itself pulled closer to Morocco, portending new initiatives that align with the European interest of Morocco as a stability exporter.
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In the Gulf, Washington’s recognition of Moroccan sovereignty pushes Rabat and Abu Dhabi closer into alignment. This would continue their rapprochement after previous tensions, which stemmed from Morocco’s refusal to back the Saudi-Emirati-led blockade of Qatar between 2017 and 2021. To punish Morocco for its neutrality, in 2018, the UAE and Saudi Arabia voted against Morocco’s bid to host the 2026 FIFA World Cup. The states also recalled each other’s ambassadors.
In October 2020, however, the UAE opened a consulate in Western Sahara’s Laayoune, which at that time was not recognized as Moroccan territory by the US. This was an important symbolic gesture, given that the UAE was the first Arab state to do so. UAE actions that favor Morocco come amidst deteriorating Emirati-Algerian relations, as Abu Dhabi is unhappy with Algeria’s alleged support of Turkey or, according to the UAE, “anti-Emirati lobbies in the region.” That the UAE is strengthening ties with Morocco while Saudi Arabia makes no such overtures could foreshadow Emirati attempts at constructing a new, intra-Sunni coalition.
Russia and China
US rivals have adopted less amenable stances. Russia has already condemned Washington’s recognition of Moroccan sovereignty over Western Sahara. The US decision, consequently, gives Russia and China an excuse to increase security and economic cooperation with the Algerians. As the most strident supporter of the Polisario Front — an armed group demanding independence for Western Sahara — Algeria is upset about the diplomatic win Morocco secured in the US recognition of Moroccan sovereignty.
To balance Rabat’s victory, Algiers could invite in Russian troops under the guise of counterterrorism operations to the Sahel. Algeria is one of Russia’s largest arms clients and China has already committed billions to phosphates in the east of the country. In light of the US move, both of these relationships could further develop.
Increased Russian and Chinese activity in Algeria would also diminish advances made in terms of Moroccan stability in the Sahel. Russia expanding its North African power projection and China increasing its investments in natural resources would balance Moroccan actions that close power vacuums to the Wagner Group. Unforeseen by Trump, Russia can also cite the US recognition of Moroccan sovereignty over Western Sahara as justification for its annexation in 2014 of Crimea, which is officially part of Ukraine. The US may have improved ties with Morocco but, in doing so, pushed Algeria, another North African behemoth, firmly into a sphere of Russian and Chinese influence and provided Russia justification for its illegal invasions.
The New US Administration
The Biden administration has already stated its support of the Abraham Accords, a term used for the peace deals Israel signed with the UAE and Bahrain in 2020. In response to a question concerning US recognition of Western Sahara, however, Secretary of State Antony Blinken said, “We’re also trying to make sure that we have a full understanding of any commitments that may have been made in securing those agreements.”
On January 27, 2021, US President Joe Biden froze the Trump-era F-35 sale to the UAE, pending review. Many considered the F-35 sale as a carrot Trump offered to the UAE. The freeze does not necessitate the reversal of the sale, but it indicates Biden’s resolve to scrutinize the quid pro quos that accompany the Abraham Accords. Once the US reaches “a full understanding of any commitments,” it will either continue or withdraw recognition of Moroccan sovereignty over Western Sahara.
If the Biden administration continues recognition of Western Sahara, Blinken would most likely work through an international framework at the United Nations to achieve increased support for Washington’s unilateral decision, as the US is the only state to recognize full Moroccan sovereignty over Western Sahara. If EU states lean toward the Moroccan autonomy plan, the Biden administration will find some find needed political cover.
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At the same time, Russia and China would continue their support for Algeria, and Morocco would export its version of stability across North Africa. Rabat would also continue its recognition of Israel. Malignant non-state actors, however, could use the endurance of the US decision to galvanize violent actions from some Polisario fighters, creating another opening for terrorist groups. Maintenance of the decision also comes at the expense of true self-determination for the Saharawi people in Western Sahara.
The US can also withdraw recognition of Moroccan sovereignty over Western Sahara. This action would see the White House realign with the UN-sponsored peace process and international law. Potentially, a US return to non-recognition would invigorate efforts toward a true autonomy plan. In this case, Morocco would withdraw its recognition of Israel and US relations with Morocco would cool. Although the US and Morocco would remain important partners, the Moroccans would feel betrayed by this decision and potentially align closer with Russia and China to castigate the Americans. The Polisario, moreover, would also find a renewed chance at some form of self-determination.
Regardless of the Biden administration’s actions, Trump blatantly circumvented a UN-sponsored peace process and gave Morocco a carte blanche to implement its autonomy plan. New US-Moroccan collaboration could see Morocco push Sahelian stability that benefits the US position in great power competition by closing power vacuums to Russian interests. Trump’s thirst for diplomatic wins, however, caused his administration to view Western Sahara through a transactional lens, obfuscating a legitimate international solution and potentially inviting new Russian and Chinese activity in North Africa.
*[Fair Observer is a media partner of Gulf State Analytics.]
The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect Fair Observer’s editorial policy. More
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Narendra Modi’s War With Social Media
by Philippa Kaur 10 March 2021, 13:06
The Wall Street Journal reports on the Indian government’s intention to clamp down on social platforms that have played a role in the recent farmers’ protests. According to Wall Street Journal sources, Narendra Modi’s government has threatened to jail employees of Facebook, WhatsApp and Twitter “as it seeks to quash political protests and gain far-reaching powers over discourse on foreign-owned tech platforms.”
The article claims that this initiative constitutes the government’s response to the foreign tech companies’ refusal “to comply with data and takedown requests from the government related to protests by Indian farmers that have made international headlines.” In other words, the Indian government wishes to control the content that may be allowed to appear on these platforms.
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But we also learn that it isn’t simply the response to a specific event, such as the farmers’ protests, but a matter of principle. It involves rewriting the rules of India’s democracy. “The rules would also compel companies to remove content that undermines security, public order and ‘decency of morality,’” The WSJ reports.
Today’s Daily Devil’s Dictionary definition:
Undermine:
Express ideas or facts that, however sincere truthful, are deemed dangerous because they challenge a government’s official narrative, the only one permissible for public dissemination.
