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Other countries have faced similar challenges, often with poor results, from protracted limbo to, in the worst cases, civil war.PARIS — Battered by gang violence and corruption, its Parliament near vacant, its judiciary in tatters, its Constitution subject to dispute, its poverty crushing and its history a chronicle of unrest, Haiti was in bad shape even before its president was assassinated and rival factions laid claim to power.Now, it’s in meltdown.“Haitian democracy has been slipping away for a long time and with each round it’s been getting worse,” said Peter Mulrean, a former United States ambassador to Haiti. “There is not much left to save.”Claude Joseph, the interim prime minister, and eight of the 10 remaining members of Parliament in the entire country of 11 million people have both said they have a legitimate right to assume power and fill Haiti’s vacuum of authority.Mr. Joseph, as the incumbent, has tepid backing from a Biden administration desperate not to be sucked into a quagmire. The vestigial Senate, having been elected, has some legal imprimatur, but is dogged by accusations of corruption and self-dealing.When power is disputed, institutional strength and the rule of law become paramount. Haiti has little or none. It finds itself in a desperate void. As the battle for power escalates, there is scarcely a Haitian democratic institution standing that can adjudicate the dispute stemming from the assassination of the president, Jovenel Moïse, in his home on Wednesday.After the last United States election result was contested, a mob incited by former President Trump stormed the capitol on Jan. 6, but American legal checks and balances held in the end. Further violence was averted, but only just.Haiti’s interim prime minister, Claude Joseph, claims to be in charge of the country. Haiti’s senate says he is not.Joseph Odelyn/Associated PressAbsent strong institutions, some powerful international investment in stability is critical. Afghanistan is scarcely more stable than Haiti. Neither state can make a claim to have a monopoly on the use of organized violence within its own borders, a classic definition of a government’s authority.Yet Afghanistan overcame a similar crisis last year. After the 2020 election, both the incumbent, Ashraf Ghani, and his main challenger, Abdullah Abdullah, claimed victory. Mr. Abdullah initially denounced the election result as a “coup.” A violent clash seemed possible. But the United States, through intense diplomacy, was able to mediate a compromise.“The United States had troops in the country,” said Barnett Rubin, a former State Department official with deep knowledge of Afghanistan. “It had advisers. It was invested. It was tacitly on Mr. Ghani’s side.”The United States had an overriding national interest in resolving the conflict and opening the way for peace talks with the Taliban — even if those efforts seem fleeting now that the United States is withdrawing its troops and the Taliban advances across the country.In Haiti, there is no clear rule of law nor any indication that the United States is eager to intervene militarily and force a resolution. If it has any national interest, it lies in preventing upheaval so close to its shores and avoiding another mass Haitian migrant exodus like the one that followed the 1991 coup that ousted President Jean-Bertrand Aristide.The potential for the crisis in Haiti to worsen is evident. Mr. Joseph immediately declared “a state of siege,” a form of martial law, but his right to do so was unclear. In many ways rampant gang violence had already reduced Haiti to a condition resembling a country under siege.The Senate, or what’s left of it, wants Joseph Lambert, its president, to become provisional president and Mr. Joseph replaced as provisional prime minister by Ariel Henry. Before his death, Mr. Moïse had named Mr. Henry, a neurosurgeon, to the prime minister’s position, but he had not yet been sworn in.The Haitian senate has said that the senate president, Joseph Lambert, center, should be Haiti’s president.Hector Retamal/Agence France-Presse — Getty ImagesThe path to breaking a standoff is murky. Under Mr. Moïse, Parliament was eviscerated. The terms of two thirds of the nation’s senators had expired, as did those of every member of the lower house, with no elections to replace them.Critics accused Mr. Moïse of presiding over the collapse deliberately, to further consolidate power. When he was assassinated, the nation was suddenly rudderless.Countries can function, to varying degrees, with nobody in power, or power disputed. In the postwar years, Italy and Belgium have managed with no government for long periods, but they had solid democratic institutions.Lebanon, in dire financial straits, has limped along for many years with two military forces — the national army and the Hezbollah militia — and a sectarian power-sharing system that looks to a millennial generation like a license for the political elite to loot with impunity while the country suffers. Still, it has avoided spiraling back into civil war.In the Ivory Coast, though, violence ultimately settled dueling claims to power after two people declared victory in the 2010 presidential election. The incumbent, Laurent Gbagbo, refused to step down despite the fact that international electoral observers had recognized his rival, Alassane Ouattara, as the winner. Several thousand people were killed in a brief civil war before the French army helped pro-Ouattara forces oust Mr. Gbagbo.In