Crisis Group

Este archivo solo abarca los artículos del periódico incorporados a este sitio a partir del 1 de septiembre de 2006.

Nota informativa: International Crisis Group es una organización no gubernamental, fundada en 1995, dirigida a la resolución y prevención de conflictos armados internacionales. Todos sus contenidos son de acceso libre, aunque se puede apoyar su trabajo con una contribución económica.

Police from forensic and Explosive Ordnance Disposal units inspect the scene at the Sungai Kolok district office on Sunday after an attack by insurgents. (Photo: Narathiwat Public Relations Office) Please credit and share this article with others using this link: https://www.bangkokpost.com/opinion/opinion/2978133/time-for-thai-govt-brn-to-talk. View our policies at http://goo.gl/9HgTd and http://goo.gl/ou6Ip. © Bangkok Post PCL. All rights reserved.

MundoAsia, ,

Dialogue between the Thai government and Malay separatists marked its 12-year anniversary on Feb 28, but violence in the southernmost provinces remains an open wound on the Thai body politic. A dreadful routine of bombings, shootings and clashes in these provinces has killed some 7,680 people since 2004, yet the simmering violence goes largely unnoticed outside the region.

The peace dialogue, facilitated by Malaysia, seeks to end the insurgency by Barisan Revolusi Nasional Melayu Patani (BRN), or what it calls an anti-colonial struggle against the Thai state. The dialogue has come to a standstill under the current government. Recent moves by each side to explore a reduction in violence during the holy month of Ramadan offered some hope that dialogue might soon resume, but fresh militant attacks are a reminder that a cessation of hostilities is more often an effect of peace talks than a precondition.…  Seguir leyendo »

U.S. President Donald Trump addresses the 73rd session of the United Nations General Assembly in New York City on Sept. 25, 2018. John Moore/Getty Images

InternacionalONU

Members of the Trump administration have said that U.S. President Donald Trump believes the United Nations should refocus on its “founding purpose” of preserving international peace and security. It is not clear what the administration’s appeal to the U.N.’s original ideals means in policy terms. Even the world organization’s proponents agree that after debilitating debates over the conflicts in Ukraine and Gaza, the Security Council and the overall U.N. system are in a bad state. The administration has emphasized what it does not like about the U.N., quitting or defunding multilateral arrangements on issues ranging from health to human rights. It has also announced a full review of all U.S.…  Seguir leyendo »

MundoÁfrica

Les 15 et 16 février, les États membres de l’Union Africaine (UA) se réuniront à Addis-Abeba pour un sommet qui sera scruté de très près en raison de l’élection du prochain Président de la Commission, à l’issue des deux mandats mitigés de quatre années chacun du Tchadien Moussa Faki Mahamat.

Confronté à une prolifération de conflits et à l’enrayage des mécanismes de maintien de la paix sur le continent africain, le nouveau président devra prendre ses responsabilités et pousser l’UA à redoubler d’efforts. L’élection du nouveau président pourrait servir de catalyseur pour une Union Africaine plus impliquée et active dans les crises continentales.…  Seguir leyendo »

U.S. President Donald Trump addresses the 74th U.N. General Assembly, at the U.N. Headquarters, Sept. 24, 2019 (Sipa photo by Anthony Behar via AP Images).

InternacionalONU

The Trump administration continues to decouple the United States from parts of the United Nations system, and it is not clear when this process will end. Having declared the U.S. would quit the Paris climate change agreement and the World Health Organization on his first day in office, Trump this week announced in an executive order that the U.S. would no longer fund the Geneva-based Human Rights Council and the United Nations Relief and Works Agency, or UNRWA, the agency that assists Palestinian refugees. Neither move was a great surprise: Trump pulled out of the Human Rights Council during his first term, and the Biden administration froze funding to UNRWA last year over allegations some staff were tied to Hamas.…  Seguir leyendo »

Chinese President Xi Jinping remotely addresses the U.N. General Assembly in a pre-recorded message, in New York, Sept. 21, 2021 (AP photo by Mary Altaffer).

InternacionalONU

U.S. President Donald Trump’s swipes at the United Nations and international cooperation since retaking office have critics declaring that the U.S. risks ceding influence to China. Trump’s decision to quit the World Health Organization “just makes it much easier for China to assert itself”, former U.K. ambassador to the U.N. and intelligence chief John Sawers told CNN. After the Trump administration froze U.S. foreign aid funding, InterAction, an umbrella group for aid organizations, warned that it was creating “dangerous vacuums that China and our adversaries will quickly fill”.