Contextual note
Since the beginning of the “global war on terror” in 2001, governments across the world have regularly appealed to the theme of “national security,” applying it to oppose anything that might vaguely embarrass them. Prime Minister Modi’s government has boldly added the much broader categories of “public order” and “decency of morality” to the mix. States in the past that have actually managed to accomplish that kind of behavioral control have generally been referred to as fascist. While it may seem abusive to apply that term to any democratically elected government today, the similarity of such policies with those practiced by fascist regimes from the past should be obvious.
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Nations that seek to apply such policies today should only deserve to be called “aspirationally fascist.” Given the availability of communication technology to even the humblest among us, the effective repression of expression and enforcement of morality applied to an entire population would immediately undermine any nation’s pretension of democracy. We should ask ourselves if Modi is serious in his demands. The difficulty of achieving those goals in the era of global platforms appears to be insurmountable. If it were to succeed, it would imply dismantling one of the givens of the globalized economy and the stoutest pillar of any democracy: the free circulation of ideas.
In its reporting on the same topic, Business Insider focuses on the immediate challenge to the Indian government represented by the farmer protests. It describes the government’s initiative as an attempt “to pressure the firms into sharing data related” to the protests. If this is true, the aim would no longer appear to be the mere prevention of unfavorable discourse disseminated through the media. It would imply the harnessing of data produced by these foreign platforms for surveillance purposes. That would then serve the state to crack down on elements suspected of subversion or threatening the public order.
This would seem to contradict the idea that the government’s aim is simply to censor subversive ideas. Instead, its aim would be to partner with the social platforms to gain access to their data and metadata. This would serve, not to suppress certain ideas, but to suppress the people who express those ideas.
Modi may simply be casting his lines in all directions at the same time, unconcerned with the type of fish he may reel in. It could be compared to the Trumpian foreign policy notion of “maximum pressure” to make the adversary bend. In Modi’s case, it is directed at the platforms to convince them to take some action that he finds acceptable — it doesn’t really matter which. He appears to be giving his victims the choice between applying his criteria of censorship, which means banning specific content, or quietly handing him the data they collect, which will make it possible for India to identify and punish the culprits. At the same time, by personally threatening the employees of the platform, Modi is showing that he means business, much like Donald Trump and Mike Pompeo when they imposed sanctions on the officials of the International Criminal Court to discourage them from investigating the US and Israel.
The WSJ reveals the deeper ambitions of the Indian government concerning the surveillance of social media. It cites a member of the government who “said the rules would require platforms to track and store records of specific messages as they traveled among users.” This would have radical implications, defining user privacy in the use of social platforms as a relic of the past. The threats against employees of the platforms demonstrate the conclusion The WSJ has reached: “The Indian government appears ready for a fight.”
Historical Note
Narendra Modi’s government appears to see this as a possible historical turning point. India’s rivalry with China, at least in terms of soft power, has been defined in many people’s minds as the contest between the world’s two powerful but highly contrasted nations that can be called billionaires (in terms of population). One is an autocracy and the other a democracy. One ambiguously carries the heritage of Western colonization; the other defies it.
Seen as competition, it has turned out not to be a truly fair fight. China has obviously been progressing exponentially in its economic and military influence, whereas India seems to be handicapped by its confusing democratic institutions and traditions, coupled with its incomprehensible and ungovernable demography. The traditionally conflictual relationship that has prevailed between the two nations has recently been exacerbated not just by India’s unfocused economic orientations — illustrated by the complexity of the debate around the farmers’ protests — but also with regard to contested borders, where some recent skirmishes have taken place.
The WSJ article offers a curious hint that Modi’s government may be seeking to emulate China: “The big difference between the earlier history and where we are now is that China has done just fine without those companies.” Coming from Modi’s government, this sounds either like an expression of envy or the resolution to mobilize all its forces to go to battle with the social platforms, applying the logic of China which has peremptorily curtailed their freedom to operate.
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The fact that Facebook and Twitter are banned in China has enabled the emergence of Chinese non-global equivalents such as Weibo and Renren. Modi would appear to be dreaming that something similar could take place in India, though the government’s ability to control what happens on such networks as effectively as the Chinese seems more than unlikely. Modi may simply be citing the Chinese case to frighten the American owners of the dominant platforms.
The WSJ presents Modi’s gambit as a negotiating stance. The prime minister believes he is in a position to “threaten the tech companies’ future in a market of more than 1.3 billion people that, since they are locked out of China, is the key to their global growth.” The article cites Jason Pielemeyer, the policy director of the Global Network Initiative, focused on human rights: “In a market the size of India, it’s hard to take the nuclear option, which is to say, ‘We’re not going to comply, and if you block us, we’ll call your bluff or accept the consequences.’”
At the same time, The WSJ reveals what may be the truly “noble” underlying motive of the Indians, one we should all applaud. It’s a motive that sounds far more generous and respectful than either threats against American tech companies or the desire to emulate China’s policy of social control. “Officials have said the government wants to protect small Indian businesses, secure user data and allow room for India’s own tech firms to grow,” The Journal reports.
So, which one is it: the emulation of China’s surveillance society and despotic control of the media or a democratic encouragement of small businesses? Because India is a democracy, all that will only become clear in the next election, in 2024. Only three years to wait for the moment of clarity. Isn’t that what democracy is all about, waiting for the next election in the hope that the truth will then become manifest?
*[In the age of Oscar Wilde and Mark Twain, another American wit, the journalist Ambrose Bierce, produced a series of satirical definitions of commonly used terms, throwing light on their hidden meanings in real discourse. Bierce eventually collected and published them as a book, The Devil’s Dictionary, in 1911. We have shamelessly appropriated his title in the interest of continuing his wholesome pedagogical effort to enlighten generations of readers of the news. Read more of The Daily Devil’s Dictionary on Fair Observer.]
The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect Fair Observer’s editorial policy. More
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Pakistan’s New “Geoeconomics” Lawfare
by Philippa Kaur 9 March 2021, 17:23
Of late, statements from the highest level in Pakistan’s government have urged the global community to build a relationship with the country centered around “geoeconomic security.” The new policy posture is aimed at the Biden administration, but it appears in equal proportion in Pakistan’s recent diplomatic overtures to other countries.