Venezuela, also deep in economic misery, Nicolás Maduro, the nation’s authoritarian leader, has clung to power through more than two years of turmoil despite the rival claims of Juan Guaidó, an opposition leader who has been backed by dozens of foreign governments, including the United States, as the rightful president.President Nicolás Maduro of Venezuela has clung to power despite the rival claims of Juan Guaidó, who was backed by the United States. Miraflores Palace, via ReutersAmerican sanctions have cut off much of the Maduro government’s revenue. The result has been mass migration of precisely the kind the Biden administration wants to avoid in the case of Haiti.Democracies take root slowly and painfully, and Haiti, since becoming the first independent state of Latin American and the Caribbean in 1804, has suffered turmoil almost without respite. Crippled by debt imposed by France, occupied by the United States for almost two decades in the early 20th century, undermined by corruption and coups, hit in 2010 by an earthquake and over the past year by the coronavirus pandemic, the country is at its most vulnerable and combustible.But the Biden administration, at the very moment when the president has been pulling the country back from its forever wars, is wary of any deep Haitian involvement, especially of a request from Haitian officials to deploy American troops. Haitian leaders tend to look to Washington for backing and approval to reinforce their political credentials.For the United States, the European Union and the United Nations, the path of least resistance may well be to seek to resolve the power conflict by urging Haiti to move forward with elections planned for September. The Biden administration has already done just that, as if voting was some panacea.But in an article in Just Society, Mr. Mulrean, who was the American ambassador to Haiti between 2015 and 2017, wrote that holding the elections would be “a mistake.”“It is tempting to think that new elections will clarify the situation and restore stability, but experience teaches us the opposite,” he wrote. “What Haiti needs is to take stock of what is broken and fix it.”A broad coalition of opposition parties and civil society is calling for just that. Voting, they note, solves nothing if the institutions that secure democracy have ceased to function. More
“Bibi, King of Israel!”That is a shout from his fervent supporters that might have given pause to King David, let alone King Solomon. But Benjamin Netanyahu, Israel’s longest-serving prime minister, has finally lost his job, unable to cobble together a final majority in the Knesset after four elections in the last two years.The government that has now replaced him is fragile, however. Little holds it together except a desire to get Mr. Netanyahu out of office, where he will no longer be immune from punishment, if convicted, over charges of corruption.But Mr. Netanyahu still appears to rule Israel’s largest party, Likud, and given Israel’s riven politics, his fall may only be a sort of sabbatical.Whatever the criticism of his actions and political cynicism, Mr. Netanyahu’s career represents an extraordinary accomplishment for a man who grew up in the shadow of a difficult and demanding father and a hero brother, killed at the age of 30 in command of one of Israel’s most storied military ventures, Operation Entebbe. The 1976 operation rescued hostages held at Entebbe Airport in Uganda.Both brothers served in the military’s elite commando unit, Sayeret Matkal. But Bibi survived to put a more lasting stamp on the young state through his political and economic policies, his toughness toward rivals. He has an instinctive sense of what drives Israelis — the search for security in one of the most unstable regions of the world, a Jewish state built on the remnants the Nazis left behind, in the midst of an Arab and Iranian sea.Mr. Netanyahu, right, during a training exercise as a member of the Israeli Army’s Sayeret Matkal commando unit.Israeli Government Press OfficeIsraeli troops patrol fields around a hijacked Sabena aircraft in Tel Aviv in 1972. Mr. Netanyahu’s commando unit, led by Ehud Barak, another future prime minister, rescued the passengers from hijackers.Associated PressMr. Netanyahu with his daughter Noa in 1980.Israeli Government Press OfficeMr. Netanyahu’s path to leadership was not an obvious one. Born in Israel, he grew up partly in the United States, where his father, a deeply conservative scholar of Judaic history, was teaching.He returned to Israel after high school, fluent in English, to make a distinguished career as a commando in Sayaret Matkal, where he rose to captain and was wounded several times.He then returned to the United States, using the more Anglicized name Ben Nitay (later changed to Benjamin Ben Nitai) to get degrees in architecture and business management. By 1978, he was already appearing on American television, where his English made him an ideal guest to discuss Israel.He found his way into diplomacy and politics in the early 1980s, when he was appointed deputy chief of mission to the Israeli Embassy in Washington. He then served as ambassador to the United Nations before returning to Israel to enter politics in earnest.He joined the Likud in 1988 and was elected to Parliament.Mr. Netanyahu, accompanied by Government Secretary Elyakim Rubinstein, on a flight from New York to Washington in 1989, when Mr. Netanyahu served as deputy foreign minister.Israeli Government Press OfficeRight-wing activists pasting campaign posters for Mr. Netanyahu