Warnings such as these are designed to play on the suspicion of China that pervades much of the U.S.…  Seguir leyendo »

Free Syrian Army soldier walking among rubble in Aleppo during the Syrian Civil War. (Photo: Voice of America/Guest2625/Wikimedia Commons, https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Free_Syrian_Army_soldier_walking_among_rubble_in_Aleppo.jpg, Public Domain)

MundoOriente Próximo,

The unexpected fall of President Bashar al-Assad and with it the end of the Assad dynasty prompted jubilation from many long-suffering Syrian people, but they face sobering challenges as they try to rebuild their society. A central problem remains the enormous web of overlapping sanctions that countries opposed to the regime and its abuses imposed during the civil war.

The United States has been the primary architect of many of these sanctions. Over the years, the United States and its allies have shown few signs of readiness to make lasting changes to their sanctions regimes, but on Jan. 6, the United States took a promising step by easing some restrictions.…  Seguir leyendo »

A South Korean peacekeeper walks toward his vehicle, in Tyre, Lebanon, Nov. 19, 2024 (Sipa photo by Sally Hayden via AP Images).

InternacionalONU

In recent years, the United Nations has struggled to resolve conflicts from Ethiopia to Myanmar and often ended up focusing instead on managing their humanitarian fall-out. The Security Council has mandated no new large-scale blue-helmet peace operations since 2014. The U.N.’s role in mediating peace deals has also declined since the turn of the century. By contrast, its humanitarian operations have continued to expand. The World Food Programme alone projects that it will have $8 billion to spend in 2025. That is only half of what it says that it needs to cover global food crises, but it is already more than what the U.N.…  Seguir leyendo »

Rep. Elise Stefanik (R-NY) appears on stage on the second day of the Republican National Convention on July 16, 2024 in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. (Photo by Chip Somodevilla via Getty Images)

InternacionalONU

Congresswoman Elise Stefanik (R-NY), President-Elect Donald Trump’s pick to be U.S. Permanent Representative to the United Nations, faces her confirmation hearing before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee on Tuesday, Jan. 21. Foreign diplomats at the U.N. will likely watch the proceedings with a mixture of trepidation and tempered optimism. There is little doubt that Trump and Stefanik will roil the world organization with provocative actions on issues ranging from climate change to the war in Gaza in the early weeks of the new administration. But many nations also hope that, after the initial diplomatic firestorm, Stefanik will emerge as someone with whom they can do business.…  Seguir leyendo »

Taiwanese navy Kuang Hua VI-class missile boats move within the harbour of Keelung, Taiwan, 14 October 2024. REUTERS / Tyrone Siu

MundoAsia

After a choppy patch, U.S.-China relations have been on a more even keel since a November 2023 summit between Chinese President Xi Jinping and outgoing U.S. President Joe Biden. The two countries reopened military-to-military channels, vital for managing the risk of unintended collisions between Chinese and U.S. warships in the Pacific or planes overhead, and China reportedly took tentative steps to stem the flow of fentanyl precursor chemicals into the United States. Still, President-elect Donald Trump will take office with the rivalry far more entrenched than it was eight years ago.

Trump’s Asia policy is as unpredictable as his approach to other arenas.…  Seguir leyendo »

MundoÁfrica,

Locked in a slow-burning diplomatic crisis with no end in sight, Algeria and Morocco approach the new year with diverging expectations and facing a modest but rising risk of accidental escalation. Rooted in Algiers’ perception of growing insecurity and Rabat’s confident and daring foreign policy, the tensions between them have risked at times triggering accidental escalation over the disputed territory of Western Sahara. Mutual self-restraint and United States engagement have prevented a direct conflict from materialising, but after Donald Trump’s re-election the two sides’ perceptions are shifting again. The risk is that, with Washington unlikely to play the same calming role as before, the security repercussions of future incidents will become harder to manage, unless European governments decide to take up the role previously played by the U.S.…  Seguir leyendo »

People watch a TV broadcasting a news report on North Korea firing missiles that flew 400km after lifting off at around 7:30am from Sariwon, just south of the capital Pyongyang, at a railway station in Seoul, South Korea, 5 November 2024. REUTERS / Kim Hong-Ji

MundoAsia

2024 started with a surprise speech by North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, in which he dropped North Korea’s decades-old policy of peaceful unification with South Korea and declared Seoul to be Pyongyang’s principal foe. The year ended with Kim ratifying a mutual defence pact with Moscow and deploying thousands of North Koreans to fight alongside Russia against Ukraine – as well as a botched self-coup attempt by South Korean President Yoon Suk-yeol that ended with parliament voting for his impeachment.