In the past, Pakistan’s global pitch was peppered with terms such as “geostrategic pivot” — an umbrella concept for military and security nuances — to emphasize its indispensability in South Asia. This predisposition informed the overall trajectory of the US–Pakistan relationship since the 9/11 attacks in 2001, as well as the burgeoning China–Pakistan bonhomie that has manifested through the China–Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC).
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Pakistan’s sojourn from “geostrategy” to “geoeconomics” is led by the country’s national security adviser, Moeed Yusuf. In his speech at the Wilson Center in January, Yusuf reminded the United States that it would be engaging with a “very different Pakistan” that is now focused on the “economic security paradigm.” He said Pakistan should be seen beyond the Afghanistan “prism” as an economic partner. He also cautioned against viewing Pakistan from a “third country lens and keeping India at the center of all conversations.”
Similar sentiments were echoed later during the launch of a report titled, “Pak-Americana — Ushering in a New Era of Pakistan–U.S. Relations,” published by Tabadlab, an Islamabad-based think tank. The speakers at the event unerringly ground the future of US–Pakistan relations in economic terms. This paradigm shift was also mentioned by Prime Minister Imran Khan during his recent trip to Sri Lanka, which he invited to join the CPEC.
Interestingly, Pakistan’s new pitch has also gone in lockstep with recent international publications. For example, writing for the Atlantic Council, Shamila Chaudhary and Vali Nasr have argued that Pakistan’s strategic calculus has changed over the years and US policy toward the country should be informed by considerations of a broad-based economic partnership.
The Driver
The underlying driver behind these new policy utterances could be the attempted pushback against entrenched perceptions in US policy circles where Pakistan has been viewed with suspicion. In the best of times, Pakistan has been seen as a security hedge for protecting US regional interests. Since 9/11, the US–Pakistan relationship has been largely about the South Asian nation conducting counterterrorism operations and supporting US military action in Afghanistan. Lately, Pakistan has been trying to put an end to the 20-year-long war in Afghanistan to help the US extricate itself from the Afghan imbroglio.
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It is therefore no surprise that Islamabad’s geoeconomic messaging attempts to clear the air about the misconception that Pakistan’s relationship with China is a bar to broader US–Pakistan cooperation. The thrust is to decouple Pakistan’s relationship with China and to showcase it as a “neutral” partner of the US.
What possibly ungirds Pakistan’s embrace of geoeconomics? After all, this would be a major breakaway from entrenched patterns of the past. Pakistan is perceived to firmly reside in the Chinese camp, which explains former US Assistant Secretary of State Alice Wells’ animus toward the CPEC, which she vehemently criticized for its “predatory loans” and “lack of transparency.”
Despite China and Pakistan embarking on the ambitious CPEC some seven years ago, the Pakistani economy remains its Achilles’ heel. A quick economic turnaround does not seem to be on the horizon with the country on the Financial Action Task Force’s gray list since June 2018. With peace in Afghanistan also a distant prospect, Pakistan’s strategic choices made over the years seem to have outlived their utility.
It is perhaps in this context that Pakistan has realized that stale policy positions need to be discarded. A realization seems to have crept in that if Pakistan is to resurrect its economy and, concomitantly, enhance its global stature, it would have to appear “sexy” and offer the world something more than its geostrategic location.
Giving It Some Thought
If this policy direction is meaningfully implemented, it augurs well for Pakistan’s future. However, to convince the world to view it from a new lens, the country will need to give a concrete direction to this new strand of thought.
First, Pakistan will have to provide an equal opportunity level playing field to all countries looking to develop a broader economic relationship with it. This will mean undoing the perception of elusiveness surrounding CPEC and the “guilt-by-association” blemish on Pakistan that is largely the result of the broader US–China power rivalry. It would be equally important for Pakistan to balance things out vis-à-vis China, which now has deeply entrenched strategic and economic interests in Pakistan.
Second, Pakistan’s India-centric lens that has only blurred its policy vision will need to change. This will require Pakistan to delink its relationship with the US and other countries from India, in the same vein that those countries have delinked their India relationship from their relationship with Pakistan. The increasing coziness between the US and India is a reality that Pakistan cannot wish away. Despite the animosity with India, Pakistan must never close the door for dialogue because a sustainable geoeconomic integration will eventually require an India–Pakistan thaw. The recent announcement by top military officials of India and Pakistan to strictly observe all agreements and the ceasefire along the Line of Control — the frontier that separates Indian-controlled and Pakistani-controlled parts of Kashmir — is a much-needed respite.
Faced with some cold, hard facts, Pakistan seems to be undergoing a policy catharsis. Instead of getting sucked into global and regional power rivalries, it has wisely extended an olive branch to the US and the world at large. It is too early in the day to know how Pakistan’s new strategic posture will interact with political developments in South Asia. However, for its geoeconomics foray to be truly protean in nature, Pakistan’s best bet is to become a regional bridge of connectivity that is firmly hinged on transnational economic pursuits, instead of being tethered to stale hyperbolic policy postures that have led the country nowhere.
The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect Fair Observer’s editorial policy. More
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Violence Against Women in Mexico Rises
by Philippa Kaur 9 March 2021, 15:37
Home is not a safe space for many women around the world and coronavirus-era quarantines and lockdowns have increased the risk of gender-based violence. In Mexico, statistics reflect this reality and women additionally face the rising risk of becoming targets amid violent drug crime and the militarization of the state security forces.
According to the Secretariat of Citizen Security (SSPC) last year, 3,752 women were violently killed. Of these were 969 classified as femicides — defined as the violent death of a woman because of her gender — a slight increase on the previous year’s figure. According to data compiled by the Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean, Mexico has the second-highest total number of femicides in the region — after Brazil — whilst nearby El Salvador and Honduras have the highest rates per capita. The prevalence of violent crime, a culture of machismo and weak implementation of measures designed to protect women mean Latin America is home to 14 of the 25 countries with the highest rates of femicide in the world.
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The first months of the coronavirus pandemic were particularly dangerous for Mexican women, according to Maissa Hubert, the executive sub-director of Equis Justicia Para Las Mujeres, a Mexico City-based NGO. “During the first months of the pandemic, we saw a rise in various forms of gender-based violence,” she says. “In total, 11 women killed each day, compared to 10 per day at the start of 2020.”
