Conflicto armado (Continuación)

‘Biden will have to stand fast to the rigorous logic he employed last week, putting long-term consequences ahead of immediate fears’ Photograph: Manpreet Romana/AFP/Getty Images

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Last Wednesday, President Joe Biden announced he would withdraw all US ground troops from Afghanistan by September 11, the two-decade anniversary of the attacks that brought on the war. Then he visited the fallen at Arlington National Cemetery. A reporter asked him whether his decision was hard to make. “No, it wasn’t,” Biden replied. “To me, it was absolutely clear.”

Biden’s clarity shone through in the reasons he gave for terminating the mission in Afghanistan. Criticizing the grandiose and ill-defined objectives pursued by his successors, Biden refused to order US soldiers to engage any longer in a mission they could not achieve.…  Seguir leyendo »

‘Tony Blair sent Clare Short to eliminate the poppy crop. Whatever she did, it increased production from six provinces to 28.’ Poppy growing in Helmand, 22 March 2021. Photograph: Ghulamullah Habibi/EPA

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The longest, most pointless and unsuccessful war that Britain has fought in the past 70 years – its intervention in Afghanistan – is to end in September. I doubt anyone will notice. Nations celebrate victories, not defeats.

Twenty years ago the United States decided to relieve its 9/11 agony not just by blasting Osama bin Laden’s base in the Afghan mountains, but by toppling the entire Afghan regime. This was despite young Taliban moderates declaring Bin Laden an “unwelcome guest” and the regime demanding he leave. The US then decided not just to blast Kabul but invited Nato to launder its action as a matter of global security.…  Seguir leyendo »

A U.S. soldier of 2-12 Infantry 4BCT-4ID Task Force Mountain Warrior takes a break during a night mission near Honaker Miracle camp at the Pesh valley of Kunar Province August 12, 2009. REUTERS/Carlos Barria

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What’s new in the Biden announcement that the U.S. will withdraw all troops by 11 September? Why was the announcement made now?

President Joe Biden’s televised remarks on 14 April were the first clear statement of his decision to end U.S. military involvement in the war in Afghanistan. They also marked the first time that he has conveyed that the U.S. will – almost – stick to the withdrawal timeline the Trump administration agreed upon with the Taliban. Biden made clear that the U.S. would miss the 1 May deadline set out in the U.S.-Taliban agreement reached in February 2020, but that it would “begin” withdrawing on that date, and then complete its withdrawal by 11 September.…  Seguir leyendo »

I Fought in Afghanistan. I Still Wonder, Was It Worth It?

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When President Biden announced on Wednesday that the United States would withdraw all its troops from Afghanistan by Sept. 11, 2021, he appeared to be finally bringing this “forever war” to an end. Although I have waited for this moment for a decade, it is impossible to feel relief. The Sept. 11 attacks took place during my senior year of college, and the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan that followed consumed the entirety of my adult life. Although history books may mark this as the end of the Afghanistan war, it will never be over for many of my generation who fought.…  Seguir leyendo »

Armenians, flanked by police officers, take part in a protest to demand the resignation of Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan in Yerevan, Armenia, on March 6. (Karen Minasyan/AFP/Getty Images)

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Despite a nudge from a senior State Department official, Azerbaijan has so far refused to return more than four dozen Armenian prisoners who were captured after a bloody war for control of the disputed enclave known as Nagorno-Karabakh.

The prisoner issue is a bitter legacy of the battle last fall in which Azerbaijan’s forces, backed by Turkish-made drones, regained control of much of the mountainous region that is officially part of Azerbaijan but had been governed by its majority-Armenian population since a 1994 war for independence. Armenia says it lost more than 4,000 soldiers — a huge number for the small, embattled nation.…  Seguir leyendo »

Hope still lives among the Syrian people, 10 years after the war started

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While many are vaguely aware of it, I'm not sure most people could tell you how or why the Syrian war started. Some likely assume the origin was about religion or ethnicity or maybe about territory or terrorism.

In some ways, it eventually became about all of that, but it started much more simply, when, against the backdrop of the Arab Spring, 15 boys were arrested in the nondescript border town of Dara'a after anti-regime graffiti was sprayed on a high school wall. They were imprisoned, and horrifically tortured, sparking the outrage of their small community and observant human rights activists.…  Seguir leyendo »

Milica Dekic en una escena del documental 'Hay alguien en el bosque'.Oriol Casanovas

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Meliha Merdjic tenía 13 años, el ejército serbio entró en su casa, violó a las mujeres y asesinó a los hombres. A Milica Dekic la retuvieron las tropas croatas en un centro de violaciones y torturas con otras 20 mujeres, conocía a sus agresores. Nevenka Kobranovik fue violada durante la guerra, su marido la siguió violando al volver la paz. No pudo llevar su caso ante la justicia. Le faltaron pruebas.

