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Managing Repression (video)

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International Center on Nonviolent Conflict (NonviolentConflict.org) Fletcher Summer Institute 2013: Managing Repression June 18 [Video]

Dr. Stephen Zunes, Professor of Politics and International Studies at the University of San Francisco, emphasizes the international impact of repression, specifically how nonviolent responses in the face of brutal repression makes it easier to isolate the oppressive regime, whereas violent resistance, even where seemingly justifiable, could be seen as rationalizing further repression in the name of “national security” or “counter-terrorism.” He also addresses the importance of nonviolent discipline in encouraging defections by security forces and divisions within the regime.
Dr. Erica Chenoweth, Assistant Professor at the Josef Korbel School, University of Denver, discusses how repression affects nonviolent campaigns. She provides empirical evidence that nonviolent movements are still effective even against brutally oppressive opponents. She discusses how movements “manage” repression through the promotion of backfire, as well as the strategic options movements have in dealing with repression. She also provides evidence suggesting that nonviolent movements that adopt violence or develop armed wings are not usually advantaged relative to nonviolent movements. This is because using violence against the regime, even when provoked, can undermine the necessary public participation that nonviolent campaigns enjoy, and can also undermine the backfiring of regime repression.

The Last Colony: Beyond Dominant Narratives on the Western Sahara Roundtable

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Middle East Studies Pedagogy Initiative (MESPI) June 3, 2013
[Republished by Dagsavisen.no, Jadaliyya.com, JADMAG, and Transnational.org]
   Western Sahara is a sparsely-populated territory about the size of Italy, on the Atlantic coast in northwestern Africa, just south of Morocco. Traditionally inhabited by nomadic Arab tribes, collectively known as Sahrawis and famous for their long history of resistance to outside domination, the territory was occupied by Spain from the late 1800s through the mid-1970s. With Spain holding onto the territory well over a decade after most African countries had achieved their freedom from European colonialism, the nationalist Polisario Front launched an armed independence struggle against Spain in 1973. This (along with pressure from the United Nations) eventually forced Madrid to promise the people of what was then still known as the Spanish Sahara a referendum on the fate of the territory by the end of 1975. The International Court of Justice (ICJ) heard irredentist claims by Morocco and Mauritania and ruled in October of 1975 that (despite pledges of fealty to the Moroccan sultan back in the nineteenth century by some tribal leaders bordering the territory, and close ethnic ties between some Sahrawi and Mauritanian tribes) the right of self-determination was paramount. A special visiting mission from the United Nations engaged in an investigation of the situation in the territory that same year and reported that the vast majority of Sahrawis supported independence under the leadership of the Polisario, not integration with Morocco or Mauritania.

Don’t Blame the Iraq Debacle on the Israel Lobby

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Santa Cruz Sentinel March 29, 2013 | UPDATED: Sept. 11, 2018
[Republished by Foreign Policy In Focus/Institute for Policy Studies and Truthout] This month’s 10th anniversary of the U.S. invasion of Iraq raised the question  why the U.S. made such a tragic choice. As many of us argued in the lead-up to the war, claims that Iraq possessed “weapons of mass destruction” the Iraqi government had operational ties to al-Qaida were false. Similarly, the corrupt and repressive sectarian government the U.S. helped establish in Baghdad has undermined any pretense the war was about promoting democracy.

10 years after the Iraq invasion, Washington still hasn’t learned

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National Catholic Reporter, March 27, 2013
   This month marks the 10th anniversary of the U.S. invasion of Iraq, which has resulted in the deaths of up to half a million Iraqis, mostly civilians, and the displacement of millions of others. Sectarian and ethnic tensions remain high and violence and terrorism — despite being less pervasive than a few years ago — are endemic. The current Iraqi government is notoriously corrupt and repressive, guilty of widespread torture and extrajudicial killings of opponents. A whole new generation of Islamist terrorists radicalized by the invasion and insurgency is now active worldwide. Almost 4,500 Americans were killed and thousands more received serious physical and emotional injuries…

Democrats Share the Blame for Tragedy of Iraq War

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Truthout.org March 17, 2013: On this tenth anniversary of the Iraq War, it is important to remember the 4,500 Americans killed, the far larger number permanently wounded, the hundreds of thousands of Iraqis killed and millions maimed or displaced, the trillion dollars of US taxpayers’ money squandered (and the resulting cutbacks through sequestration), the continued costs of the war through veterans’ benefits and interest on the national debt, and the anti-American extremism in reaction to the invasion and occupation which has spread. All could have been avoided if the Democratic-controlled Senate hadn’t voted to authorize this illegal and unnecessary war and occupation.