Tag: refugee

Expansion of ISIS into Iraq, another bloody stalemate?

From The Economist (http://www.economist.com/news/middle-east-and-africa/21604230-extreme-islamist-group-seeks-create-caliphate-and-spread-jihad-across)

What used to be, in Neolithic and Bronze Age times, the Fertile Crescent, is a complete mess. Not that it’s unusual- on any scale of time the region is unstable and its political powers shifting.

ISIS/ISIL has won stunning victories in Iraq, after more measured and slow success in Syria. Part of that may have been the crowded and diverse ethnic and religious makeup, where they were hemmed in by Kurds, the Syrian government, and other rebel groups. Taking over the Sunni-dominated portion of northern and western Iraq was a bit simpler. Anonymous Twitter account @wikibaghdady throws in suggestions that the displaced Baathist regime is bolstering ISIS/ISIL. Its success was not instantaneous, and its progress was underreported in Western media. Now it is gaining weapons, money, and a population base to tax (or perhaps extort) funds from. There are certainly benefits in a shift from a terrorist militia to a political state. It cements power and creates a structure for expansion and resistance to attack.

The big-scale forces seem to be restraint and stockpiling weapons, intelligence, and resources. Each side in Iraq- the Shias, Sunnis, and Kurds- have a rope pulling them back towards the land where their faction holds a strong population advantage. The Kurds are now openly selling oil on their own terms, and have gained Turkish support that they didn’t have during the independence campaign by the PKK and others within Turkish borders. With Kirkuk, their territory in Iraq is more or less as big as it could realistically be without currying a civil war with the government in Baghdad. While that government is gaining significant popular support from Iran and the Shia population, as long as ISIS/ISIL has a base in Syria to launch reinforces, long term occupation of Sunni lands seems untenable. As the linked story shows, shrine cities will be fought fiercely for, but more distant towns with no religious significance?

ISIS/ISIL is doing the expansion right now, but it remains to be seen if Baghdad could realistically fall (and how long it could be occupied). At some point, eastern advancements get close to the Iranian border.

It seems that stalemate is a likely result in the weeks and months to come. After all, that’s what Syria has devolved into- even if one side is gaining the upper hand, it takes an long time for any advantage to become clear.

These situations of a civil war reaching an equilibrium can be seen in Africa as well, it’s not a recent phenomenon or a Middle Eastern phenomenon. From a policy perspective, the question is what can be done beyond humanitarian damage control. Refugee camps in Jordan or Lebanon that persist for years point to a social and national structure that is collapsing. Social services are very limited, education is spotty and inferior. It all leads to populations that are losing an ability to proceed, to rebuild economies and governments if and when the conflict ends.

Without strong policies that try to build (or maintain) healthy social structures, any peace will by nature be fragile. There are certainly many civil wars, in many different areas and continents, where nothing of value is learned.

If nothing is learned…

Same groups
Same factions
Same weapons
Same refugees
Same suffering
Same stalemate.

Helping the forgotten Rohingya- educating people on the outrage

A common word used to describe the Rohingya- a population of Muslims residing in the Buddhist-majority Rakhine State in southwestern Burma- is “forgotten.” They are a people without a country, unacknowledged by the government of Burma. After fleeing from their homes amid violence and terror,  they are seen as a nuisance to surrounding countries.

Rohingya refugees, three of thousands

I only heard of the Rohingya six months ago, thanks to an al-Jazeera English feature on their terrible plight as refugees in Bangladesh. The media focus on the people, 800,000 strong, is practically nonexistent. Political reform in Burma has often overshadowed the chaos in Rakhine. In a society where people have vowed to prevent another Rwanda, another Cambodia, it seems strange to see a lack of concentrated action against Burma and the surrounding countries to give the Rohingya some kind of political status.

A few weeks ago, I logged onto Twitter and saw that my feed was full of messages marked with the hashtag #RohingyaNOW. Organized by Anonymous, this Twitter offensive was successful in getting the Rohingya onto the global trending topics, peaking at 24,000 messages an hour. At the end of the day, a lot more people knew something about who these people were and what was happening to them.

Now in the aftermath of the Kony 2012 abomination, social media-based campaigns to highlight atrocities should be met with healthy skepticism. But Twitter is good at getting people to at least learn the basics, maybe do a bit of Googling to figure out what the fuss is about. Because one of the first steps to helping a forgotten people is to make them no longer forgotten.