Corruption

Sharone Tobias and Will Piekos look at the top five stories in Asia this week. 1. China’s economy slows in the second quarter. China’s economic growth slowed to 7.5 percent in the second quarter of 2013, the second straight quarter of declining growth. Chinese officials encouraged local governments to speed up spending to support economic growth, though they have asserted that China’s main economic indicators were within a “reasonable range.” The International Monetary Fund is less confident, stating that “since the global crisis, a mix of investment, credit, and fiscal stimulus has underpinned [Chinese economic] activity. This pattern of growth is not sustainable and is raising vulnerability.” 2. Panama charges North Korean crew with arms smuggling. A North Korean vessel Chong Chon Gang was seized by Panamanian officials while en route to Cuba last week. Panamanian prosecutor Javier Caraballo charged thirty-three North Korean crew members with illegally carrying weapons, which were hidden under 200,000 bags of brown sugar. North Korean and Cuban officials claimed that the weapons were aging and were being returned to Cuba “under legitimate contract.” The crew resisted arrest, and the captain had a heart attack and attempted to slit his own throat. 3. South Korea blames the North for cyberattacks. The South Korean Science Ministry published an official report blaming North Korea for a wave of cyberattacks that paralyzed nearly seventy websites last month. The cyberattacks took place on June 25, the sixty-third anniversary of the outbreak of the Korean War. The June attacks followed a series of disruptions that shut down tens of thousands of computers at South Korean news broadcasters and banks in March. North Korea has repeatedly denied responsibility and claims to also be a victim of hacking. 4. China cracks down on anti-corruption advocates. Police arrested human rights advocate Xu Zhiyong in Beijing on Tuesday on charges of “assembling a crowd to disrupt order in a public place," the latest in a string of activists who have been arrested (seemingly) for calling on officials to publicly dispose their assets. Many experts claim these arrests as evidence of Beijing’s reluctance to allow citizens to participate in anti-corruption efforts. President Xi Jinping has made these efforts a calling card of his first year in office, though some China experts, including CFR’s Elizabeth Economy, are skeptical that the Chinese government and the Communist Party have the stomach to follow through on their pledge to address the corruption problem. 5. Mutual distrust between U.S. and China deepens, says Pew survey. Since 2011, China’s approval rating in the United States has dropped 14 percentage points, down to 37 percent, while negative attitudes toward the United States among Chinese rose to 53 percent. The Pew Global Survey asserts that “publics around the world believe the global balance of power is shifting” to China, though “the U.S. enjoys a stronger global image than China.” Bonus: Japanese salon offers snail facials. A Tokyo beauty salon has begun offering facial treatments with snail slime, claiming the mucus treats dry skin [video]. The salon, which has five snails in employment, is only able to take one customer per day.

Follow Mexico’s headlines and you will see an uptick in high-level corruption cases. In this piece for Huffington Post, I discuss how Mexico has gotten better at exposing corruption but also why it still falls short in prosecuting the accused and convicting perpetrators of these types of crimes. To read Mexico’s papers recently has been a study in corruption. The exposés involve every political party and level of government. Governors—including those from the states of Tabasco, Coahuila, Aguascalientes, Tamaulipas, Baja California Sur, Chiapas, and Quintana Roo—have been some of the most covered offenders, with allegations involving missing public funds (reaching the hundreds of millions of dollars), collaboration with drug traffickers, murder, and money laundering. Public figures once considered untouchable, such as the former head of Mexico’s Teachers Union, Elba Esther Gordillo, were publicly pilloried (as well as arrested). Corruption in Mexico is of course nothing new, but it is hard to remember a time when there were so many cases unveiled in such close temporal proximity. The influx has led many casual observers to bemoan an increase in corruption, and indeed Mexico’s perceived corruption ranking by Transparency International fell from 57 in 2002 to 105 in 2012). But look beyond the headlines, and it would be hard to argue that Mexico is that much more corrupt today than in decades past. The more likely explanation is that what has changed is Mexico’s ability to expose bad behavior. One of the biggest changes has occurred in the press. During the PRI years the major media outlets were largely propaganda arms for the ruling party, and if displeased with reporting, the government could literally stop the presses (since it held the monopoly on newsprint). Since then, Mexico’s press has come a long way. Led by publications such as El Universal, Reforma, and La Jornada, it has become fiercely independent and dedicated to holding Mexico’s leaders accountable. Also important for exposing corruption are the tools this now free press can brandish. One of the most important has been the 2002 Transparency Act (which enables reporters and