In March 2020, the emergency call centers received 26,000 reports of violence against women, the highest ever in Mexico. The number of women leaving their homes to take shelter in the National Refuge Network quadrupled.
Outside the home, however, the continued growth of Mexico’s transnational criminal organizations and the militarized response of state security forces have further increased risks to women. While crime dropped in the first months of the pandemic, the security vacuum has increased clashes between 198 active armed groups in the country’s “hyper-fragmented criminal landscape,” according to International Crisis Group.
Gangs and Militarized State Security
“Organized crime has aggravated the situation with regards to the murder of women,” says Maria Salguero, a researcher who created the National Femicide Map. “The crime gangs use the dead bodies of women to send messages to their rivals. In states where there is a lot of organized crime, such as Juarez, Chihuahua, Guerrero and Naucalpan, we see high incidences of femicide, disappearances and rape.”
The situation is exacerbated by the further militarization of state security. The Bertelsmann Transformation Index’s (BTI) country report on Mexico notes that “the army has been called upon to perform internal security tasks and is receiving large amounts of resources in the context of the war against drug trafficking.” It adds that the widening of the military’s mandate to include civilian tasks could have worrisome implications for consensus building in the country. As noted in the BTI report, President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador‘s government risks losing public support if it cannot solve the challenges of corruption and violence in the country. It points out that “the fact that the army, which has so far not signified a threat to democracy, is required to undertake ever more tasks may be a threat in the future.” Such a breakdown in trust for institutions and the security forces could have knock-on effects for all violent crime.
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On May 11, 2020, the Mexican armed forces and National Guard were given new authority to play a far greater role in policing violent crime in the country — giving them free rein to assume many of the police force’s duties — without any effective audit mechanism.
The effect of this process on gender-based violence is only now coming to be understood. “The attitude of this government and its predecessors has been that a military response to the security situation will protect all of us and women in particular,” says Hubert. “But the reality is that the increased circulation of firearms has had a tremendous impact on women.”
Firearms were the weapon used in 60% of the total 1,844 murders committed against women in 2020. From 1998 to 2019, the number of women killed by firearms in Mexico rose by 375%. Over 2.5 million firearms have entered Mexico from the US over the last decade, and firearms accounted for the overwhelming majority of the total of 34,515 murders registered in Mexico in 2020, the highest number since 2015.
An Overlooked Issue
The continued emphasis on militarized security is sapping state funds at a time when resources for programs addressing violence against women in Mexico are being cut. In recent years, Mexican public policy has had a mixed record with respect to gender-based violence. It took until December last year for President Lopez Obrador to talk about gender-based violence, having previously avoided using the word femicide or acknowledge that women faced specific security concerns. In May 2020, he said that 90% of domestic violence-related 911 calls were false. His team failed to provide evidence to support this claim when requested to by NGOs.
Despite this intransigence at the executive level, in recent years, there has been greater recognition of the problem at the federal and ministerial level, according to Hubert, with many long-lasting public policies proposed by the National Institute of Women, founded in 2001. However, many of the preventative and reactive policies introduced to tackle gender-based violence have been subject to cuts in government spending as a result of the pandemic.
“We analyzed the activity of the courts at the start of the pandemic, and we found gender-based violence was not being prioritized,” says Hubert. “Issues such as divorce and alimony are crucial for a woman looking to free herself from a violent situation, but they weren’t being attended to by the courts.”
For Saguero, the priority is to keep recording the names and identities of the victims of Mexico’s “shadow pandemic” of gender-based violence. “Only by making the victims visible can we really make the scale of the problem visible,” she says, “but we have a lot of work to do because the numbers remain high.”
The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect Fair Observer’s editorial policy. More
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The American Century Ends Early
by Philippa Kaur 8 March 2021, 19:22
Like Gregor Samsa, the never-to-be-forgotten character in Franz Kafka’s story “The Metamorphosis,” we awoke on January 7 to discover that we, too, were “a giant insect” with “a domelike brown belly divided into stiff arched segments” and numerous “pitifully thin” legs that “waved helplessly” before our eyes. If you prefer, though, you can just say it: We opened our eyes and found that, somehow, we had become a giant roach of a country.
Yes, I know, Joe Biden and Kamala Harris are now in charge of the US and waving their own little limbs wildly, trying to do some of what needs to be done for this sad land of the disturbed, over-armed, sick and dying. But anyone who watched the scenes of Floridians celebrating a Super Bowl victory, largely unmasked and cheering, shoulder to shoulder in the streets of Tampa, can’t help but realize that we are now indeed a roach nation, the still-wealthiest, most pandemically unmasked one on planet Earth.
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But don’t just blame Donald Trump. Admittedly, we’ve just passed through the Senate trial and acquittal of the largest political cockroach around. I’m talking about the president who, upon discovering that his vice president was in danger of being “executed” (“Hang Mike Pence!”) and was being rushed out of the Senate as a mob bore down on him, promptly tweeted: “Mike Pence didn’t have the courage to do what should have been done to protect our Country and our Constitution.”
Just imagine. The veep who had — if you don’t mind my mixing my creature metaphors here — toadied up to the president for four endless years was then given a functional death sentence by that same man. You can’t fall much deeper into personal roachdom than that. My point here, though, is that our all-American version of roacherie was a long time in coming.
Or put another way: unimaginable as The Donald might have seemed when he descended that Trump Tower escalator in June 2015 to hail his future “great, great wall,” denounce Mexican “rapists” and bid to make a whole country into his apprentices, he didn’t end up in the Oval Office for no reason. He was the symptom, not the disease, though what a symptom he would prove to be — and when it came to diseases, what a nightmare beyond all imagining.
Let’s face it, whether we fully grasp the fact or not, we now live in a system, as well as a country, that’s visibly in an early stage of disintegration. And there lies a remarkable tale of history happening at warp speed, of how, in not quite three decades, the USS Enterprise of imperial powers was transformed into the USS Roach.
