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Sudan’s protests become civil insurrection
OpenDemocracy.net, July 6, 2012, by Stephen Zunes,
and CETRI Le Sud en mouvement (Belgium).
A growing anti-government movement consisting of nonviolent demonstrations as well as scattered rioting is beginning to threaten the Sudanese dictatorship of Omar al-Bashir, an indicted war criminal, who has ruled this large North African nation for 23 years. Beginning as protests against strict austerity measures imposed three weeks ago, the chants of the protesters have escalated to “the people want to overthrow the regime,” the line heard in recent uprisings in other Arab countries, including Egypt, Yemen, Libya, Bahrain and Syria. Could Sudan be the next Arab country in which an autocratic government is brought down in a largely nonviolent civil insurrection?
Interview: U.S. Mid-East Policy in Relation to the Ongoing Uprising in Bahrain (audio)
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U.S. in No Position to Condemn Alleged Russian Transfer of Helicopter Gunships to Syrian Regime
Foreign Policy In Focus/Institute for Policy Studies, June 13, 2012.
Republished by National Catholic Reporter & ZNetwork
U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton has claimed that “there are attack helicopters on the way from Russia to Syria,” though the Russian government denies the accusation. If true, it would be highly disturbing, given the Syrian regime’s widespread use of such weapons against unarmed civilians. Amnesty International and other human rights groups have called for an immediate end of arms transfers to the Syrian regime, particularly of weapons that have been used to target civilians… Thousands of Salvadoran civilians are believed to have been killed by U.S.-supplied helicopter gunships during the 1980s…
Congress Pushes for War with Iran
Foreign Policy In Focus/Institute for Policy Studies June 13, 2012.
Republished by National Catholic Reporter & ZNetwork
In another resolution apparently designed to prepare for war against Iran, the U.S. House of Representatives, in an overwhelmingly bipartisan 401–11 vote, has passed a resolution (HR 568) urging the president to oppose any policy toward Iran “that would rely on containment as an option in response to the Iranian nuclear threat…” Indeed, the rush to pass this bill appears to have been designed to undermine the ongoing international negotiations on Iran’s nuclear program…
Bipartisan Assault on Middle East Peace
29 May 2012 Foreign Policy In Focus/Institute for Policy Studies
Also: Huffington Post, Antiwar.com, Rise Up Times, Salem News (Oregon) and interviewed on The Scott Horton Show.
Earlier this month, the House of Representatives passed 411-2 a dangerous piece of legislation (H.R. 4133) which would undermine the Israeli-Palestinian peace process, weaken Israeli moderates and peace advocates, undercut international law, further militarize the Middle East, and make Israel ever more dependent on the U.S.
Interview: Why to Oppose Military Intervention in Syria
Mali’s Struggle: Not Simply of Their Own Making
Open Democracy & Huffington Post, 11 May 2012
It is important not to fall into simplistic analyses of dysfunctional or “failed” African states. Indeed, the Malian people have repeatedly demonstrated their ability to mobilize civil society and build stable democratic governance despite a history of enormous poverty, ethnic divisions, and foreign intervention.
Interview: Aiming for a Political Union (audio)
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University of California Takes Aim at Human Rights Activists
Truthout, 4 May 2012, by Stephen Zunes.
Also in Rise Up Times and interviewed on The Scott Horton Show. From the Vietnam War to the Central American revolutions to apartheid South Africa to the East Timor occupation to the invasion of Iraq, university campuses have been an important venue for concerned scholars and activists to raise issues regarding human rights, international law and US foreign policy…
Interview: Egypt Presidential Elections (audio)
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Ideas for Organizing Around Palestinian Rights (video)
Presenting at a Sabeel conference, Professor Stephen Zunes speaks about the need for a mobilized organization and support as a means to ending the apartheid in Palestine/Israel. View Part 1 and Part 2 .
Remembering Israel’s West Bank Offensive
Eurasia Review, IHaveNet.com & Foreign Policy In Focus./
Institute for Policy Studies April 18-19, 2012:
Ten years ago this month, following a particularly deadly series of Palestinian terrorist attacks, Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) launched an assault on several Palestinian cities and refugee camps in the West Bank. The Bush administration largely supported the Israeli offensive, even as hundreds of civilians were killed and thousands of young men detained without charge amid widespread reports of torture. Both Israeli and international human rights groups condemned the widespread violations of international humanitarian law.
Why One of the World’s Leading Peace Advocates Threatened to Punch Me in the Face
Alternet and Transnational.org April 5, 2012 I have rarely ever come face to face – only inches in fact – with such anger. Certainly not at an academic conference. And certainly not from such a prominent figure: chancellor of Australian National University, former attorney-general and foreign minister, former head of the International Crisis Group, and one of the world’s most prominent global thinkers.
Interview: Dr. Stephen Zunes at USF (video)
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Interview: Rise of the Islamists (audio)
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Military Intervention in Syria Is a Bad Idea
Foreign Policy In Focus/Institute for Policy Studies,
Antiwar.com, Common Dreams, March 29, 2012
Empirical studies have repeatedly demonstrated that international military interventions in cases of severe repression actually exacerbate violence in the short term and can only reduce violence in the longer term if the intervention is impartial or neutral. Other studies demonstrate that foreign military interventions actually increase the duration of civil wars, making the conflicts longer and bloodier, and the regional consequences more serious…
Democracy Imperiled in the Maldives
OpenDemocracy, March 8, 2012, Salem News (Oregon), Huffington Post and International Center on Nonviolent Conflict (ICNC)
Well before the launch of the Arab Spring, the people of the Maldives, a Muslim nation located on a tropical archipelago in the Indian Ocean, were engaged in widespread nonviolent resistance against the 30-year reign of the corrupt and autocratic president Maumoon Abdul Gayoom. The growing civil insurrection forced the dictator to finally allow for free elections in October 2008, which he lost. This triumph for democracy is now threatened as a result of a coup last month led by allies of the former dictator and hardline Islamists.
Obama, Palestine, and the United Nations
Tikkun magazine, March 2, 2012: For the Palestinian Authority to win UN recognition of Palestinian statehood, it would have to overcome major hurdles presented by the Obama administration. Back in 1948, Israel achieved its independence through a U.S.-backed UN General Assembly resolution. Credit: Ramzy Taweel (Cartoon Movement). For those of us who hoped that President Barack Obama would usher in a new era supporting international law, the United Nations, and Israeli-Palestinian peace, 2011 proved to be a profoundly disappointing year.
[Also archived at Duke University Press]
CrossTalk on Yemen: Rise of Al-Qaeda?
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