citizens more generally to petition the government for information on public affairs), helping interested parties obtain documents revealing misbehavior. And alongside reporters are an increasing number of watchdog and other civil society groups pushing for transparency. The alternation of power at all governmental levels has also helped expose corruption. In the past, new (always PRI) officials would cover for their predecessors and expect those coming after to do the same. But with fierce electoral competition, incoming governments, especially those from opposing political parties, have a strong incentive to publicize the misdeeds (and particularly the overspending) of previous administrations. Technological changes too have made revelations of corruption and abuse of power more common. Social media has jumped in—providing many corrupt officials with their own mocking hashtags. For instance Andrea Benítez (the daughter of Humberto Benítez, the head of Mexico’s Office for Consumer Protection) became #LadyProfeco when she threatened to shut down a trendy bistro in Mexico City, after being denied her preferred table. Diners filmed and live tweeted the arrival of Consumer Protection officials, forcing the government to eventually fire her father and suspend several other officials. Perhaps Mexico’s biggest challenge is the follow through on these revelations. Mexico’s Attorney General’s office has won few convictions on corruption charges. And in some of the highest profile cases, such as that against Tijuana’s former mayor Jorge Hank Rhon, the prosecutor’s bungling achieved something many thought hard to do—making the PRI scion look like a victim. Until Mexico is able to do more than name and shame corrupt public officials, the incentives for them to desist from favoring their friends and lining their pockets remain limited. The current government and Attorney General’s office now have numerous potential cases from which to choose—all opportunities to set an example and begin changing the current dynamic by holding elected officials accountable.

Chinese leaders appear to have decided that the risk of a long slow death by “corruption cancer” is preferable to undergoing a high-risk operation of real political reform. The recent arrest of another batch of Chinese anti-corruption campaigners begs the question of how seriously Chinese leaders want to address the admittedly life-threatening corruption problem.  Former Chinese president Hu Jintao and his successor Xi Jinping made headlines last November by declaring that if the Communist Party failed to address corruption, it could lead to the death of not only the Party but also the Chinese state. To demonstrate the seriousness of the problem, Xi Jinping even appointed one of the Party’s most capable officials, Wang Qishan, to lead the anti-corruption effort. Thus far Wang and his team have adopted a number of measures to great fanfare. They have issued regulations to limit official excess, pursued high-profile cases of graft involving multinationals, such as GlaxoSmithKline, and most recently announced that they will send teams of inspectors throughout the country to investigate local officials.  All of these top-down measures have been tried in one form or another before, with disappointing results. It is possible that this anti-corruption team will succeed where previous generations of Chinese leaders have failed. More likely, however, they will follow the same path: a number of high-profile arrests, no institutional change to ensure that the roots of corruption are addressed, and an endless cycle of anti-corruption campaigns. There is no real mystery as to what needs to be done. A December 2012 editorial in the investigative journal Caixin suggests a number of steps to address the country’s “corruption cancer”: a sunshine law that would require officials to disclose their assets, robust public and media scrutiny, and an independent judiciary. Thus far, the Party has demonstrated little inclination to pursue any of these tough, fundamental reforms or any other real innovation, save a few limited experiments with public disclosure of assets by local officials. Instead, it has sought to limit efforts at public oversight by arresting at least fifteen anti-corruption activists. Even a vibrant online debate over “constitutionalism” in China, which if implemented would effectively make the Party subordinate to the Chinese constitution and laws, was censored.  Party journals, such as the Red Flag, dubbed constitutionalism a Western, capitalist construct that had no role in a socialist society. And Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference head Yu Zhengsheng proclaimed that China would never reform along the lines of a Western democratic model, while a other senior officials occupied themselves by seeking lessons on anti-corruption from imperial China (an effort that some Chinese netizens understood as little more than the Party trying to ensure that like the Imperial Court, the Party, alone, would conduct and control any anti-corruption efforts). Perhaps most telling, Transparency International, which publishes an annual global public opinion survey on corruption, did not include China in the 2013 survey, despite China having been included the previous survey (for the first time). Why? No Chinese polling company believed it would be possible to conduct the survey “without omitting many of the questions.”