Once Upon a Time on Earth…
Return for a moment to 1991, almost two years after the Berlin Wall fell, when the Soviet Union finally imploded and the Cold War officially ended. Imagine that you had been able to show Americans then — especially the political class in Washington — that 13-minute video of Trump statements and tweets interlarded with mob actions in the Capitol that the Democratic House impeachment managers used in their opening salvo against the former president. Americans — just about any of us — would have thought we were watching the most absurd science fiction or perhaps the single least reality-based bit of black comedy imaginable.
In the thoroughly self-satisfied (if somewhat surprised) Washington of 1991, the triumphalist capital of “the last superpower,” that video would have portrayed a president, an insurrectionary mob and an endangered Congress no one could have imagined possible — not in another nearly 30 years, not in a century, not in any American future. Then again, if in 1991 you had tried to convince anyone in this country that a walking Ponzi scheme(r) like Donald Trump could become president, no less be impeached twice, you would have been laughed out of the room.
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After all, the US had just become the ultimate superpower in history, the last one ever. Left alone on this planet, it had a military beyond compare and an economy that was the heartland of a globalized system and the envy of the world. The Earth was — or at least to the political class of that moment seemed to be — ours for the taking, but certainly not for the losing, not in any imaginable future. The question then wasn’t keeping them out but keeping us in. No “big, fat, beautiful walls” were needed. After all, Russia was a wreck. China was still emerging economically from the hell of the Maoist years. Europe was dependent on the US and, when it came to the rest of world, what else need be said? This was an American planet, pure and simple.
In retrospect, consider the irony. There had been talk then about a post-Cold War “peace dividend.” Who would have guessed, though, that dividends of any sort would increasingly go to the top 1% and that almost 30 years later, the US would functionally be a plutocracy overseen until a month ago by a self-professed multibillionaire? Who would have imagined that the American version of a peace dividend would have been siphoned off by more billionaires than anyplace else on Earth and that, in those same years, inequality would reach historic heights, while poverty and hunger only grew? Who woulda guessed that whatever peace dividend didn’t go to the ultra-wealthy would go to an ever-larger national security state and the industrial complex of weapons makers that surrounded it? Who woulda guessed that, in official post-Cold War Washington, peace would turn out to be the last thing on anyone’s mind, even though this country seemed almost disarmingly enemy-less? (Remember when the worst imaginable combination of enemies, a dreaded “axis of evil,” would prove to be Iraq, Iran and North Korea, all embattled, distinctly tertiary powers?)
Who woulda guessed that a military considered beyond compare (and funded to this day like no other) would proceed to fight war after war, literally decades of conflict, and yet — except for the quasi-triumph of the first Gulf War against Saddam Hussein’s Iraq — achieve victory in none of them? Staggering trillions of taxpayer dollars would be spent on them, while those billionaires were given untold tax breaks. Honestly, who would have guessed then that, on a planet lacking significant enemies, Washington, even six presidents later, would prove incapable of stopping fighting?
Who woulda guessed that, in September 2001, not Russia or communist China, but a tiny group of Islamic militants led by a rich Saudi extremist the US had once backed would send 19 (mostly Saudi) hijackers to directly attack the United States? They would, of course, cause death and mayhem, allowing President George W. Bush to launch an almost 20-year “global war on terror,” which still shows no sign of ending. Who woulda guessed that, in the wake of those 9/11 terror attacks, the son of the man who had presided over the first Gulf War (but stopped short of felling Iraqi autocrat Saddam Hussein) and the top officials of his administration would come to believe that the world was his oyster and that the US should dominate the greater Middle East and possibly the planet in a way previously unimaginable? Who would have imagined that he would invade Iraq (having done the same in Afghanistan a year and a half earlier), effectively helping to spread Islamic extremism far and wide, while creating a never-ending disaster for this country?
Who woulda guessed that, in 2009, in the wake of a Great Recession at home, the next president, Barack Obama, would order a massive “surge” of forces into Afghanistan, a war already eight years old? Tens of thousands of new troops, not to speak of contractors, CIA operatives and others would be sent there without faintly settling things.
By November 2016, when an antiquated electoral system gave the popular vote to Hillary Clinton but put Donald Trump, a man who promised to end this country’s “endless wars” (he didn’t) in the Oval Office, it should have been obvious that something was awry on the yellow brick road to imperial glory. By then, in fact, for a surprising number of Americans, this had become a land of grotesque inequality and lack of opportunity. And many of them would prove ready indeed to use their votes to send a message to the country about their desire to Trump that very reality.
From there, of course, with no Wizard of Oz in sight, it would be anything but a yellow brick road to January 6, 2021, when, the president having rejected the results of the 2020 election, a mob would storm the Capitol. All of it and the impeachment fiasco to follow would reveal the functional definition of a failing democracy, one in which the old rules no longer held.
Exiting the Superpower Stage of History
And, of course, I have yet to even mention the obvious — the still-unending nightmare that engulfed the country early in 2020 and that, I suspect, will someday be seen as the true ending point for a strikingly foreshortened American century. I’m thinking, of course, of COVID-19, the pandemic disease that swept the country, infecting tens of millions of Americans and killing hundreds of thousands in a fashion unmatched anywhere else on the planet. It would even for a time fell a president, while creating mayhem and ever more fierce division in unmasked parts of the country filled with civilians armed to the teeth, swept up in conspiracy theories and at the edge of who knew what.
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Call it a sign from the gods or anything you want, but call it startling. Imagine a disease that the last superpower handled so much more poorly than countries with remarkably fewer resources. Think of it as a kind of judgment, if not epitaph, on that very superpower.
Or put another way: Not quite 30 years after the Soviet Union exited the stage of history, we’re living in a land that was itself strangely intent on heading for that same exit — a crippled country led by a 78-year-old president, its system under startling pressure and evidently beginning to come apart at the seams. One of its political parties is unrecognizable; its presidency has been stripped of a fully functioning Congress and is increasingly imperial in nature; its economic system plutocratic; its military still struggling across significant parts of the planet, while a possible new cold war with a rising China is evidently on the horizon; and all of this on a planet that itself, even putting aside that global pandemic, is visibly in the deepest of trouble.
