Sudan

Herman J. Cohen is the former assistant secretary of state for African affairs (1989–1993), the former U.S. ambassador to the Gambia and Senegal (1977–80), and was a member of the U.S. Foreign Service for thirty-eight years. You can find his blog here. While the Sudanese military expelled President Omar al-Bashir from office, the people of Sudan are ultimately responsible for toppling his regime, and the leaders of the protest movement have promised not to let up until civilian rule is secured. They well know that any persistence of military control represents a continuation of the Bashir regime, and in particular, the Arabic-speaking population’s monopoly of power. For three decades they have endured the suppression of civil society, labor unions, freedom of press and religion, and any real measure of democratic expression or development. The Sudanese people have enough experience with the security apparatus Bashir created to know that exchanging one general with another does not represent improvement. A loss of oil revenue to the independent South, a rise in state corruption, and a series of devastating internal conflicts all contributed to the end of Bashir’s reign, which itself began in a 1989 coup. Supporting al-Bashir was the National Islamic Front (NIF) party, and its leader, Hassan el-Turabi, a devoted revolutionary with a doctorate from the Sorbonne, who believed a Salafist Sudan under his leadership could spread Islamism throughout the Horn and North Africa. The NIF’s vote share in parliamentary elections consistently topped out at 15 percent, excluding them from participation. With guidance from el-Turabi, al-Bashir coopted the NIF’s Islamist ideology as a political rationale for the coup, leading to the imposition of Sharia-based law—and ultimately, an entanglement with the United States. El-Turabi spent the first few years of the junta supplying weapons to Islamist revolutionaries in Tunisia, Libya, and southern Egypt. He also revised Sudan’s immigration laws to allow all citizens of Arab nations to enter Sudan visa-free and reside there—enabling extremist groups to set up shop in the country. During a 1992 visit to Khartoum, I saw a city map in the American Embassy showing the office locations for nine Middle Eastern extremist groups. It was around this time that a wealthy scion named Osama bin Laden fled Saudi Arabia to establish a foothold in Khartoum. One year later, the World Trade Center was bombed. The Clinton administration designated Sudan a state sponsor of terrorism, and the U.S.-Sudan relationship became embroiled in sanctions, diplomatic withdrawals, and condemnations by the UN. By 1996, economic and political isolation were taking a heavy toll. Turabi’s influence began to wane. Sudanese officials began asking foreign governments how they could ease the pressure; one move was to expel bin Laden to Afghanistan. Yet Sudan’s involvement in the 1998 U.S. embassy bombings and the 2000 USS Cole bombing deepened its reputation as a pariah state.  Meanwhile, the Khartoum government was continually dogged by its conflict with the Sudanese People’s Liberation Movement (SPLM), the rebel group fighting for self-determination in the country’s majority-Christian south. A major oil discovery in 1999 provided revenue and helped the Khartoum regime to stabilize its control, but provided little or no benefit for the people of the south where the oil itself was located.  George W. Bush’s 2000 election marked a turning point for U.S.-Sudan relations. The U.S. had been providing substantial humanitarian aid for the drought-stricken South. But the new administration wanted to mediate a lasting solution to the internal conflict, motivated largely by Bush’s key evangelical Christian constituency. Oklahoma Senator James Inhofe was particularly vocal regarding South Sudan’s Christians.  In 2005, the Bush administration’s efforts bore fruit with the signing of the Comprehensive Peace Agreement between the Khartoum government and the SPLM. Bush himself was involved in this process—Salva Kiir’s famous Stetson hat, which he is rarely seen without, was a gift from the then-president. After a transitional period, the agreement provided for a 2011 referendum on South Sudanese independence, which passed with over 98 percent of the vote. But Khartoum’s problems continued. The new nation of South Sudan enjoyed sovereignty over the oil deposits and revenue Khartoum previously controlled. Although Khartoum was able to negotiate a $24-per-barrel transit fee for oil passing from South Sudan through its territory to Port Sudan in the north, the Sudanese economy was crippled. Youth unemployment and overall poverty levels skyrocketed. The military regime became increasingly corrupt.  Above all, the problem in Khartoum was al-Bashir, one of the worst dictators the world has seen in the post-colonial era. Bashir stole billions from his people while they suffered through poverty and famine. In Darfur, Bashir responded to an insurgency among non-Arabs with a campaign of genocide, slaughtering hundreds of thousands. Bashir did not simply roll back Sudan’s fledgling democracy; he replaced it with fraudulent elections and a kleptocracy designed to keep him in power. To secure his thirty-year dictatorship, he created a “hydra-headed” security state which, having turned on Bashir, may now struggle internally over control of the country, as Alex de Waal recently chronicled in AfricanArguments (and in the case of the various paramilitary organizations Bashir created, perhaps violently). Besides Sudan’s total lack of democratic institutions and a massive national security sub-state designed to thwart their development, the protest movement will also have to contend with the fact that political power has always been controlled by Arabic-speaking elites. With the separation of the south, the Sudanese people are nearly all Muslim, but Arabic speakers remain a minority, despite their disproportionate influence. It will be a challenge to reform the country’s power structures and create a system which fairly shares control among all Sudanese. Yet as al-Bashir learned, it is a mistake to underestimate the power of the protesters. With support from the African Union, they are rejecting half-baked proposals from Sudan’s generals for a joint interim government which would maintain military control. The Sudanese people’s unrelenting demand for real change even after al-Bashir’s ouster is remarkable, and a reason for cautious optimism. After three decades of dictatorship, no one is more familiar with the numerous obstacles to democracy and prosperity than the Sudanese themselves.

