Hope is not a plan

The government of Pakistan recently announced that it plans to mine and fence portions of its 2,400 km border with Afghanistan. The government of Afghanistan has reacted poorly to this idea, suggesting that it's a dodge around a real problem of elements within Pakistani security forces supporting Taliban remnants in Afghanistan.

Depending on how serious an effort this is, the Pakistani government will face the serious problem of trying to separate Pashtuni people from their relatives and allies on the other side of the border.

al Jazeera article
CNN article

As I discussed in May, the government of Iran has spent the last year trying to figure out how to solve its gas problem. Despite its large oil reserves, Iran has very little refining capacity, and thus is forced to import gasoline. For years, the government has been subsidizing these imports, keeping the prices very low and doing great harm to the national treasury. Since sometime in 2006, they've been thinking of easing off on these subsidies while simultaneously putting in place a gas purchasing cap.

This week, they enacted a cap.

It did not go well.

With less than two hours notice, the government or Iran announced to its citizens that they are now limited to 100 liters of fuel (26 gallons) per month.

Riots broke out soon after, and twelve gas stations were torched in Tehran.

"Guns, fireworks, tanks, [President] Ahmadinejad should be killed," chanted angry youths, throwing stones at police.

Some Iranian members of parliament are calling for a relaxation on the cap, citing the improbably short notice the government gave. The government of Iran is, in turn, presumed to be trying to cut down on its fuel imports before someone (like, say, the US) decides to cut off the gas supply by way of applying pressure against Iran about its nuclear program, interference in Iraq, funding of Hezbollah, or anything else that strikes their fancy.

BBC article

The government of Iran just released from custody two Chinese nationals who were arrested for taking pictures of a military complex in the town of Arak.

The Chinese foreign ministry said: "In early July, two people from Chinese companies mistakenly took some pictures of some sensitive buildings when they were helping local owners to conduct field measurements in Iran.

"They were detained by Iranian police and now they have been freed. The foreign ministry and Chinese embassy in Iran have warned Chinese citizens in Iran to behave so as to prevent misunderstandings."

Indeed. It's always good to prevent these misunderstandings.

BBC article

This week, al Jazeera reminds us that violence often comes as a result of a mismatch between national borders and ethnic boundaries. In our modern age, these conflicts are the unwieldy children of sometimes arbitrary and sometimes very intentional batching and dividing by the major powers of the twentieth century. The territory once bounded by Soviet borders is a poster child for this issue, whether it's Georgia trying not to further subfragment following its release from the USSR, or the ongoing problem of Tatars returning to the Crimea half a century after Stalin banished them to Central Asia. Similarly, the wake of the Ottoman Empire continues to be alive with conflict, most recently embodied in the declaration by the government of Turkey that they will take military action against Kurdish separatist groups hiding within Iraq, despite past requests from their NATO allies that they not cross that border.

Given the increasing power of the smaller party in modern conflict, and the loss of a major bilateral struggle to drown out other noises, it seems likely that wars of ethnic identity will continue as the defining kind of conflict well into the foreseeable future.

The BBC reports today that the 14-year-old ceasefire between Armenia and Azerbaijan was breached as fighting occurred between forces from both nations in the Nagorno-Karabakh region. The Azeri government is claiming that the Armenians intentionally started this incident to distract attention from extensive internal protests within Armenia over claims that last month's elections were rigged.

The conflict between Armenia and Azerbaijan is yet another one of those long-term ethnic conflicts that was contained behind the iron curtain for nearly a century, only to "spring to life" again in the late 80s and early 90s. Around the time of the inception of the Soviet Union, the NK territory had a majority Armenian population. Based on this, the Soviets converted it into an autonomous territory within the nation of Azerbaijan. As the Azeri population increased over time, the ethnic Armenians within the NK territory pushed for unification with Armenia. The formal attempt to do so in 1988 sparked reciprocal massacres of Armenians and Azeris, and prompted the Soviets to give the government of Azerbaijan a freer hand in how it policed the territory.

By 1989, Azerbaijan was actively blockading trade between Armenia and the other Soviet Republics (I bet you had no idea this was going in at the time). Gorbachev's proposal for increased autonomy within the NK territory was met by ethnic violence against Armenians in Azerbaijan, which in turn prompted the Soviets to send an armed presence, killing a number of Azeris.

In 1991, on a day now cited as the independence day of the Nagorno Karabakh Republic, an Armenian referendum within the territory declared it an independent state. This amounted to an immediate secession of about one-fifth of Azerbaijan and the displacement of one million Azeris. Local Armenian forces attacked Azeri forces, pushing them out of the new state and capturing territory to bridge them with Armenia proper. Russia mediated a ceasefire in 1994 -- the same ceasefire that was breached in today's military action.

All told, things seem to have worked out tremendously poorly for Azerbaijan. Russia came in firmly on the side of Armenia, to the tune of a billion dollars in arms during and after the last years of the war, and a friendship agreement between the two nations that included promising fuel supplies from Gazprom to make up for fuel lost due to the Azerbaijani blockade. In contrast, the Azeris have been punished by, among others, the United States for imposing that blockade. That seems, in a word, unfair.

You can read more from the NK Armenian point of view at the website of the NK Republic, or at the website of their DC office. You can read a general summary of the entire situation here at GlobalSecurity.org. You can read more about the Azerbaijani point of view at their embassy web page, including this specific page on the NK conflict, and a recent press release on a massacre of Azeris by Armenian troops in 1992 (that last one is a PDF).