At the end of Franz Kafka’s classic tale, Gregor Samsa, now a giant insect with a rotting apple embedded in its back, dies in roach hell, even if also in his very own room with his parents and sisters nearby. Is the same fate in store, after a fashion, for the American superpower?
In some sense, in the Trump and COVID-19 years, the United States has indeed been unmasked as a roach superpower on a planet going to — again, excuse the mixed animal metaphors — the dogs. The expected all-American age of power and glory hasn’t been faintly what was imagined in 1991, not in a country that has shown remarkably few signs of coming to grips with what these years have truly meant.
Centuries after the modern imperial age began, it’s evidently coming to an end in a hell that Joe Biden and crew won’t be able to stop, even if, unlike the previous president, they’re anything but intent on thoroughly despoiling this land. Still, Trump or Biden, at this point it couldn’t be clearer that we need some new way of thinking about and being on this increasingly roach-infested planet of ours.
*[This article was originally published by TomDispatch.]
The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect Fair Observer’s editorial policy. More
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What’s Behind Chile’s Vaccination Success?
by Philippa Kaur 5 March 2021, 11:21
The deadly impact of COVID-19 has been felt in every corner of the globe. On February 22, the United States reached a tragic landmark of 500,000 deaths. Across the Atlantic, nine of the top 10 nations in deaths per million are in Europe, with tiny enclaves of Gibraltar and San Marino topping the tables. The list of countries that have dealt with the pandemic relatively well is much shorter. Almost a year ago, I wrote about how leaders in Brazil and Mexico were slow in taking tougher action to prevent the spread of the virus. I falsely predicted that Latin America is unlikely to witness the death rates seen in Europe. Unfortunately, the effects of the pandemic were equally devastating in the region, if not worse.
Images of mass graves in the Amazonian town of Manaus and the dead bodies left in coffins in the streets of Guayaquil, Ecuador, have spread worldwide. More than 260,000 Brazilians and nearly 190,000 Mexicans died because of the virus, placing the two countries second and third in absolute numbers of fatalities. Peru registered 1,421 deaths per million and Panama 1,352 on March 4 — numbers that show the devastation caused by the virus in the region so far. Chile has also experienced a significant death rate of 1,084 per million.
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The big difference in Chile was that authorities mobilized in advance to secure vaccines, hedging bets on various suppliers in different stages of development. In September last year, President Sebastian Pinera announced the purchase of 10 million doses of Pfizer-BioNtech vaccine. Deliveries commenced on December 24, making Chile the first Latin American nation to start its vaccination program. The country has ordered some 90 million doses, more than enough to immunize its 19 million citizens. By March 4, more than 20% of its population received at least one shot, placing Chile fifth in the world when it comes to vaccination rates, just behind Israel, United Arab Emirates, the United Kingdom and the United States.
Political Conflict
On December 29, Argentinians started to receive the Russian Sputnik V vaccine. The pace of immunization in Argentina has been much slower than expected, with several complaints of those not in priority groups receiving the jab before health workers and the elderly. The “VIP vaccination” scandal has caused the resignation of the health minister, drawing protesters onto the streets and generating criticism against President Alberto Fernandez. So far, Argentina has vaccinated only 2.61% of its 45 million citizens. The slower pace seems to be standard in the region, with most nations unable to vaccinate even 1% of their citizens. The cause is not only the shortage of vaccines but lack of planning and, more significantly, internal political conflict.
In Brazil, president Jair Bolsonaro has made several statements that undermined efforts to slow the pandemic. In a national broadcast on March 24, 2020, he criticized the restrictive measures adopted by governors and mayors, urging people to return to work and referring to COVID-19 as a “little flu.” The president also highly publicized the unproven anti-malarian drug chloroquine as being effective against the virus, ordering the Ministry of Health to produce four million doses. His insistence on the use of the drug caused the loss of two health ministers, Dr. Henrique Mandetta, fired by Bolsonaro last April, and Dr. Nelson Teich, who resigned less than a month after taking over. Since then, the position has been filled by an army general specializing in logistics, with neither medical education nor experience.
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Over the course of the pandemic, Bolsonaro has been exchanging public barbs with the state governments, such as over lockdown measures adopted by individual governors last month. On March 1, 16 of the country’s 26 governors, including three Bolsonaro allies, signed a letter criticizing the government and accusing the president of misleading the public about federal pandemic relief funds. Sao Paulo’s governor, Joao Doria, a former ally in the 2018 elections and a potential competitor in 2022, has been the president’s most vociferous antagonist over the handling of the pandemic.
At the center of the dispute is the Butantan Institute, one of the most prestigious health centers in Latin America, situated in the state of Sao Paolo. Back in June, Butantan signed a partnership with the Chinese laboratory Sinovac Biotech to produce the CoronaVac vaccine. Initially, Bolsonaro has signaled that Brazil would not purchase the Chinese vaccine, questioning its efficiency, but in January, the Ministry of Health added the vaccine to the national immunization plan following approval by the health regulator, Anvisa. Last month, Doria announced a deal for a further 20 million doses of CoronaVac to complement the 100 million already secured by Butantan.
Last August, Pfizer said it offered 70 million batches of its vaccine to Brazil, with a delivery scheduled for December. However, with Brazil dissatisfied with the terms of the contract, the deal is still being negotiated. Health Minister Eduardo Pazuello hopes to secure 100 million doses from Pfizer and 38 million from a pharmaceutical subsidiary of Johnson & Johnson, Janssen, to start deliveries in May and August respectively. Due to this lack of urgency and an absence of a unified policy between the federal and state governments, Brazil has so far vaccinated just 3,67% of its population.
Crisis Management
Chile has also faced political unrest. Since 2019, the country experienced several mass protests calling for education and pension reforms. In a televised address, President Pinera declared a state of emergency, granting powers to restrain freedom of movement and assembly. The measure resulted in violence that cost 18 lives in five days, leading the UN to examine possible human rights abuses. As a result, Pinera’s approval rating fell to just 7%. In 2020, amid the ongoing political crisis, COVID-19 hit the country hard, provoking the resignation of the health minister, Jaime Manalich.
However, Pinera managed to turn the situation around. With a degree in commercial engineering from the Catholic University of Chile and a PhD in economics from Harvard, the president is a billionaire businessman, with an estimated net worth of $2,9 billion. He has already led the country once, between 2010 and 2014, earning crucial government nous. Pinera made several concessions to the protesters and supported the calls for a new constitution in an attempt to turn down the political temperature.