This is a guest post by Brooke Bocast, a PhD candidate in anthropology at Temple University and a visiting predoctoral fellow at Northwestern University. She is currently writing her doctoral dissertation on gender, consumption, and higher education in Uganda. “Was it greed, poverty, or both?” Uganda’s leading independent newspaper, the Daily Monitor, asked following the June 29 oil tanker explosion that claimed the lives of at least forty civilians. In an all too familiar scenario, many of the deceased had gathered to siphon fuel from the leaking tanker and perished when the vehicle burst into flames. Much of the East African media echoes international reactions to past fuel siphoning deaths in Nigeria, Ghana, the DRC, and Kenya. In brief: Why did they do it? Commentators propose ignorance, stupidity, and lack of regard for human life, in addition to the aforementioned poverty and greed. The siphoners are characterized as thieves and looters, driven by economic desperation to risk their lives in the pursuit of small spoils. It is time to shift the discussion from the motivations of disenfranchised individuals to the contexts that normalize this risk-taking behavior. The July 6 editorial in The East African begins to approach this conversation. The editor draws a direct line between fuel siphoning among urban youth and money laundering among Uganda’s parliamentarians. Certainly, much ink has been spilled condemning “corruption” in African governments, and Uganda’s “get rich quick” ethos is hard to ignore. But to attribute these strategies, as the editor does, to the “moral bankruptcy” of the perpetrators, is to misread local understandings of scarcity and opportunity, causing the discussion to fall short. Poverty and greed are insufficient explanations for the siphoning acts of slum dwellers and government officials. Anthropologists emphasize the zero-sum worldview that prevails across much of sub-Saharan Africa, wherein individuals–rich and poor–perceive resources as limited, and opportunities as fleeting. Conditions of uncertainty are evident across the continent; in this milieu, unguarded government accounts and overturned tankers are windfalls, not moral dilemmas. This explanation is not meant to excuse petty or grand theft–nor to exonerate those responsible for failures in oversight, infrastructure, and emergency response in fuel tanker accidents–but to lend insight into actions that appear incomprehensible. Not everyone takes advantage of risk-laden opportunities, but those who do, and suffer the consequences, deserve compassion rather than condemnation. Judgment will not prevent future casualties, but understanding the roots of such recklessness might.

This is a guest post by Emily Mellgard, research associate for the Council on Foreign Relations Africa Studies program. There is a debate over whether a tightly regulated legal trade in rhino horn could help stem the tide of rhino poaching in southern Africa. Most rhino horn, like ivory, finds its way to the Far East. The largest consumer of ivory is China. Vietnam is the largest consumer of rhino horn. It’s ground into a powder and used in traditional and modern medicines to cure everything from cancer and the flu, to hangovers, and as an aphrodisiac among the nouveau riche. It is also carved into libation cups for use in temples. The use of rhino horn is a deep-rooted tradition, even though the horn is keratin (as are human fingernails and hair) and has no medicinal properties. Will legalizing trade in rhino horn decrease the illegal slaughter of rhinos as the legalization and regulation of crocodile farming and trade decreased the poaching of wild crocodiles? Or will it have the same effect on poaching as the one-off sales of elephant ivory; causing insatiable demand and uncontrollable killings? To legalize rhino horn trade, the Convention of Trade in Endangered Species (CITES) must vote to downgrade rhinos from Appendix I (no trade) to Appendix II (partial trade) as it allowed specific countries to do with elephants in 1997. South Africa, home to over 70 percent of the world’s rhino population, announced on July 3 that they would submit a proposal for legal trade at the 2016 CITES Conference of Parties, which will be held in South Africa. When elephants were placed in Appendix I, banning the ivory trade, in 1989, ivory demand was partially met by a diversification in the market: mammoth tusks from the Siberian Arctic, animal bone, and the resale of already carved ivory. The one-off ivory sale to Japan in 1999 had little effect on poaching levels. When China became the second approved buyer in 2007, the one-off sales in 2008 caused a massive, and still escalating, demand. Advocates for the sales argued that the influx of legal ivory would decrease demand for illegal ivory, driving down poaching, but the opposite happened. The ivory stockpiles were sold by African governments in bulk, but then broken up into smaller portions and resold by the buyers for astronomical returns, which increased the bottom ceiling price. The increase in available ivory also increased the number of consumers. As legal stockpiles were depleted, demand continued to rise, providing more than enough incentive