BBC article

Just this last March, a 14-year-old ceasefire between Armenia and Azerbaijan was breached during an incident in the disputed Nagorno-Karabakh region. I gave some background on that situation here, but the short version is that the Nogorno-Karabakh region, located just west of center in Azerbaijan, is predominantly an ethnic Armenian enclave. Since the fall of the Soviet Union, underlying tensions here have been resurrected full force, including fighting from 1991 to 1994, and again this year.

Now, reportedly spurred on by the disastrous outcome of Georgia's recent attempt to rein in South Ossetia, the two nations involved have signed a new agreement to "facilitate the improvement of the situation in the South Caucasus and establishment of stability and security in the region through a political settlement of the conflict based on the principles and norms of international law and the decisions and documents adopted in this framework". Those are the words of Dmitry Medvedev, who helped broker the agreement.

The government of Azerbaijan is surely very aware of the fate of the last government that challenged one of Russia's pet ethnic groups, and wants to avoid being the next Georgia. At the same time, out-and-out ceding of Nogorno-Karabakh represents a loss of one fifth of Azerbaijan, which also seems unacceptable, especially as it will further disrupt the already discontinuous structure of the country by punching a big hole in the center.

BBC article

Lieutenant General Rail Rzayev died this week after being shot in the head outside his home in Baku. Rzayev was the head of the air force of Azerbaijan, potentially but not necessarily adding some extra significance to this killing beyond the tragedy of a murder.

For background, you may want to click here to read more about the long-standing Azeri-Armenian conflict over the breakaway Nagorno-Karabakh region that remains nominally but not functionally a part of Armenia. Given that a 14 year ceasefire was breached just under a year ago, it's possible that someone with a stake in the conflict and the potential separation of Nagorno-Karabakh decided to try and assassinate a relevant Azeri military official. Certainly, the word is that the Azeri air force would be key in any attempt to retake N-K.

On the other hand, he may have been killed by some junkie who needed cash. This is why we don't rush to judgment.

al Jazeera article
BBC article

I'm amused at Ayatollah Ali Khamenei's speech today, as it offers up such helpful gems as:

"There is 11 million votes difference," the ayatollah said. "How can one rig 11 million votes?"

Given the apparent fact that the voting certification did not even follow the Republic's normal rules for vote certifications.

"The Islamic establishment will never manipulate people's votes and commit treason ... the legal structures and electoral regulations of this country do not allow vote rigging," he said in his first public address on the issue since the election.

I'm confident that, by the book, elections in Chicago can never be rigged, either.

At the same time as the Ayatollah was telling everyone to shut up and go home, Ahmadinejad was backing off from generally derogatory remarks he'd made about the protesters, insisting that he just meant the ones who were burning buildings. Inasmuch as those are his loyalist Basij militia members (who are also killing off their fellow Iranians), that's fairly risible as well.

When a young Persian expat was interviewed on the BBC today, he complained that reporters are only reporting from Tehran, whereas out in the rest of the country, people like Ahmadinejad. When the BBC interviewer pointed out that this was because most foreign reporters had been ejected and the others couldn't leave Tehran, the expat suggested they could "find a way" and that the coverage of election-related unrest is all about hating on the Islamic Republic.

Of course, what seems most accurate is that what happens next will depend on people within Iran, and we will continue to simply watch and see.

BBC article
al Jazeera article

As protests flare with concomitant government-backed violence in Iran, it can be easy to miss the ongoing unrest in other parts of the world.

Today, Yunus-Bek Yevkurov, president of the Russian republic of Ingushetia, was injured during a car bomb attack on his convoy in the town of Nazran (the former capital of Ingushetia, actually). This is just the latest in a string of attacks on government officials in Ingushetia, a string that has already resulted in the deaths of the deputy chief supreme court justice (hit while dropping her kids off at school) and a former vice prime minister (shot outside his home).

Even as Chechnya has "calmed down," Ingushetia has picked up more than its share of refugees from its neighboring state. At the same time, its government has a dubious record when it comes to dealing with internal dissent, including the highly suspicious death in custody of vigorous critic Magomed Yevloyev (whose site, I note, is no longer active).

Despite its apparent pacification of Chechnya via tremendous violence, and the smashing of the Georgian offensive, the Russian government has not managed to actually stop elements of its southern Muslim minorities from taking violent action against local authorities. The latest string of attacks on Ingushetian authorities may well motivate military action much in the mode of the Ossetian and Chechen conflicts. If so, we can expect a new wave of refugees from Ingushetia, but whether they will try to return to Chechnya or perhaps spill into the Ossetias is unclear.

BBC article
al Jazeera article

Russian human rights activist Natalia Estemirova was kidnapped from her Chechen home and murdered this week. Ms. Estemirova was investigating human rights abuses in Chechnya as part of the human rights group Memorial.

In recent months, she had been gathering evidence of a campaign of house-burnings by government-backed militias.

There is some depressing mirroring here, as Ms. Estemirova was awarded the inaugural Anna Politkovskaya Prize in 2007, that prize being named after journalist Anna Politkovskaya who was murdered while she was also investigating Russian abuses in Chechnya.

This is, in fact, a terrible time for activists in Russia. As the BBC article reminds us, another activist with whom Ms. Estemirova had worked, one Stanislav Markelov, was killed on January 19th. Although the BBC article does not mention this, journalist and anti-fascist investigator Anastasia Baburova was also killed by the same attack. And, as I've mentioned before, Magomed Yevloyev was "shot while resisting arrest" in the troubled Russian province of Ingushetia.

It is hard to be optimistic about the likelihood of an actual investigation into this latest murder.

BBC article