over campaign posters for Prime Minister Shimon Peres in May 1996, before the election that would bring Mr. Netanyahu to power.David Silverman/ReutersBenjamin and Sara Netanyahu in Jerusalem on election day in 1996.Agence France-Presse — Getty ImagesBy 1993, he was the leader of Likud and was a strong critic of Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin of the Labor party and his willingness to give up territory to reach peace with the Palestinians in the Oslo accords. After Mr. Rabin was assassinated in 1995, Mr. Netanyahu was criticized for language approaching incitement, a charge he said he found deeply wounding.But he defeated Washington’s favorite candidate, Shimon Peres, in the 1996 elections by pushing the theme of security in the midst of a badly managed conflict with Lebanon and a series of terrorist bombings by Palestinian groups Hamas and Islamic Jihad. He became the youngest prime minister in Israeli history and the first to be born in the independent state.That same year, 1996, Mr. Netanyahu represented Israel for the first time in summit meetings organized by President Clinton, who was eager to build on Oslo to create a more lasting peace.Then and later, in the 1998 Wye River summit, Mr. Netanyahu proved a difficult partner. He was willing to appeal to American Jews and Israel supporters in Congress to heighten political pressure on Mr. Clinton not to press Israel to go farther than he judged wise.His relations with the Palestinian leader, Yasir Arafat, were always tense, and the two never came to trust one another enough to reach the peace that Mr. Clinton thought was within grasp.Vice President Al Gore watching as Yasir Arafat, King Hussein of Jordan, President Clinton and Mr. Netanyahu leave the Oval Office after a Middle East summit meeting in 1996.Paul Hosefros/The New York TimesThe Israeli and Palestinian leaders failed to resolve any of their differences during the two-day summit.Doug Mills/Associated PressSurrounded by security personnel, Mr. Netanyahu, with his wife Sara and son Avner, spent a holiday at the beach in Caesarea in August 1997.Shaul Golan/Agence France-Presse — Getty ImagesWhile Mr. Netanyahu did much to reform Israel’s economy, charges of corruption, both large and petty, surrounded him and hurt his popularity.After the failure of his Labor Party successor, Ehud Barak, to reach peace with the Palestinians at long meetings at Camp David and again, just before Mr. Clinton left office, Mr. Netanyahu returned to politics. But he lost out to Ariel Sharon, then went on to serve in his cabinet. After a period in opposition, Mr. Netanyahu became prime minister again in 2009 and has remained in office since.But his relations with American presidents continued to be fraught, and he and President Obama developed a deep mutual disdain.Mr. Obama pushed too hard too early to try to get Israel to stop settlement building in the occupied West Bank, while Mr. Netanyahu believed that Mr. Obama was putting Israel at an existential risk by trying to do a deal with Iran to curb its nuclear program.While Iran denied it was aiming to develop nuclear weapons, Mr. Netanyahu compared the threat of Iran to Israel and the Jews to the late 1930s in Europe, when Hitler took power.He tried to defeat the deal in every setting, from the United Nations, where he famously held up a cartoon bomb with a thick red line representing Iranian uranium enrichment, to the U.S. Congress itself, where he remained very popular, especially among Republicans.During his second tenure as prime minister, Mr. Netanyahu had an icy relationship with President Obama.Stephen Crowley/The New York TimesThe Iron Dome defense system being used to intercept incoming missiles fired from Gaza by Hamas militants in 2012.Tsafrir Abayov/Associated PressMr. Netanyahu, famous for his use of visual aids, displaying his red line for Iran’s nuclear program at the United Nations in 2012.Chang W. Lee/The New York TimesMr. Netanyahu also dealt with the aftermath of Mr. Sharon’s decision to pull Israeli troops and settlers out of the Gaza Strip, a step he opposed. Mr. Sharon dumped the keys to Gaza in the street, but they were picked up by the more radical Hamas, which seized control of the Palestinian territory from the more moderate Fatah faction led by Mr. Arafat’s successor, Mahmoud Abbas.Under Mr. Netanyahu, Israel made regular raids and airstrikes to try to stop rockets from Gaza hitting southern Israel, prompting criticism about the deaths of Palestinian civilians in a place many compared to an open-air prison, largely sealed off from the world by Israel and Egypt.But Mr. Netanyahu has refrained from any comprehensive re-invasion of Gaza and has had quiet talks through Egyptian mediators with Hamas to try to keep Gaza from imploding and dragging Israel into a larger war, especially another one with the Iranian-armed Hezbollah militia in southern Lebanon.In the occupied West Bank, however, Israel continued to build a separation barrier between the Palestinians and ever-expanding settlements beyond the so-called Green Line, which delineated Israel’s boundaries under the 1949 armistice until the 1967 Arab-Israeli war..css-1xzcza9{list-style-type:disc;padding-inline-start:1em;}.css-3btd0c{font-family:nyt-franklin,helvetica,arial,sans-serif;font-size:1rem;line-height:1.375rem;color:#333;margin-bottom:0.78125rem;}@media (min-width:740px){.css-3btd0c{font-size:1.0625rem;line-height:1.5rem;margin-bottom:0.9375rem;}}.css-3btd0c strong{font-weight:600;}.css-3btd0c em{font-style:italic;}.css-w739ur{margin:0 