for poachers to continue hunting. Proponents of legalizing trade in rhino horn similarly argue that flooding the market with legal horn will decrease poaching; drive out the crime syndicates that control the black market trade; and provide additional funds for conservation. All profits made on the sales would be funneled back to the rhinos. Unlike elephant tusks, rhino horn is also a semi-renewable resource; it continues to grow throughout the animal’s life and can be “harvested,” some say, every three years with minimal risk. So once the current stockpiles are depleted, demand could be met by the live animals. Rather than selling the stockpiles in bulk to governments, the plan is also to turn the rhino horns over to an independent body accountable to CITES, which will sell the horns to registered buyers. It seems to be a win-win situation. Skeptics of legalization however point to the fact that the current trade ban is not adequately enforced, and partially legalizing the trade would make that task even more difficult. Because of the regulations, illegal horn will also almost certainly remain cheaper than legal horn, so the incentive for poaching does not disappear. The sale of the current stockpiles could also raise the floor of demand, making it difficult for live rhinos to meet the increased demand. There are only approximately 28,000 rhinos in the wild. There are over 92 million people in Vietnam alone. There is also the fact that many current conservation and anti-poaching initiatives have educational campaigns about the complete lack of medicinal properties of a rhino’s keratin. Legalizing trade might undermine those campaigns by making more accessible a substance people are simultaneously being told has no effect. As the next CITES Conference of Parties is not until 2016, there is time for more debate, and all sides agree that more research is necessary. There may not be as much time for the rhinos themselves however. If poaching continues to escalate at its current rate, the rhino deaths could outnumber births as soon as 2016.

This is a guest post by Kyle Benjamin Schneps; a dual master’s degree candidate at Columbia University and junior fellow at the Institute for Strategic Studies in Dakar, Senegal. On 2 April 2013, Jose Americo Bubo Na Tchuto was arrested by the U.S. Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA) in international waters off the coast of West Africa. He was arrested for his role in a transatlantic narco-trafficking operation in which he agreed to receive, store, and ship thousands of kilos of cocaine in exchange for millions of dollars and a cut of the product. Moreover, he agreed to this arrangement with DEA informants who were posing as members of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Columbia (FARC), a guerilla organization classified as terrorists by the U.S. government. Mr. Na Tchuto is the former chief of the Guinea-Bissau Navy and a lauded veteran of his nation’s war of independence against Portugal. Since gaining independence in 1974, the tropical nation of Guinea-Bissau has devolved into a narco-state where a perpetual cycle of coups, desperate poverty, and a countless array of natural inlets and islands make it a drug trafficking hub for South American syndicates. The latest coup, on 12 April 2012, placed the country under the de facto control of the military leader, Antonio Indjai, despite his perfunctory concession to a transitional civilian leadership. A recent U.S. Department of State assessment reports that serious human rights abuses afflict the country, including “arbitrary killings and detentions; official corruption, exacerbated by government officials’ impunity and suspected involvement in drug trafficking; and a lack of respect for the rights of citizens to elect their government.” The Na Tchuto sting may be indicative of the expanding U.S. drug enforcement presence in West Africa. U.S. counter-narcotic assistance for the region has soared from U.S. $7.5 million in 2009, to $50 million in 2012. The United States is currently funding and training elite counter-narcotic police forces in Ghana, Nigeria, and Kenya. Additionally, the U.S. government has been increasing its military and intelligence capabilities in West Africa. In early 2013, the U.S. Air Force finalized an agreement with the government of Niger to conduct drone operations from a new U.S. base in the country. The operations aim to collect intelligence on terrorist activity and illicit trafficking in the region, two issues that are often interrelated. With respect to Guinea-Bissau—considered the most central link between South American cocaine and the European market—the United States has no diplomatic presence in-country and has terminated all foreign assistance due to Indjai’s illegitimate takeover of power. This lack of presence could prove detrimental to U.S. intelligence collection, especially considering the large Lebanese community in the country and its proven financial ties to Hezbollah. In Guinea-Bissau, the United States continues to be a global policeman and leader, promoting the democratic ideal in places where elections may be a distant consideration to the prospect of affording the next meal.

UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon reported to the UN Security Council Group of Experts, who monitor the Libyan arms embargo, that Joseph Koney and the Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA) are funding themselves through elephant poaching, as are other armed rebel groups. He commented that Libyan heavy weapons, formerly in Muammar Ghaddafi’s Libyan arsenal, and now scattered prolifically across sub-Saharan conflict areas, are making the poachers more efficient. His report added weight to the growing security concerns associated with elephant poaching, especially across Cameroon, the Central African Republic, Chad, Gabon, and the Democratic Republic of Congo. The secretary general’s report is horrific: more than 11,000 elephants slaughtered between 2004 and 2013 in a game park in Gabon, and 33 pregnant elephants killed in a single incident in Chad. More than 300 elephants were killed during the last two months of 2012 in Cameroon. Trafficking in animals and animal parts is commonly listed as the third most lucrative illicit trade commodity in the world, behind narcotics and weapons. However, Maneka Gandhi, an Indian animal rights activist, now claims that animal trafficking has succeeded arms and narcotics. This is attracting increased participation from organized crime syndicates and rebel groups like the LRA. There are other media reports that Kony uses raw elephant ivory to bribe local officials and buy weapons and ammunition. African governments do what they can to suppress the trade in illegal ivory, and are calling for increased resources to be allocated to conservation. But many of them have little capacity to put down the trade in remote areas where there are few government officials, and those that are there are very poorly paid. There continues to be Asian (especially Chinese) demand for elephant ivory. Vietnam is the main destination for rhino horn, and many countries play a role as transit countries for both ivory and rhino horn; including the Philippines. As with the poaching of rhinos for their horns, there may be scope for an international effort to tackle the various stages of the ivory trade, ideally coordinated by the African Union and African regional organizations, to push China and Vietnam to greater efforts to suppress domestic consumption of illegal ivory.

Yesterday, I testified before the Congressional-Executive Commission on China (CECC) at the  “Food and Drug Safety, Public Health, and the Environment in China” hearing. My testimony focused on China’s response to public health emergencies. As the H7N9 virus appears to be burning itself out, the consensus among public health scholars and practitioners is that China has been much more transparent and open in handing this outbreak than it was in 2003 during the SARS epidemic. In fact, WHO Director-General Margaret Chan thanked China for their speed in sharing relevant information. There is no doubt that China has made tremendous progress in building core capacities to detect, assess, notify, and respond to public health emergencies. After SARS, China constructed the largest infectious disease surveillance and reporting system in the world and put in place a legal framework aimed at releasing disease-related information in a timely, accurate, and comprehensive manner. Launched in 2004, this Internet-based disease reporting system has enabled hospitals and township health centers to directly report suspected disease outbreaks to central health authorities. Meanwhile, a civil society supported by the spread of social media is increasingly having its voices heard and its action felt in China’s policy process. The growing online vigilantism through Weibo (microblogs) is now powerful enough to force the government to be more responsive to people’s demands for transparency and openness in addressing major disease outbreaks. But does this mean that China is moving toward greater and irreversible transparency?  My simple answer: not necessarily. At least three factors could derail the process. First, as shown in the H7N9 outbreak, most localities in China still do not have the capability to correctly and swiftly identify emerging infectious diseases. The central-local gaps in epidemiological and laboratory capacities, when coupled with an authoritarian political structure, could contribute to sustained cover-up (intentional or not), underreporting, or misreporting at the sub-national level. Second, as health is increasingly viewed as a “high politics” issue on the government’s agenda, responses to public health emergencies could be hijacked by prominent domestic political concerns, which thankfully have not happened in the current outbreak. However, in 2009 during the 60th anniversary of the founding of the People’s Republic of China, health authorities covered up H1N1 fatalities and stopped updating the disease information until the celebration was over. Third, despite the recognition of the importance of civil society groups in addressing public health emergencies, the government continues to impose constraints that made their engagement in disease surveillance difficult. Most of the health-related NGOs are focused on HIV/AIDS prevention and control. Without an effective civil society to gather information and demand accountability, both upward and downward information flows could still be intercepted or distorted in the bureaucratic hierarchy. If you would like to learn more about China’s ability to respond to major disease outbreaks, take a look at Chapter 4 of my new book, Governing Health in Contemporary China, which Routledge has kindly made available for download here.