La guerra no tiene rostro de mujer, la paz tampoco. No es más que una máscara. A 25 años de los acuerdos de Dayton, que pusieron fin a la guerra de los Balcanes, miles de mujeres viven una paz rota.…  Seguir leyendo »

These are the women who crushed the Caliphate

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In early 2016, the first time a friend told Gayle Tzemach Lemmon the story of Kurdish Women's Projection Units in northeastern Syria -- also known as the YPJ -- she had two reactions. The first was fascination: How had no one else told the tale of these women, aligned with US forces (and later provided with support by the Trump administration) who were fighting the Islamic State -- a group which routinely kidnapped, raped and murdered women?

The second reaction, when an American friend of Lemmon's who had been working with the women's units, urged her, "Come on, you have to see it," was: "No."…  Seguir leyendo »

Syria’s President Bashar al-Assad is accused of a wide range of war crimes and crimes against humanity. Photograph: Sana/AFP/Getty Images

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Ten years after it began, Syria’s horrific civil war has faded from the headlines. Reluctant to get involved, US and European politicians, and the western public, mostly look the other way. Russia plays a pivotal role, but on the wrong side. Interventionist regional states such as Turkey, Israel, and Iran prioritise selfish, short-term interests. The result is stalemate – a semi-chilled conflict characterised by sporadic violence, profound pain and strategic indifference.

Yet this epic failure to halt the war continues to have far-reaching, negative consequences for international security, democratic values and the rule of law, as well as for Syria’s citizens.…  Seguir leyendo »

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I’ll use this month’s President’s Take to highlight two places where we’re worried things could fall apart further over the month ahead, at enormous human cost.

First is Yemen. The UN calls the war the world’s worst humanitarian disaster.

It has left almost a quarter of a million people dead, more than half from malnutrition and disease. Many millions more are starving, displaced or homeless. The UN’s humanitarian chief recently warned of the “worst famine the world has seen in decades”. Four hundred thousand children under the age of five are severely malnourished, he said, and “in their last weeks and months” of life.…  Seguir leyendo »

Protest against reforming the Special Jurisdiction for Peace (JEP) in Bogota, Colombia. Photo by Daniel Garzon Herazo/NurPhoto via Getty Images.

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The creation of the Special Jurisdiction for Peace (JEP in Spanish) as part of the 2016 Peace Treaty between the Colombian State and the guerrilla group FARC has seen its work much criticized over claims from certain powerful factions that it has a hidden agenda to free former FARC leaders and imprison senior military commanders.

Investigations carried out by the JEP have been a major success of the peace agreement and the process that followed. But most of the right-wing section of governing party Centro Democrático have been working to cut its funding and complicate the implementation of the peace deal.…  Seguir leyendo »

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Few nations have seen their dreams and hopes dashed as quickly and ruthlessly as South Sudan. A mere two years after thousands thronged the streets of the capital, Juba, to celebrate independence from Sudan’s autocratic rule, the country descended into a brutal civil war. The fallout between President Salva Kiir and Vice President-turned-rebel Riek Machar, and the subsequent fighting, exerted a terrible toll. Between 2013 and 2018, up to 400,000 people were killed and 4 million—a third of the country’s population—displaced, amid numerous reports of ethnic-based atrocities like rape and massacres.

The world’s youngest country is now approaching its 10-year anniversary, and while the war has quieted thanks to a fragile 2018 peace deal, the risk of a return to full-blown conflict is never far away.…  Seguir leyendo »

Familiares de civiles asesinados por integrantes del ejército colombiano y presentados como guerrilleros reclaman justicia en Bogotá en 2014. Credit Luis Acosta/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images

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Acarreados desde Soacha y la capital, 19 jóvenes terminaron en una fosa a 632 kilómetros de allí, muy cerca de la frontera con Venezuela. Sus ejecuciones ocurrieron entre 2007 y 2008, cuando miles de inocentes murieron lejos de casa disfrazados de guerrilleros. El caso se conoce como “falsos positivos”; una serie de ejecuciones extrajudiciales que fueron cometidas para cobrar beneficios. Aquellas 19 víctimas tenían dolientes; un grupo llamado “Madres de Soacha”, que nació justo después de los hallazgos. Las mujeres todavía piden justicia y verdad a los militares que presentaron a sus hijos como supuestas bajas en combate contra la guerrilla para presumir una victoria improbable en nuestra larga guerra interna.…  Seguir leyendo »

Smoke billows during clashes between forces loyal to Yemen's Saudi-backed government and Huthi rebel fighters in al-Jadaan area about 50 kilometres northwest of Marib in central Yemen on 11 February 2021. Yemen's Iran-backed Huthis rebels have resumed an AFP

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In early February, the rebel Huthi movement (also known as Ansar Allah) reinvigorated its year-long offensive in Yemen’s northern governorate of Marib, launching an intense assault and making territorial and strategic gains in the province’s west. Huthi forces are now reportedly within 30km of Marib city, the ousted government’s last major northern stronghold, and the capital of a governorate whose original population of 300,000 has been swollen by internally displaced persons to perhaps as many as three million. The Huthis have signalled their clear intent to press on, absent a nationwide truce that halts Saudi airstrikes, allows them to reopen the airport in Yemen’s capital city, Sanaa, and permits them to more easily bring goods through Hodeida, the Red Sea port that they control.…  Seguir leyendo »

A Yemeni looks through the wreckage of a building after it was hit by an airstrike on the northern outskirts of the capital, Sanaa, in 2017. (Yahya Arhab/EPA)

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In early February, the Biden administration announced several shifts in U.S. policy toward the war in Yemen — a conflict that has left 20 million near starvation and 80 percent of Yemen’s population dependent on humanitarian assistance. The changes include ending U.S. support for Saudi-led offensive operations; reversing the Trump administration’s last-minute designation of the Houthi forces as a foreign terrorist organization; and supporting a special envoy to Yemen and diplomatic efforts to end the conflict.