auto 5px;font-family:nyt-franklin,helvetica,arial,sans-serif;font-weight:700;font-size:1.125rem;line-height:1.3125rem;color:#121212;}#NYT_BELOW_MAIN_CONTENT_REGION .css-w739ur{font-family:nyt-cheltenham,georgia,’times new roman’,times,serif;font-weight:700;font-size:1.375rem;line-height:1.625rem;}@media (min-width:740px){#NYT_BELOW_MAIN_CONTENT_REGION .css-w739ur{font-size:1.6875rem;line-height:1.875rem;}}@media 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a:hover{-webkit-text-decoration:none;text-decoration:none;}Mr. Netanyahu increasingly depended on political support from Israelis who supported the settlement expansion and their eventual annexation, which he threatened but never carried out.At the same time, he has been making inroads with other Sunni Arab nations despite the continuing decline in relations with the Palestinians, pushing Israel’s solidarity with them against Iran. One of his great accomplishments, working with President Trump, were the Abraham Accords, which opened normal diplomatic relations with the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain, Sudan and Morocco.Those accords survived the most recent exchange of fire last month with Hamas in Gaza, an 11-day clash that seemed, for now, to put the Palestinian issue back on the table. But even that conflict did not save Mr. Netanyahu.An Israeli tank near the town of Sderot at the border with Gaza during the seven-week war with Hamas in 2014.Sergey Ponomarev for The New York TimesMr. Netanyahu at the Knesset, Israel’s Parliament.Lior Mizrahi/Getty ImagesMr. Netanyahu visiting the border fence between Israel and Jordan in 2016.Pool photo by Marc Israel SellemSome say that Mr. Netanyahu has sought his whole life to grow out of shadow of his brother and to make his own mark on Israeli history. There are streets all over Israel named after Yonatan Netanyahu.Only when Mr. Netanyahu’s father, hawkish and dominating, died in 2012 at the age of 102, Israelis said the prime minister could feel liberated enough to try to make peace with the Palestinians.But that has been a hope long deferred, as previous efforts at peace have proven hollow. Both the Israelis and Palestinians have pulled back from the deeply difficult compromises, both territorial and religious, that would be required for a lasting settlement of the unfinished war of 1948-49.Mr. Netanyahu, with his father, Benzion Netanyahu, visiting the grave of his brother Yoni at Mount Herzl in 2009 in Jerusalem. Yoni Netanyahu was killed during military operations in Uganda in July 1976.Amos Ben Gershom/Government Press OfficeHar Homa, a Jewish settlement in East Jerusalem, has more than 25,000 residents.Tomas Munita for The New York TimesMr. Netanyahu used one of the most prominent platforms in the world, the United States Congress, to warn against what he called a “bad deal” being negotiated with Iran to freeze its nuclear program in 2015.Doug Mills/The New York TimesMr. Netanyahu was an early supporter of Mr. Trump and his presidency was a triumph for the Israeli leader. Having the support of an American president is crucial for Israelis and Mr. Netanyahu campaigned on his strong relationship with Mr. Trump.Mr. Trump pulled the United States out of the Iran deal and, in an obvious effort to help Mr. Netanyahu in this latest campaign, moved the American Embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem and recognized Israeli sovereignty over the Golan Heights, captured from Syria in the 1967 war.But Mr. Trump’s defeat was a blow to Mr. Netanyahu. President Biden is trying to restore the Iran nuclear deal over fierce Israeli objections, intervened to press Mr. Netanyahu to bring an end to the latest Gaza clash and has repeated his support for a negotiated, two-state solution to the Palestinian issue.After President Trump’s election in 2016, Mr. Netanyahu found an ally in the White House.Stephen Crowley/The New York TimesProtesters seen through a banner showing Mr. Netanyahu in 2018.Oded Balilty/Associated PressMr. Netanyahu visiting a market in Jerusalem in 2019 during his campaign for a fifth term as prime minister.Dan Balilty for The New York TimesMr. Netanyahu remained in power so long not because Israelis think he is the nicest or cleanest man in the kingdom, but because they believed that he kept them safe and made them wealthier, and that he has succeeded in maintaining Israel’s security while reducing its isolation in the region.Mr. Netanyahu celebrating an election victory in 2020.Dan Balilty for The New York TimesMr. Netanyahu, right, with his lawyer at the Jerusalem district court in February during a hearing in his corruption trial.Pool photo by Reuven CastroIsrael’s Iron Dome missile defense system lights up the sky over Tel Aviv as it tries to intercept rockets fired from Gaza during the war last month.Corinna Kern for The New York TimesWhether or not he ever returns to power again, after Mr. Netanyahu dies, there will be many streets named after him, too.Benjamin Netanyahu shakes hands with the new prime minister, Naftali Bennett, after the Knesset approved the new coalition government on Sunday.Ronen Zvulun/Reuters More
Since February, security forces have arrested at least 24 people in Cameroon for alleged same-sex conduct or gender nonconformity. In Uzbekistan, videos showing the abuse, humiliation and beatings of gay men have been circulated around social media groups. In Poland, the government’s ongoing campaign against LGBTI+ people continues, with proposed legal changes to prevent same-sex couples from adopting children.