This is a guest post by Dr. Deirdre LaPin, co-author of Securing Development and Peace in the Niger Delta (Woodrow Wilson Center, 2011) and a longstanding resident and development expert on Nigeria.  Home to Nigeria’s hugely profitable oil industry, the Niger Delta is one of the poorest places on earth. At the end of April 2013, the Ministry of Niger Delta Affairs unveiled a new five year Action Plan that envisions $10 billion in government and private resources to develop the beleaguered region. Persistent underdevelopment was a key driver of the Delta’s militant insurgency until a presidential amnesty for fighters brought calm in late 2009. Well-meaning donors–including the EU, the UK’s Department of Development, the World Bank, and UNDP–saw the amnesty as an opportunity for a common framework to guide provision of desperately needed services and infrastructure to the region. They also suggested marshaling resources through a Multi-Stakeholder Trust Fund. It was an ambitious proposal. No fewer than eight prior regional development plans had achieved scant results. Still, the Delta’s profound poverty and the need to consolidate peace under the amnesty justified the risk. In spring of 2012, the UNDP overcame the tragic terrorist bombing of its headquarters in Abuja and assembled a team of Nigeria experts. They designed actions for social investment, infrastructure, and institution building and anchored them to three critical results: improved living standards, sustainable economic development, and a consolidated peace. In May this year, they shared with government and donors a draft plan that incorporated the best collective thinking of regional stakeholders and development experts. Social investment, which spanned eight different sectors, was the most challenging. Several programs were designed for quick implementation to meet urgent human needs and the reintegration of ex-combatants. They included creating thousands of small and larger businesses; skills training and apprenticeship schemes; a Niger Delta “works” program employing thousands of youth; water supply, education, health, and IT for remote communities; and a “citizens’ report card,” for monitoring local development. Astonishingly, it seems that the version of the Action Plan unveiled by the ministry in late April omits all of the planned strategies for social investment. In their place is an extensive agri-business program. This entrepreneurial initiative, however welcome, offers narrow benefits that cannot alone address the region’s huge deficits in jobs and basic human services. Press reports suggest that improvements to the Action Plan are still possible. One member of the amnesty team says the social investment plan should be restored to support peaceful reintegration.  Otherwise, this latest in a long series of failed plans could once again miss its targets and leave the region’s thirty-five million people angry victims of a missed opportunity.

President Goodluck Jonathan has refused to say whether he will run for the presidency in 2015, although many Nigerians expect he will. The current efforts among the opposition parties to come together behind a single presidential candidate is based on the assumption that Jonathan will run. Jonathan may not have much choice. His constituency in the southern half of the country and among fellow Christians is likely to insist on it. A notorious Delta militant and thug, Alhaji Mujahid Dokubo Asari, posted a reminder on May 6 of that reality. In a rambling and often incoherent press conference, he said that if Jonathan, a fellow Ijaw, is not re-elected in 2015, not only will there be no peace in the oil-rich Niger Delta, there will be no peace anywhere in Nigeria: “I want to go on to say that there will be no peace, not only in the Niger Delta, but everywhere if Goodluck Jonathan is not president by 2015 except God takes his life, which we don’t pray for. Jonathan has uninterrupted eight years of two terms to be president, according to the Nigeria constitution.” According to Nigerian media, he said, “we will continue to support and stand by Goodluck.” In effect, Dokubo Asari’s statement is a threat of renewed Delta violence and is directed at those who would try to deny Jonathan the ruling party’s presidential nomination or those who would vote for an opposition presidential candidate. The threat is credible. Dokubo Asari is a former president of the Ijaw Youth Congress (IYC) and leader of the Niger Delta People’s Volunteer Force (NDVF), one of the most important militant organizations involved in the Delta insurrection during the presidency of Olusegun Obasanjo. The fighting ended with an amnesty established by President Yar’Adua and has continued under President Jonathan. The amnesty involved limited disarmament, retraining, and re-integration of militants. It also involved massive payoffs to militant leaders like Dokubo Asari. But, militant groups like the NDVF have not disbanded, they appear to retain access to sophisticated weapons, and they could relaunch mayhem at any time. Dokubo Asari was born into a distinguished Christian family. He converted to Islam when he dropped out of university. The conversion appears personal rather than political because few Ijaw are Muslim, and the Muslim population in the Delta–the center of Dokubo Asari’s activities–is very small. He claims to be a friend of President Jonathan. He regularly denounces the Boko Haram insurgency in northern Nigeria, saying that Boko Haram and its nominal leader Abubakar Shekau are un-Islamic because of their “arrogance,” especially for their call for Jonathan’s conversion to Islam. He also denounces the mal-governance of Nigeria by a succession of northern military leaders. He is a reminder that southern bitterness toward the north is based on more than anti-Islam sentiments.