After 2015, the United States played a critical role in sustaining the Saudi-led intervention in Yemen. U.S. support provided Saudi Arabia with intelligence, targeting data, in-air refueling of Saudi aircraft (this ceased in 2018), sales of precision-guided munitions and other arms, and ongoing maintenance and support for Saudi aircraft.…  Seguir leyendo »

Ahead of the International Criminal Court, the European Court of Human Rights condemned Russia on 21 January for its responsibility for serious human rights violations committed against the Georgian civilian population in 2008. © Vano Shlamov / AFP

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Let’s starts with the conclusions. On 21 January 2021, The European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) established Russia’s “effective control” over the Georgian occupied regions and found Russia responsible for five major categories of violations: “killing of civilians, torching and looting of houses in Georgian villages and expulsion of Georgian civilian population”; “denial of Georgian nationals to return to their homes in Tskhinvali Region/South Ossetia and Abkhazia”; “unlawful and inhuman detention and treatment of Georgian civilians”; “torture of Georgian prisoners of war”; “failure to carry out an adequate and effective investigation into the killings committed during the active phase of hostilities and in the period of occupation.”…  Seguir leyendo »

Pro-Russian militants of the self-proclaimed Donetsk People's Republic conduct military exercises at a shooting range not far from the city of Gorlivka, Ukraine, on Jan. 28. (Dave Mustaine/EPA-EFE/Shutterstock)

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Few are likely to celebrate the anniversary of the agreement that stabilized a war in the Donbas, a region in eastern Ukraine. Negotiated by the leaders of Russia, Ukraine, Germany and France, the Minsk II accords of Feb. 12, 2015, left the Donbas territorially divided. The Ukrainian government in Kyiv control western parts of the Donbas, while two separatist entities, the “Donetsk and Luhansk Peoples Republics” (DNR/LNR), control eastern parts, including major cities like Donetsk and Luhansk as well as the border with Russia.

After nearly seven years of division, how do ordinary people in both parts of the Donbas feel about the situation?…  Seguir leyendo »

Ethiopian Army soldiers stand near children at the Mai Aini refugee camp in Ethiopia on Jan. 30. (Eduardo Soteras/AFP/Getty Images)

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Nearly three months have passed since the conflict between the Ethiopian government and the Tigray People’s Liberation Front (TPLF) began. Despite Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed’s assurance that the military operation ended in late November, the conflict in Tigray is far from over. United Nations officials this week cited reports that Ethiopian troops may not have the region under their command, and warned of grave food shortages, calling for the government to allow aid workers to enter the region.

On social media, pro- and anti-government groups continue to vie for control of the conflict narrative. Abiy released a statement on Tuesday encouraging Ethiopians to launch an offensive against the TPLF’s distortions and “lies” in the international arena.…  Seguir leyendo »

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Afghanistan may not rank in the top tier of U.S. President Joe Biden’s policy priorities, given the host of pressing crises in the United States. But Afghanistan’s fate hinges in large part on how the Biden team decides to approach the country’s conflict and its tenuous, still-nascent peace process. Biden will be compelled to make critical decisions on Afghanistan during his first months in office that will affect the country’s conflict—and relationship with the U.S.—for years to come.

Over the past year, the outgoing U.S. administration attempted to set a peace process in motion by signing a political agreement with the Taliban in February 2020, exchanging a commitment to withdraw international military forces for assurances the insurgent group would address transnational terrorism concerns, enter peace talks with the Afghan government, and work toward a cease-fire and political roadmap to end the war, among other things.…  Seguir leyendo »

Nayib Bukele, el presidente de El Salvador, en diciembre. Credit Miguel Lemus/EPA vía Shutterstock

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El Salvador firmó sus Acuerdos de Paz hace 29 años y desde entonces no ha vivido en paz. Ha vivido sin guerra civil, lo que no ha sido poco ni suficiente. Eso ha quedado claro estos días.

El aniversario de aquel pacto que acabó con 12 años de conflicto armado ocurrió hace un par de semanas y tuvo que haber pasado sin pena ni gloria, pero el presidente Nayib Bukele lo convirtió en todo un evento que terminó con su propia etiqueta en redes sociales. Lo que Bukele hizo suena pueril de solo pronunciarse: utilizó nuestra guerra y nuestra paz como arma arrojadiza contra sus opositores políticos.…  Seguir leyendo »