The continuing persecution of LGBTI+ people is tragically under-acknowledged by the multilateral system. A failure to use the United Nations as a platform to raise these issues is a failure to understand one of its core purposes. There are no rights explicitly related to sexuality or gender identity codified in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Article 1 of the declaration accounts for factors such as language, religion and nationality, but relegates sexual and gender identity to “other status.”
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Those who oppose LGBTI+ rights still have room to use the excuse that such rights are not fundamental, not universal or are beholden to regional and local interpretation.
Oppressive States
Free & Equal, the UN’s flagship campaign for promoting LGBTI+ rights, is a welcome step for the cause, using influential artists and activists as champions. Likewise, the 2017 standards of conduct for businesses on tackling discrimination against LGBTI+ people provides more resources for countering discrimination at the organizational level. The appointment of Victor Madrigal-Borloz as the UN’s independent expert on these issues was also a commendable move, in that it made LGBTI+ rights somebody’s job.
While they do show support, none of these steps do anything to modernize the fundamental architecture of the UN system. Russian President Vladimir Putin recently signed a series of constitutional amendments to introduce a formal ban on same-sex marriage, showing that LGBTI+ hate is entrenched even in permanent member states of the Security Council, the UN’s most powerful branch. Campaigns and guidance may change some behavior, but they do not embed LGBTI+ rights into the UN’s cornerstone principles and agreements, meaning these rights still lack basic parity of esteem with other human rights.
The United Nations Human Rights Office of the High Commission (OHCHR) argues that a specific set of LGBTI+ rights is unnecessary. Yet their absence leaves space for oppressive states to claim that they are less important or more fundamental than other rights. A campaign to introduce and ratify a set of specific rights safeguarding all aspects of sexual orientation, gender identity and expression, and sexual characteristics should be a priority for all countries. Doing so would send a strong message of solidarity to those LGBTI+ people living in repressive societies.
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The Yogyakarta Principles offer a ready-made framework for codifying rules protecting sexual orientation, gender identity and expression, and sex characteristics (SOGIESC) into universal rights frameworks. A coalition of states publicly declaring its support for the principles would pile on the pressure at the UN, as would pushing for General Assembly votes for their adoption.
There are currently 10 UN human rights treaty bodies, overseeing the protection of rights in areas including disability and migrant status. There is no treaty body safeguarding the rights of LGBTI+ people. Calls for the introduction and ratification of a new treaty providing safeguards for sexuality and gender identity would send a powerful message of support throughout the multilateral system.
National Level
Alongside multilateral action, countries should be stepping up their game at the national level. Having robust policies on support for LGBTI+ rights would bolster countries’ credibility and authority when pushing for reform at the UN level. For instance, Germany recently announced comprehensive new measures for the promotion of LGBTI+ rights abroad.
Other states would do well to follow suit, providing comprehensive diplomatic training on LGBTI+ issues so that in-country staff can better understand the challenges and potential remedies around LGBTI+ persecution. Shoring up embassies’ commitment to offer support and protection for those facing persecution will also send a strong message to host governments that LGBTI+ discrimination will not be tolerated anywhere.
Those countries with strong track records of support for LGBTI+ rights should also be working harder through existing UN mechanisms. More action should be taken through existing UN fora. The UN General Assembly’s Third Committee and Human Rights Council sessions should be regular venues for raising these issues.
Here, sustained diplomatic and reputational pressure should be applied to countries that continue to persecute people based on their sexuality and/or gender identity at an institutional level. Using these venues to declare the many and varied forms of LGBTI+ persecution as a global crisis would demonstrate solidarity to those facing persecution and send a strong message of resolve to those perpetrating it.
The resistance of certain states to particular rights is not a reason to believe that some types of discrimination are unavoidable. It is imperative to speak louder. More liberal countries that advocate for these rights should use every avenue to translate their vocal support into action, leading to tangible and long-lasting reforms at the UN and state levels. The current lackluster approach is a shame to all countries that purport to support equality for LGBTI+ people. They must do better.
*[Fair Observer is a media partner of Young Professionals in Foreign Policy.]