A referendum on October 25 saw 78% of the population approve a new constitution that will substitute the current one created in 1980 under General Augusto Pinochet. The new Magna Carta will be written by a 155-strong body also elected through a popular vote and with an equal number of men and women. The document will then be confirmed by a popular vote before being implemented.
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To assuage popular discontent caused by the initial handling of the pandemic in combination with other historical grievances relating to health care, education and pensions, Pinera focused his negotiation abilities to mediate the purchase of million doses of vaccine from different laboratories and suppliers. While most developing nations have been struggling with a lack of supplies, Chile is among the top three countries, along with Canada and the UK, when it comes to the number of doses ordered per capita. Back in September, just before the peak of protests, Pinera announced partnerships on the development and clinical trials between the Catholic University of Chile and Sinovac; the University of Chile, Janssen/Johnson & Johnson and AstraZeneca; as well as the University of Frontera and another Chinese laboratory, CanSino Biologics. More than that, purchases were agreed with Pfizer, Covax, Sinovac and AstraZeneca.
But despite perceived goodwill from an unpopular right-wing government, the president still faces an uphill climb when it comes to popularity. By March 1, 83% of the Chileans deemed the massive vaccination as good or very good, 58% asses the general management of the pandemic as positive, but Pinera’s personal approval is still only at 24%.
The successful vaccination has already yielded positive outcomes. According to Chile’s Health Ministry, the number of new COVID-19 cases has decreased in six of the country’s 16 regions in the last seven days and in eight the last 14 days. Chile hopes to vaccinate at least 15 million people in the first semester, which would allow the country to immunize its entire population by the end of June. These numbers would put Chile way ahead in the vaccination game not only in Latin America but worldwide, suggesting that resolute leadership is as important for the nation’s well-being as a robust medical system.
The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect Fair Observer’s editorial policy. More
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The Talented Mr. Bin Salman
by Philippa Kaur 4 March 2021, 22:05
Mohammed bin Salman is a charming fellow. The tall, dark and handsome Saudi prince known as MBS has seduced world leaders and eager pundits left and right. To his supporters, MBS became first in line to the Saudi throne by championing reform in a deeply conservative Gulf kingdom, taking on corruption, confronting religious extremists and promising to modernize the economy. “Someone had to do this job — wrench Saudi Arabia into the 21st century — and MBS stepped up,” wrote Thomas Friedman in an oft-cited column from November 2017. “I, for one, am rooting for him to succeed in his reform efforts.”
Not only impressionable opinion-makers have fallen for the prince’s charm. In 2017, MBS won the reader poll for Time’s person of the year with an astonishing 24% of the vote. Second place, at 6%, went to the magazine’s eventual pick for its cover, the #MeToo movement, while Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau garnered a mere 4%, Pope Francis 3% and then-US President Donald Trump 2%.
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Of course, not everyone has been enthusiastic about the talented Mr. bin Salman. In 2015, three months into his new position as defense minister, MBS launched an air war in neighboring Yemen. Tens of thousands of Yemeni civilians have died, and the country has been plunged into a humanitarian nightmare. The war, which has become a quagmire for the Saudi-led coalition, has not exactly made a lot of friends for MBS.
Two years later, shortly before he mesmerized Friedman in Riyadh, Mohammed bin Salman detained a number of his wealthiest rivals in a set of rooms at the Ritz-Carlton in the Saudi capital. There he subjected the sheikhs and businessmen to interrogations and torture that resulted in one death and the hospitalization of 17 others. The Saudi leadership called the extortion of billions of dollars from the rich prisoners an anti-corruption campaign, but it was really a way for MBS to consolidate his power through brute force.
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“He is a psycho,” a relative of one of the detainees said of MBS. “He has spite. He wants to break people. He doesn’t want anyone to have an honorable name but him. He is a devil, and the devil is learning from him.”
Shortly before the Ritz-Carlton “sheikhdown,” Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi fled the country for the United States. As a Washington Post columnist, he then took aim at the policies of the Saudi government and those of MBS in particular. While the Saudi prince “is right to free Saudi Arabia from ultra-conservative religious forces, he is wrong to advance a new radicalism that, while seemingly more liberal and appealing to the West, is just as intolerant of dissent,” Khashoggi wrote in a column from April 2018.
That intolerance for dissent was on full and tragic display a few months later when Khashoggi walked into the Saudi Consulate in Istanbul to get papers to marry his Turkish fiancée and never came out. A government-dispatched death squad strangled the journalist and dismembered his body.
The Saudi government initially denied that Khashoggi had been killed. Then it claimed that the killers were rogue elements. The kingdom eventually put 11 unnamed individuals on trial for the crime, charged eight of them and handed down five death sentences that it subsequently commuted to 20 years in prison.
After Khashoggi’s murder, the Trump administration imposed sanctions on 17 Saudi officials. But even though a UN report implicated MBS in the assassination, he didn’t face any consequences. Indeed, Trump continued to praise the Saudi prince as if nothing had happened.
“It’s an honor to be with the Crown Prince of Saudi Arabia, a friend of mine, a man who has really done things in the last five years in terms of opening up Saudi Arabia,” Trump said at a June 2019 breakfast with MBS at the G20 meeting in Tokyo. “I want to just thank you on behalf of a lot of people, and I want to congratulate you. You’ve done, really, a spectacular job.”
This week, the Biden administration released an earlier US intelligence report on the assassination of Khashoggi that concluded that Mohammed bin Salman approved the killing. The administration added some new sanctions against certain Saudi officials and instituted a “Khashoggi ban” against 76 unnamed individuals associated with the killing. That ban can also be applied to any foreign officials who harass or harm journalists or activists.
Still, the Biden administration has declined to sanction MBS himself. Like Tom Ripley in the novels of Patricia Highsmith, Mohammed bin Salman is a confidence man, a possible serial killer and an all-around psychopath with a taste for the high life. Highsmith described the protagonist of “The Talented Mr. Ripley” and four other novels as “suave, agreeable, and utterly amoral.” Although he often comes close to getting caught, in the end, Tom Ripley gets away with murder every time. Will that be the fate of the talented Mr. bin Salman as well?