The May 8 New York Times carries above the fold an Adam Nossiter story, “Bodies Pour in as Nigeria Rounds Up Islamists.” The story mostly consists of horrific reports of Nigerian security services (army and police) abuses of Northern Nigerian citizens, alleged members of or connected to Boko Haram, a radical Islamic insurgency. Nossiter notes that Boko Haram is “thoroughly enmeshed” in the local population making it difficult to root out the insurgents. He observes that security service brutality “…has turned many residents against the military, driving some toward the insurgency…” The security services and the Jonathan administration in Abuja continue to flatly deny that any abuses are happening, much less systematically carried out; despite the testimony of a wide range of credible northern observers. Many of us have heard reports similar to Nossiter’s from Nigerian contacts for some time. Human Rights Watch also issued a report that, in effect, argued that the International Criminal Court should investigate both Boko Haram and the security services for crimes against humanity. For a long time I have heard that the security services round up large numbers of young men who simply disappear. They are never formally arrested, prosecuted, tried or, if convicted, punished. They simply disappear, outside the justice system altogether. I had assumed that most so detained were quietly released after a time, in part because there were few reports of mass graves. To some extent, that may be true. But, Nossiter’s grim report confirms what many local people say; that in fact, many are murdered. The disposal of so many corpses is posing a problem. The Council’s Nigeria Security Tracker (NST) has long followed security service abuses in northern Nigeria. NST data—current through April 30—confirms that violence involving Boko Haram and the security services continues to escalate in northern Nigeria. April 2013 had the highest death toll since the NST started, in May 2011. The numbers of dead that Nossiter saw are a reflection of the escalating carnage. Among the security services, training is often poor or non-existent; pay is also poor. As a matter of policy, soldiers and police are deployed outside their region of origin. Hence, security service personnel often have little understanding or sympathy for the populations they are supposed to protect. Literally, many don’t even speak the same language. But, such factors are no excuse: the security services, an arm of a state with democratic aspirations, must be held to a higher standard than vicious insurgents. Boko Haram terror is no justification for what Nossiter and others report the security services are doing. And the government’s stonewalling is counterproductive. New York Times coverage will raise the profile of Nigeria’s dirty war in the United States. Hopefully there will be more American political pressure on the Jonathan administration to take concrete steps to control its security services.

This is a guest post by Jacob Zenn, an analyst of African Affairs for the Washington D.C. based think tank, The Jamestown Foundation, and a contributor for the West Point CTC Sentinel. Traditional Muslim leaders, the sultan of Sokoto in particular, may have an important role to play in countering the extremist views that attract recruits to Boko Haram, Ansaru, and other radical Islamist groups. The sultan may still command the respect of a  majority of Muslims in Nigeria. Even though Boko Haram and Ansaru reject the sultan’s authority and have tried to assassinate a number of traditional Muslim leaders, the sultan’s moderate message may make the operational environment less conducive for groups such as Boko Haram and Ansaru. The sultan and other traditional leaders could serve as a bulwark against Boko Haram and other extremists by reducing the potential Boko Haram recruiting pool. But, they are less likely to influence Boko Haram directly. Every effort should be made to prevent vulnerable groups from crossing the fine line between grievances–such as those about corruption (which in my visit to Borno was just called "government stealing")–and participation in Boko Haram’s violence. I believe the sultan and traditional leaders can connect with some of these key vulnerable groups before they’re lost. As for “vulnerable groups” who already joined Boko Haram, the sultan believes that an amnesty would be one way to incentivize them to rejoin society and abandon terrorism. The sultan has been criticized for this by southerners, who point out that the Niger Delta insurgents who received an amnesty in 2009 never targeted civilians as Boko Haram has done. I would highlight that the sultan has a lot to lose if Boko Haram becomes more powerful, and that he has likely been the leading voice calling on Muslims to bring “peace and stability” to Nigeria—in contrast to other imams who have even blamed the United States for Boko Haram’s violence. Moreover, there have been factions that have broken away from Boko Haram for its killing of civilians, so the sultan may have those members in mind when he speaks of an amnesty. As indicated in this chart, originally from the Africa Center for Strategic Studies, there is a “contested space” between the sultan and his ideology, and radical imams and their ideologies. The more the sultan’s influence increases among mainstream Muslims, the smaller the pool of potential recruits for Boko Haram will be. It becomes less likely that “vulnerable groups” will cross the line between being sympathetic, or even in contact, with Boko Haram to actual membership and participation in attacks. From this perspective, the crucial question is the extent to which the sultan retains the loyalty of his traditional followers in the aftermath of his support of President Goodluck Jonathan in the elections of 2011.