The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect Fair Observer’s editorial policy. More
President Biden’s top diplomat said the United States would uphold international rules and “push back forcefully” against those who don’t, a sharp contrast to the Trump years.Secretary of State Antony J. Blinken, meeting with counterparts from both China and Russia on Friday, said that the United States would “push back forcefully” against breakers of international rules, even as he acknowledged his own country’s violations under the Trump administration.Mr. Blinken’s counterparts, Foreign Ministers Wang Yi of China and Sergey V. Lavrov of Russia, took their own diplomatic swipes at the United States, accusing it of hypocrisy and of defining international rules in terms designed to assert Western dominance in the world.The exchanges came at a United Nations Security Council meeting, convened by China and held virtually via videoconference link, on the theme of multilateral cooperation against the pandemic, global warming and other common threats.It was in some ways a rematch between Mr. Blinken and Mr. Wang, who was part of a top Chinese delegation that brusquely lectured the United States at a meeting in Alaska two months ago. That unscripted confrontation was regarded heroically in China, where the government has stoked rising anti-Americanism and nationalism.Although the terms and tone used in the Friday meeting were more diplomatic, the differences were stark in the world views espoused by Mr. Blinken and his counterparts. Those differences suggested that the gridlock among the big powers of the Security Council would not ease anytime soon.The session was held the same week that Mr. Blinken, meeting with the foreign ministers of the Group of 7 nations in Britain, emphasized what he described as the importance of “defending democratic values and open societies” — a signal of the Biden administration’s intent to challenge China and Russia on human rights, disinformation and other issues that had been de-emphasized or ignored by the administration of President Donald J. Trump.In another clear signal from the Biden administration, Mr. Blinken also visited Ukraine, where he pledged support for its fight against a Russian-backed insurgency that has claimed 13,000 lives since 2014.Mr. Blinken asserted in his Security Council remarks that the United Nations remained a critical force for good in the world, responsible since its founding at the end of World War II for the most peaceful and prosperous era in modern history, but was now under severe threat.“Nationalism is resurgent, repression is rising, rivalries among countries are deepening — and attacks against the rules-based order are intensifying,” Mr. Blinken said. “Some question whether multilateral cooperation is still possible. The United States believes it is not only possible, but imperative.”Mr. Blinken said the United States would work with any country on the global threats presented by the coronavirus and climate change, “including those with whom we have serious differences.”At the same time, he said, in a clear warning to China and Russia, that the United State would “push back forcefully when we see countries undermine the international order, pretend that the rules we’ve all agreed to don’t exist, or simply violate them at will.”He did not lay out any new positions but clearly sought to emphasize that the Biden administration was committed to reversing the foreign-policy legacy of President Donald J. Trump, who frequently disparaged the United Nations and led the United States down what critics called a destructive, unilateral path.“I know that some of our actions in recent years have undermined the rules-based order and led others to question whether we are still committed to it,” Mr. Blinken said. “Rather than take our word for it, we ask the world to judge our commitment by our actions.”He enumerated how the Biden administration had rejoined the Paris Climate accord, halted Mr. Trump’s withdrawal from the World Health Organization and was seeking to rejoin the U.N. Human Rights Council.“We’re also taking steps, with great humility, to address the inequities and injustices in our own democracy,” he said. “We do so openly and transparently, for people around the world to see. Even when it’s ugly. Even when it’s painful.”Mr. Wang, whose country holds the rotating Security Council presidency for May, sought to depict China as a responsible global citizen that adhered to international law. Without mentioning the United States by name, he chided countries that he said had defined international rules as a “patent or privilege of the few.”He also declared that “no country should expect other countries to lose,” reflecting a Chinese accusation that the United States is seeking to suppress China’s ascendance — an accusation that Mr. Blinken and others have denied.Mr. Lavrov was more direct in his criticisms of the United States and its allies, describing Mr. Blinken’s references to a “rules-based order” as a guise for Western efforts to repress other countries.He was especially critical of the economic sanctions that the United States and European Union have imposed on Russia and others they disagree with, which Mr. Lavrov said were designed to “take opponents out of the game.” More
Every night at 8, the stern-faced newscaster on Myanmar military TV announces the day’s hunted. The mug shots of those charged with political crimes appear onscreen. Among them are doctors, students, beauty queens, actors, reporters, even a pair of makeup bloggers.Some of the faces look puffy and bruised, the likely result of interrogations. They are a warning not to oppose the military junta that seized power in a Feb. 1 coup and imprisoned the country’s civilian leaders.As the midnight insects trill, the hunt intensifies. Military censors sever the internet across most of Myanmar, matching the darkness outside with an information blackout. Soldiers sweep through the cities, arresting, abducting and assaulting with slingshots and rifles.The nightly banging on doors, as arbitrary as it is dreaded, galvanizes a frenzy of self-preservation. Residents delete their Facebook accounts, destroy incriminating mobile phone cards and erase traces of support