The US-Saudi Relationship
The alliance between the United States and Saudi Arabia initially made sense, at least at a basic economic level. In February 1945, when Franklin D. Roosevelt met secretly with King Abdul Aziz ibn Saud on a Navy destroyer in the Suez Canal, the US president wanted to secure a homeland for Jewish refugees in Palestine. Although the Saudi king was not enthusiastic, he was willing to forge a partnership around oil. Saudi Arabia had recently discovered what promised to be very lucrative fields, and the US needed a reliable oil supply to finish off World War II and begin a post-war recovery.
Saudi Arabia still has a lot of oil, but the US doesn’t need it anymore. From a high of two million barrels of crude a day in May 2003, US imports dropped to a mere 100,000 last December. For a period of time in January, for the first time in 35 years, the United States didn’t import any Saudi oil at all. Because of its own fossil fuel production, increased imports from countries like Canada, and greater reliance on renewables, the US is simply no longer dependent on the Saudis.
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Take oil out of the equation and the alliance becomes untenable. Saudi Arabia is a dictatorship with fewer political and religious freedoms than, say, Iran, which the US routinely castigates for its human rights violations. The kingdom has been a destabilizing influence in the region, for instance through its war in Yemen and its earlier embargo of Qatar. Moreover, Saudi Arabia promotes a conservative version of Islam, Wahhabism, that has squeezed out more liberal variants of the religion all around the world. The country has also generated even more extremist ideologies, like the jihadism of Osama bin Laden and his followers.
In an investigation of the links between the Saudi government and the 9/11 hijackers, the FBI found some evidence of collaboration, through the Saudi Embassy in Washington, but the agency has been divided on whether that evidence is conclusive. The name of the relevant embassy contact, Mussaed Ahmed al-Jarrah, was even inadvertently revealed last May, but it’s not likely that the Saudi government will allow him to be deposed as part of the lawsuit mounted by families of the 9/11 victims.
It’s not the only case in which the Saudi government has been implicated. A lawsuit in Florida alleges that the kingdom could have prevented an attack by a Saudi air force officer in 2019 at a naval air station in Pensacola that left three US sailors dead.
The US government has generally looked the other way when it comes to these obvious disqualifications for a strategic partnership. It’s not just oil. The Saudis have proved to be useful partners in various causes over the years. They provided financial support for the anti-Soviet mujahideen in Afghanistan. They’ve been a bulwark behind conservative regimes in the Middle East, such as Egypt, which the United States has misinterpreted as a stabilizing influence.
And then there’s Iran, with which Saudi Arabia has long battled for influence in the greater Middle East. Part of the rivalry is confessional — Iran is predominantly Shia, while Saudi Arabia is predominantly Sunni. The tensions are also political since the Saudis tend to prefer conservative, pro-Western regimes, while Iran favors governments and movements that are at least skeptical of the West if not outright hostile. But the competition often boils down to geopolitics, with the two countries trying to influence countries and leaders regardless of their religion or political leanings.
Because the United States decided 40 years ago, with a big assist from Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, to do everything it could to constrain the new Islamic Republic of Iran, Saudi Arabia became an essential partner. In 2015, the Obama administration challenged the cornerstone of this partnership with the Iran nuclear deal. Trump swung in the opposite direction to make the kingdom the fulcrum of a region-wide peace plan.
President Joe Biden is now trying to “recalibrate” the relationship. It has ended “all American support for offensive operations in the war in Yemen, including relevant arms sales,” but that leaves open the possibility of supporting defensive operations, whatever those might be. It has put a hold on half a billion dollars in military assistance but is now evaluating which deals can go through under the category of “defensive” weapons, like missile defense systems.
In his initial discussions with the kingdom, Biden also raised issues of human rights and the assassination of Khashoggi. At the same time, however, the administration has tried to preserve the overall relationship by effectively pardoning MBS. King Salman is 85 years old, and he’s not in good health. With MBS set to take over, the United States doesn’t want to alienate a powerful future monarch. Mohammed bin Salman is aware of his leverage. He will act accordingly.
Dealing with Ruling Assassins
The Biden administration this week announced sanctions against senior Russian officials over the poisoning of dissident Alexei Navalny. In 2019, the European Union imposed sanctions on Iran for its involvement in the assassination of two Iranians in the Netherlands. After the 2017 assassination at the Kuala Lumpur airport of Kim Jong Nam, who was North Korean leader Kim Jong Un’s half-brother, Malaysia closed its embassy in Pyongyang and imposed a travel ban on the country.
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None of these moves has doomed bilateral relations. The US still engages with the Kremlin, most recently by extending New START. The EU is pushing hard for a resumption of the Iran nuclear deal. Malaysia reopened its embassy in Pyongyang last year.
Part of the reason why such extrajudicial murders generate sanctions but not a full quarantine of the perpetrating countries is the widespread nature of these offenses. Among its many “targeted killings” by drones, the United States assassinated the head of Iran’s Quds Force, Qasem Soleimani, outside the Baghdad airport at the beginning of 2020. Israel has routinely killed its opponents all over the world, including a Libyan embassy employee in Rome, an Egyptian nuclear scientist in Paris, a Brazilian colonel in Sao Paolo and a Canadian engineer in Brussels. Syria might or might not have been behind several assassinations in Lebanon, including leftist leader Kamal Jumblatt and former Prime Minister Rafik Hariri. None of these countries has suffered geopolitically for these acts.
The talented Mr. bin Salman, in other words, killed his most prominent critic because he knew he would get away with it. Even if the Biden administration decides for entirely pragmatic reasons not to sanction the Saudi prince, it should definitively stop all military support to Riyadh, even weapons considered “defensive.” After all, if Saudi Arabia feels more secure behind a Terminal High Altitude Area Defense system, it will be more likely to direct aerial attacks against its opponents.
It’s the nature of geopolitics that a few psychopaths are going to become the leaders of their countries. But that’s no reason for the United States to give these “talented” men the weapons to consolidate their power.
*[This article was originally published by FPIF.]
The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect Fair Observer’s editorial policy. More

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