Archive for August 8th, 2008

Countering coups in the Sahel

Eric Witte August 8th, 2008

The international response to Wednesday’s military coup in Mauritania has been strong and swift. Impressively, on the part of the United States, the State Department announced yesterday that all non-humanitarian aid to Mauritania was being suspended immediately. Of some $23 million, around $15 million of the suspended funds consist of military-to-military assistance. This is particularly of note because one of the coup supporters’ complaints is that President Sidi Cheikh Ould Abdallahi had released Islamist prisoners against the army’s advice.  

Since September 2001, the U.S. has markedly increased military assistance to the countries of the Sahel as a part of the “global war on terror”, so one can imagine that with this particular complaint, the coup plotters might have enjoyed some sympathy within the Pentagon, or, say, the Office of the Vice President. It’s good news indeed that the administration instead chose to join the African Union, Arab League,* and European Union in condemnation of the coup. The immediate suspension of non-humanitarian aid and a multi-million dollar grant from the Millennium Challenge Corporation is even better.

However, the latest coup in Mauritania, after its first year ever of democratic governance, still raises serious questions about U.S. military aid in the region. Where democratic culture is barely established and elements of the parliamentary opposition so easily gravitate to backing for a putsch by disgruntled generals, does it make sense to be pouring major resources into strengthening militaries?

* Correction: To the contrary, the Arab League has embraced the junta.

Keep EU agreement with Serbia on hold

Eric Witte August 8th, 2008

Kurt has a letter in today’s Financial Times in response to an op-ed last week written by Serbian Deputy Prime Minister Bozidar Djelic.  Djelic argued that with Serbia’s arrest of Radovan Karadzic, it was time to place the relationship between the EU and Belgrade on new footing by dropping policies of conditionality.  He argued that the EU should approve Serbia’s Stabilization and Association Agreement (SAA) and advance it to the status of a candidate for EU membership, as well as immediately implement visa liberalization.

In his letter, Kurt argues that it was Dutch and Belgian insistance on Serbia’s cooperation with the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia as a prerequisite to SAA approval that led to Karadzic’s arrest, and that this policy should remain in place until the final two remaining fugitives are apprehended:

Sir, Bozidar Djelic, deputy prime minister of Serbia, asserts that it is time for the European Union to approach Serbia with a new policy of disciplined partnership between the EU and Serbia [which] yields much better results than the old one, based on conditionality and sanctions (“For the good of Europe give Serbia a chance”, August 4).

Yet it is precisely the application of conditionality, insisted upon by only two of the 27 EU member states – the Netherlands and Belgium – that compelled President Boris Tadic to arrest and transfer Radovan Karadzic, the former Bosnian Serb leader, to face trial at the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY) in The Hague. Had it been up to the other 25 and the EU machinery, that condition would have been waived, the stabilisation and association agreement’s interim benefits activated, and the process of ratification would have begun. The message is not that conditionality failed, but rather that it works when firmly applied.

None of this diminishes the credit to Serbia’s government for the arrest and handover of a man indicted for genocide, war crimes and crimes against humanity. Nor does it undercut the need for a credible membership perspective for Serbia and its western Balkan neighbours Bosnia and Herzegovina, Montenegro, Macedonia and Albania.

It does appear that the Serbian government is approaching the search for the remaining indictees – Bosnian Serb General Ratko Mladic and Croatian Serb political leader Goran Hadzic – with greater vigour with the installation of the new government. President Tadic has reaped domestic political advantages from the arrest of Mr Karadzic, helping him paint his Radical opposition as weak and binding the Socialists in his coalition ever closer, since their erstwhile allies and much of the party rank and file view the Karadzic arrest as treason.

Serbia is being given a chance by the EU, despite Mr Djelic’s aggrieved whimpering about unfair treatment. Serbia will prove its readiness for “partnership” with the EU when it arrests and transfers Mr Mladic and Mr Hadzic. Until then, the EU should not move forward on SAA implementation or ratification, let alone moving forward towards candidate status.

It would be best for Belgrade and Brussels if these loose ends were finally tied up by the time of visits by Serge Brammertz, the ICTY chief prosecutor, later this month.