Adam O'Brien, "Sudan's Election Paradox," Enough, June
10, 2009
In February 2010, Sudan is scheduled to hold its first democratic
elections in 24 years. General elections are required by the Comprehensive Peace Agreement, or CPA, which
the ruling National Congress Party, or NCP, and the Sudan People’s Liberation
Movement, or SPLM, signed in 2005 to end a second civil conflict
between northern and southern Sudan
that lasted two decades, killed 2 million people, and displaced 4
million more. Sudan’s upcoming national election poses a series
of thorny
questions for the international community, and, to date, these
questions have not been acceptably resolved.
Click here to
read the full report.
Ken Gude, "An Important First Step in Actually Closing
Guantanamo," Center for American Progress, June 9, 2009
Ahmed
Ghailani was transferred today from the prison at Guantánamo Bay
to a New York City court—just before a panicked Congress delays
such
transfers—to stand trial for his role in the 1998 East Africa
Embassy
bombings. Ghailani’s transfer marks the first demonstration of
the
Obama administration’s commitment to closing Guantánamo
and putting
U.S. detention policy back on firm legal footing. President Barack
Obama can use the trial as an example to reassure Americans that the
U.S. justice system is well equipped to prosecute suspected terrorists,
and U.S. maximum security prisons are capable of keeping Americans safe.
Click here to
read the full article.
Mona Yacoubian, "Analyzing the Lebanese
Election Results," Middle East Bulletin interview, June 9,
2009
"I think they’re
important in several respects. First, it’s important to
note that these are the first parliamentary elections to take place in
Lebanon that are truly free of any sort of Syrian influence since
before the civil war. While the last elections took place after the
Syrian military withdrawal, they were still undertaken using an old
electoral law that had significant Syrian influence in it. So
that’s
point number one. Point number two, it does offer an important look
into Lebanese dynamics and clearly shows some sense of concern among
some communities in Lebanon with Hezbollah’s power, and I think
that’s
why we saw March 14 emerge victorious from this vote. Many analysts,
myself included, felt the vote would be much closer. The fact that
March 14 did as well as it did, scoring 71 seats in the parliament,
suggests an important shift among many in the Christian community who
had previously backed General Michel Aoun."
Click here
to read the full interview.
Stephanie Miller, "A Historic Decision on Cuba,"
Center for American Progress, June 5, 2009
The Obama administration’s willingness to accept Cuba’s
reentry into
the Inter-American system—provided Cuba agrees to embrace
democratic
principles—was overwhelmingly supported by the countries of Latin
America and the Caribbean. As a result, it was seen by many, including
the President of Honduras José Manuel Zelaya Rosales, as an end
to the
Cold War mentality that dominated U.S. foreign policy toward Latin
America for years after the war’s end. Now that Washington is no
longer
the main obstacle to Cuba’s reintegration into the OAS, it is up
to
Cuba to make the reforms necessary to respect the principles at the
heart of the Inter-American system.
Click here to
read the full article.
Daniel Kurtzer,
"Obama's Comprehensive Approach to the Mideast," Middle East Bulletin interview, June 5, 2009
"[W]hat
the president is unfolding – and I say unfolding to distinguish
it
from announcing a strategy – is a strategy in which the president
indicates that the parties have things they have to do on the ground.
Those are necessary but not sufficient in order to create an atmosphere
that can sustain negotiations. And at the same time, I am confident
that he is talking to the leadership about the negotiations, so that
you’ve got movement along a wide front. It doesn’t say that
you have to
do one, two and three before you get to four. Basically, it says, we
know where we want to get to, and it means you have to do a lot of
things simultaneously. You have to be doing the changes on the ground,
you have to be preparing for substantive talks and you have to be
conditioning your public to understand that there may be hard decisions
to come. So you’re moving across a wide front rather than in a
sequential manner. And that’s why I would call this an unfolding
strategy rather than some announceable game plan."
Click here to
read the full interview.
Nina Hachigian and William Schulz, "What Does a
Smaller World Mean for Human Rights?," Center for American Progress,
June 3, 2009
In June 1989, the Internet was a whisper. The news of the massacre at
Tiananmen Square came through phone calls, faxes, and reporter’s
accounts. Looking back on those events, many opined that the
pro-democracy demonstrations would have unfolded differently had they
occurred just a few years later, in the already booming Internet age.
That may well be true, but the explosion of technology in the last 20
years has made the challenge of promoting individual rights in China
from the outside more complicated, not less.
Click here to
read the full article.
TPMMuckraker - Ken Gude says he believes the
administration's argument for the continued classification of Abu
Ghraib abuse photos is a strong one, but arguments against the release
of interrogation documents is less so: "There has to be a time in
which the government can lawfully withhold information from the public
that could be harmful. ... [but] I think [the new argument] undermines
the administration's claims that really all it's
interested in is security. I'm worried that they're losing that
credibility."
Reuters -
Matthew Duss discusses recent statements by President Obama calling for
a clear halt to Israeli settlement expansion: "I don't think the
quality of the relationship or the strength of the relationship will
really change, but I think President Obama has made clear that Prime
Minister Netanyahu's political problems are not our problems.
We have policy priorities that we feel are necessary for our
security and for our interest in the region."
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