In March, Zimbabwe’s government, headed by Robert Mugabe, announced that no EU or U.S. observers would be invited to the national elections, now scheduled for the end of June 2013.  The official reason for the ban is EU and U.S. sanctions against the Mugabe government. This decision undermines what little confidence many observers (including myself) had that Zimbabwe would have free and fair elections under the aegis of its new constitution. There is much that international observers cannot see or understand about African elections, especially in the rural areas; yet their conclusions about the mechanics of the polling sometimes overly influence the international community’s evaluation of how the elections actually went. But, the presence of international observers provides some cover for local civic organizations to have a broader scope. That makes the presence of international observers highly positive, and perhaps vital to local civic organizations. But, in Zimbabwe, the beleaguered civic sector will now lack that assistance in an environment too often characterized by ruling party (and other) thuggery. The ZANU-PF move against EU and U.S. election observers certainly undermines the pretense that the upcoming elections will advance the cause of democracy and raises questions about whether the ruling party has determined to rig the elections. Recent Freedom House and Afrobarometer public polls indicate that ZANU-PF and Robert Mugabe stand a chance of winning a genuinely free and fair election in Zimbabwe. It is sad that we are unlikely ever to know.

This is a guest post by Jacob Zenn, an analyst of African Affairs for the Washington D.C. based think tank, The Jamestown Foundation, and a contributor for the West Point CTC Sentinel. April 2013 marks two and a half years since Boko Haram launched its first attack on a Bauchi prison in September 2010. Since May 2011, another group, Ansaru, which likely has close connections to al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM) and focuses on kidnapping foreigners, has also been active in northern Nigeria. Though both groups are relatively new, there is enough information available to identify some of their recruitment methods. With respect to Boko Haram, I see four main factors that could attract recruits: 1) Financial Incentives: Some members join because Boko Haram pays them to kill Nigerian government officials, steal cars in Boko Haram’s name and sell them to businessman or government officials, or to rob banks. Some immigrants from neighboring countries may also join for economic purposes. 2) Kinship: Some northern Nigerians, including politicians, may affiliate with Boko Haram because they are related to members, or to some of the one thousand followers of imam Muhammad Yusuf who were killed during clashes in July 2009. 3) Inter-religious and government violence: The history of violence between Muslims and Christians in the Middle Belt and civilian deaths during battles with Boko Haram likely led some people to seek revenge against Christians or the Nigerian government through Boko Haram. 4) Radicalization: Some Boko Haram members may have been radicalized by Nigerian imams. Dr. Ibrahim Datti Ahmed led the anti-polio vaccine and anti-beauty pageant campaigns in northern Nigeria. Ahmad Gumi, in a recent sermon, called Nigeria’s role in the French-led military intervention against Islamists in Mali a Christian-led “crusade.” And Ibrahim Zakzaky, an Iranian-backed Shia leader who organizes anti-American protests, such as those against the “Innocence of Muslims” film, are some examples. These imams create acceptance in mainstream society for many of the issues that Boko Haram and Ansaru use to appeal to recruits. Indeed, Boko Haram has attacked polio workers and a media agency that associated the Prophet Muhammad with beauty queens; while Ansaru attacked Nigerian troops preparing to deploy to Mali. Furthermore, both Boko Haram and Ansaru have taken advantage of anti-American and anti-Western sentiment, and have adopted al-Qaeda’s ideology in their public relations strategy. Abubakar Shekau, the reputed leader of Boko Haram, specifically mentioned he would respond to the “Innocence of Muslims,” an anti-Islamic film that caused violent protests throughout the Muslim world in September 2012. The first three recruitment factors can be addressed by tackling Nigeria’s corruption, ensuring the nation’s resources get to people who need them most, and impartially prosecuting government officials and Boko Haram members who break the law. The fourth factor needs to be addressed with initiatives to counter Boko Haram and Ansaru’s message.