for Myanmar’s elected government. As sleep proves elusive, it’s as if much of the nation is suffering a collective insomnia.Little more than a decade ago, the most innocuous of infractions — owning a photograph of pro-democracy leader Daw Aung San Suu Kyi or an unregistered cellphone or a single note of foreign currency — could mean a prison sentence. Some of the military’s Orwellian diktats rivaled those of North Korea.Security forces search for protesters as they crack down on a peaceful demonstration against the military coup in Yangon, in April.The New York TimesThree months after Myanmar’s experiment in democracy was strangled by the generals’ power grab, the sense of foreboding has returned. There is no indication that it will ease. For the better part of 60 years, the military’s rule over Myanmar was animated not by grand ideology but by fear. Today, with much of the population determined to resist the coup-makers, a new junta is consolidating its grip by resorting, yet again, to a reign of terror.“Myanmar is going back to the bad old days when people were so scared that their neighbors would inform on them and they could get arrested for no reason at all,” said Ko Moe Yan Naing, a former police officer who is now in hiding after opposing the coup.Prisons are once again filled with poets, Buddhist monks and politicians. Hundreds more, many young men, have disappeared, their families ignorant of their whereabouts, according to a group that tracks the military’s detentions. More than 770 civilians have been killed by security forces since the putsch, among them dozens of children.As they did years before, people walk the streets with the adrenaline-fueled sense of neck hairs prickling, a glance from a soldier or a lingering gaze from a passer-by chilling the air.Protesters fight with security forces in Yangon in March.The New York TimesYet if the junta is reflexively returning to rule by fear, it is also holding hostage a changed country. The groundswell of opposition to the coup, which has sustained protests in hundreds of cities and towns, was surely not in the military’s game plan, making its crackdown all the riskier. Neither the outcome of the putsch nor the fate of the resistance is preordained.Myanmar’s full emergence from isolation — economic, political and social — only came five years ago when the military began sharing power with an elected government headed by Ms. Aung San Suu Kyi. A population that barely had any connection to the internet quickly made up for lost time. Today, its citizenry is well versed in social media and the power of protests tethered to global movements. They know how to spot a good political meme on the internet.Their resistance to the coup has included a national strike and a civil disobedience movement, which have paralyzed the economy and roiled the government. Banks and hospitals are all but shut. Although the United Nations has warned that half the country could be living in poverty by next year because of the pandemic and the political crisis, the democratic opposition’s resolve shows no sign of weakening.More than 770 civilians have been killed by security forces since the putsch.The New York TimesIn late March, Ma Thuzar Nwe, a history teacher, branded her skin with defiance. The tattoo on the nape of her neck reads: “Spring Revolution Feb. 2021.”The police are now stopping people on the streets, looking for evidence on their phones or bodies of support for the National Unity Government, a civilian authority set up after the elected leadership was expelled by the military. A popular tactic is to affix an image of Senior Gen. Min Aung Hlaing, the coup leader, on the sole of a shoe, smashing his face into the ground with each step. During spot checks, the police now demand that people show their soles.Ms. Thuzar Nwe says she wears her hair down to cover her tattoo, hoping the police won’t be too inquisitive.“In Myanmar culture, if a woman has a tattoo, she’s a bad girl,” she said. “I broke the rules of culture. This revolution is a rare chance to eradicate dictatorship from the country.”But the Tatmadaw, as the Myanmar military is known, has built an entire infrastructure dedicated to one purpose: perpetuating its power for power’s sake.Its bureaucracy of oppression is formidable. An army of informers, known as “dalan,” has reappeared, monitoring whispers and neighbors’ movements.The blandly named General Administration Department, a vast apparatus that remained under military control even after the army had started sharing authority with the civilian government, is once again pressuring administrators to keep tabs on everyone’s political views. And local officials have taken to banging on doors and peering in homes, as a dreaded system of household registration is reintroduced.Military vehicles during the national Armed Forces Day in Naypyidaw, Myanmar, in March.Associated PressEach morning, as residents count the dead and missing, the military’s media present its version of reality, all the more pervasive since the junta has revoked the publishing licenses of major private newspapers. Democracy will return soon, the military’s headlines insist. Banking services are running “as usual.” Health care with “modern machinery” is available. Government ministries are enjoying English-proficiency courses. Soft-shell crab cultivation is “thriving” and penetrating the foreign market.The Tatmadaw may have modernized its military arsenal, acquiring Chinese-made weapons and Russian fighter jets. But its propaganda is stuck in a time warp from back when few challenged its narrative. There is no mention in its media of the military’s killing spree, the broken economy or the growing armed resistance. On Wednesday, the State Administration Council, as the junta calls itself, banned satellite TV.For all the fear percolating in Myanmar, the resistance has only hardened. On Wednesday, the National Unity Government said it was forming a “people’s defense force” to counter the Tatmadaw. Two days before, ethnic insurgents fighting in the borderlands shot down a Tatmadaw helicopter.Daw Aung San Suu Kyi and Senior Gen. Min Aung Hlaing in 2016.Hein Htet/European Pressphoto AgencyIgnoring such developments, the Tatmadaw’s media instead devote space to the supposed infractions of thousands of civilians who must be locked up for “undermining state peace and stability.” Among them are AIDS patients so weak they can barely walk.More than for the civilian population, such propaganda is meant to convince the military ranks that the coup was necessary, Tatmadaw insiders said. Sequestered in military compounds without good internet access, soldiers have little ability to tap into the outrage of fellow citizens. Their information diet is composed of military TV, military newspapers and the echo chambers of military-dominated Facebook on the rare occasions they can get online.Still, news does filter in, and some officers have broken rank. In recent weeks, about 80 Myanmar Air Force officers have deserted and are now in hiding, according to fellow military personnel.