With much in flux, the Korean Peninsula is set for an edgy 2025.

In his January speech, Kim aimed to further seal off North Korea, especially from South Korean cultural exports – K-Pop, in other words – while tightening his grip on the economy.…  Seguir leyendo »

A CNA soldier surveys the damage in a building in Thantlang town. The neglected Chin State in Myanmar has been the site of fierce clashes between the military junta and local resistance groups. September 2024. CRISIS GROUP / Richard Horsey

MundoAsia

Midway through 2024, Myanmar’s military regime appeared to be teetering, as rebels had seized large tracts of the uplands as well as key military bases. Since then, China, fearing a disorderly collapse, has thrown military leader Min Aung Hlaing a lifeline. But the junta still faces determined resistance. A vote in 2025, if it proceeds as planned, will bring further bloodshed.

The civil war that has torn Myanmar apart since the military seized power in 2021 has set the country back decades: More than 3 million people are displaced internally, health and education systems have crumbled, poverty has skyrocketed and Myanmar’s currency, the kyat, has crashed.…  Seguir leyendo »

Republican presidential candidate and former U.S. President Donald Trump speaks with Texas Governor Greg Abbott during a visit at the U.S.-Mexico border at Eagle Pass, Texas, as seen from Piedras Negras, Mexico, 29 February 2024. REUTERS / Go Nakamura

MundoAmérica, , , ,

Mexico is already reeling from violence involving criminal gangs that resembles some of the world’s worst wars. During the U.S. election campaign, Donald Trump – now the president-elect – promised to slap high tariffs on the United States’ southern neighbour, send back millions of migrants, and even bomb cartels.

Since 2006, when then-Mexican President Felipe Calderón declared war on drug cartels, perhaps half a million Mexicans have been killed and another 100,000 people disappeared in violence that followed. The government killed kingpins and dismantled big criminal organisations but set off conflicts among smaller groups, heavily armed mostly with weapons imported from the United States.…  Seguir leyendo »

Members of the second contingent of Kenyan police disembark after arriving in the Caribbean country as part of a peacekeeping mission, in Port-au-Prince, Haiti, 16 July 2024. REUTERS/Ralph Tedy Erol

MundoAmérica,

Many Haitians’ hopes that a new government and a Kenya-led multinational police mission could loosen criminal gangs’ grip on the country have been shattered.

Since President Jovenel Moïse’s assassination in July 2021, the gangs have seized much of Haiti. Historically used by elites for profiteering or to take out rivals, such groups have grown more powerful and autonomous. In early 2024, an alliance of previously warring gangs, known as Viv Ansanm, besieged the capital of Port-au-Prince. Ariel Henry, an unpopular prime minister who took over after Moïse was killed, was in Nairobi at the time overseeing the creation of the police mission and unable to fly home.…  Seguir leyendo »

Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian and military commanders watch as military equipment passes by during the annual military parade in Tehran, Iran, September 21, 2024. Majid Asgaripour/WANA (West Asia News Agency) via REUTERS

MundoAméricaMundoOriente Próximo, ,

In the first half of 2024, Iran saw its Axis of Resistance – the Assad regime in Syria, and a collection of militant groups, including Hizbollah in Lebanon, militias in Iraq and Syria, the Houthis in Yemen, and Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad in Gaza – as still providing the Islamic Republic a measure of protection and region-wide influence.

What a difference a few months can make. In July, Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh was killed in Tehran. In September, Israel detonated hundreds of Hizbollah’s pagers and other devices, taking out much of its mid-level command. Airstrikes and a ground offensive followed, killing Hizbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah and decimating its ranks and military assets, while razing many villages.…  Seguir leyendo »

Palestinian inspect damage at the site of an Israeli strike on a house, amid the Israel-Hamas conflict, at the Nuseirat refugee camp in the central Gaza Strip, December 12, 2024. REUTERS/Ramadan Abed

MundoOriente Próximo

Israel’s assault on Gaza, launched in response to Hamas’s Oct. 7, 2023, attack, has laid waste to the strip. The campaign, according to local authorities, has killed upwards of 45,000 Palestinians. Most were civilians—at least a third of them children. Thousands more bodies are missing, presumably under the rubble. Two thirds of buildings and infrastructure are damaged or in ruins, with entire neighbourhoods levelled.