“Politics are not the business of soldiers,” said an air force captain who is now in hiding and does not want his name used because his family might be punished for his desertion. “Now the Tatmadaw have become the terrorists, and I don’t want to be part of it.”Myanmar’s citizens are now well versed in social media and the power of protests tethered to global movements, since the country opened up a few years ago.The New York TimesIn the cities, almost everyone seems to know someone who has been arrested or beaten or forced to pay a bribe to the security forces in exchange for freedom.Last month, Ma May Thaw Zin, a 19-year-old law student, joined a flash mob protest in Yangon, the country’s biggest city. The police, she said, detained several young women and crammed them into an interrogation center cell so small they barely had room to sit on the floor.For a whole day, there was no food. Ms. May Thaw Zin said she resorted to drinking from the toilet. The interrogations were just her and a clutch of men. They rubbed against her and kicked her breasts and face with their boots, she said. On the fourth day, after men shoved the barrel of a pistol against the black hood over her head, she was released. The bruises remain.Since she returned home, some family members have refused to have anything to do with her because she was caught protesting, Ms. May Thaw Zin said. Even if they hate the coup, even if they know their futures have been blunted, the instincts of survival have kicked in.“They are afraid,” she said, but “I can’t accept that my country will go back to the old dark age.”Riot police prepared to remove protesters who attempted to block a motorcade of security forces in February.The New York Times More
Nearly three decades ago, during the Earth Summit held in 1992 in Rio de Janeiro, the international community acknowledged the need to address the growing challenges posed by the state of the environment. Several resolutions and agreements emerged from that historic conference, among them the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change. The ultimate goal of this multilateral initiative has been to prevent unchecked, runaway climate change from harming natural ecosystems, threatening food production or hindering sustainable development. In short, to preserve the world as we know it.For three decades, countries – or parties, as they are known under the convention – have debated and deliberated on the mounting threat posed by human activities to the stability of the climate system and, consequently, to the future of our planet. Progress has been slow, often disappointingly so. But there have been major achievements, such as the Kyoto protocol in 1992 and, most significantly, the 2016 Paris agreement, which constitute landmarks in the development of an international regime that protects the climate.The scientific evidence is now unambiguous, and its conclusions are compelling: over the past century the temperature of the Earth’s surface has risen – and, in fact, continues to rise – at an alarming rate. The cause of this process is equally clear: the accumulation of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere. Reversing this trend is possibly the most important and pressing task faced by humanity today.Arguably, the world has never faced a greater challenge. The causes of global warming are so complex and pervasive, the process has been going on for so long, and the time available to reverse this trend is so short, that the goal of containing climate change may seem at times unattainable. The coronavirus pandemic, with its fear, loss and suffering, has only made this task even more difficult.The challenge is indeed formidable. To overcome it, global leadership must be extraordinary. The economic and social transformation that needs to take place to set the world on a path to sustainable development and, crucially, to prevent the average temperature of the Earth’s surface from rising by more than 1.5C, demands bold and decisive action. Above all, it requires informed and inclusive leadership in the public and private spheres, from men and women alike – especially from women, whose role in this transformative process will be essential.President Joe Biden’s leaders’ summit on climate, which has allowed heads of state and government from around the world to meet virtually to discuss this momentous issue, is a most welcome development. The United States’ renewed commitment to the cause of climate change is a source of justified optimism. By promoting change within its borders and fostering stronger ambition overseas, the US government is helping to move the climate agenda forward.The leaders convened by the US president have an opportunity to explore and, hopefully, agree on new, more ambitious goals and commitments in the key areas of mitigation, adaptation and finance, which are at the heart of the climate regime, and to seek common ground on other pressing issues. This will prove invaluable as the international community prepares for the upcoming Cop26, to be held in Glasgow under the presidency of the United Kingdom. This is a time for leadership, courage and determination: a time for tough decisions to lead the transformation towards an unprecedented era of growth, prosperity and hope for all. More
On the campaign trail, Joseph R. Biden Jr. had pledged to reverse his predecessor’s land mine policy. A Pentagon spokesman said the matter was under review. More