While many Hamas leaders have been killed and the group’s military assets decimated, Western officials and even some Israelis quietly acknowledge that no authority can govern Gaza or carry out civil functions without Hamas’s acquiescence.

Israel’s operations are reshaping Gaza’s geography.…  Seguir leyendo »

Ukrainian Armed Forces take part in a tactical medicine exercise, amid Russia’s attack on Ukraine, in Donetsk region, Ukraine December 14, 2024. Oleg Petrasiuk/Press Service of the 24th King Danylo Separate Mechanized Brigade of the Ukrainian Armed Force

Europa, , ,

U.S. President-elect Donald Trump has promised to end the Russia-Ukraine war by negotiating with Russian President Vladimir Putin. Talks are worth trying, but it is hard to see a path to a sustainable ceasefire – let alone a peace deal.

Russian forces have the upper hand, though their slow advance in Ukraine’s east is coming at immense cost. The Kremlin’s army has suffered an estimated half-million deaths and injuries since 2022, Russia’s heavily sanctioned economy is struggling, and Putin wants to avoid calling up more soldiers, presumably fearing unrest. Plus, bogged down in Ukraine, Putin has lost his main Middle Eastern client, Syrian leader Bashar al-Assad.…  Seguir leyendo »

People wait for food to be distributed at the Adré provisional reception site. Fleeing the war ravaging neighbouring Sudan, more than 930,000 people have taken refuge in eastern Chad since April 2023. March 2024. Ouaddaï, Chad. CRISIS GROUP/Charles Bouessel

MundoÁfrica,

Sudan’s war, by dint of sheer numbers displaced and hungry, is the world’s most devastating. Some 12 million Sudanese – more than a third of the pre-war population – have fled their homes. More than half face acute food shortages, with parts of the Darfur region suffering famine. UN officials describe rates of sexual violence against women and girls as “staggering”. Increasingly, the country looks headed for violent fracture.

Fighting has engulfed ever wider tracts of the country. It pits the Rapid Support Forces (RSF) – paramilitaries led by Mohamed “Hemedti” Hamdan Dagalo – against the Sudanese army, headed by Abdel Fattah al-Burhan, and an array of aligned militias and Darfuri armed groups.…  Seguir leyendo »

A man rides a motorbike with children holding up flags adopted by the new Syrian rulers, after Syria’s Bashar al-Assad was ousted, in Damascus, Syria, December 15, 2024. REUTERS/Ammar Awad

MundoOriente Próximo

Let’s start with the good news: Bashar al-Assad’s dictatorship has fallen. Syria could get back on its feet after one of the world’s bloodiest recent wars. But plenty could go wrong.

For several years, a stalemate had prevailed. In 2020, Turkey sent in troops and struck a deal with Russia, which used its ties with Assad to halt an assault on Syria’s north west that Ankara feared would drive millions more refugees into Turkey. The truce left Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), a former al-Qaeda affiliate that had broken with the global jihadi movement, in charge of Idlib province. The Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) held the north east.…  Seguir leyendo »

Fighters of the ruling Syrian body attend a celebration called by Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) after the ousting of Syria's Bashar al-Assad, in Damascus, Syria, December 20, 2024. REUTERS/Amr Abdallah Dalsh

InternacionalOrden Mundial

In unsettled times, U.S. President-elect Donald Trump’s return to the White House looks set to shake things up further. But how does a disrupter deal with an already disrupted world?

In the Middle East, a chain reaction set off by Hamas’s Oct. 7, 2023, attack on Israel has propelled a year of staggering change. Israel has buried Gaza under rubble; degraded Iran’s regionwide network of nonstate proxies; demolished Tehran’s own defences; and, inadvertently, set the stage for Islamist rebels to topple the Assad family’s half-century-old dictatorship in Syria.

In Asia, where China vies with the United States and its allies for primacy, flash points in the South China Sea, the waters and skies around Taiwan, and the Korean Peninsula look ever more precarious.…  Seguir leyendo »