Welcome to “Women Around the World: This Week,” a series that highlights noteworthy news related to women and U.S. foreign policy. This week’s post, covering April 8 to April 14, was compiled by LaTreshia Hamilton and Rebecca Turkington.

Three events this week served as a reminder that, in a world where democracy is buffeted on many fronts—the rise of populists who often undermine the rule of law, a growing disinterest in democracy promotion from leaders of the United States and other states, and the influence of major authoritarian powers—armed forces remain political actors in many countries, despite an overall reduction in coups since the days of the Cold War. In Thailand, ruled by a military junta since 2014, the military’s favored party won the largest share of the popular vote in elections last month, but a group of anti-junta parties appear, overall, to have garnered the biggest number of seats in the lower house of parliament. So, the Thai military appears to be maneuvering to ensure that the second-biggest party in the anti-junta alliance is defanged, and to use a range of inducements to convince smaller political parties to join the pro-military alliance in parliament. No matter what happens, it is almost certain that Thailand’s military will remain in control of government, resisting attempts at real civilian oversight of the armed forces. Meanwhile, in Indonesia, which holds presidential elections next week, the military is steadily regaining much of the power it lost in the period after the fall of Suharto, as Indonesian democracy emerged. As Evan Laksmana notes in the New York Times, both candidates in the Indonesian elections, incumbent Joko Widodo (known as Jokowi) and challenger Prabowo Subianto, have helped the military regain power, or will likely do so if elected. If Prabowo, a retired former lieutenant general, were to win (which still seems unlikely given polls of the race) there is a possibility that he would reduce limits on the central government and undermine democratic checks and norms—and potentially allow the military and other security forces far greater rein domestically. Jokowi, though not as openly disdainful of democratic norms and institutions as Prabowo, has surrounded himself with military men. He has allowed the armed forces to reassert their influence over domestic issues including counterterrorism and counternarcotics, among other areas. This is a worrying trend in a country where, for decades, the armed forces were known for dominating politics and committing rights abuses. In other parts of Southeast Asia, militaries retain significant political leverage, though outright coups have declined since the Cold War, as they have in regions like Africa as well. In Myanmar, the military, still by far the most powerful actor in the country despite a technically civilian government, appear to be extending their new battle in Rakhine State. There, fighting has intensified in recent weeks between the military and the insurgent Arakan Army. The military retains near-total control over internal security, and it is unclear whether operations, like the one ramping up against the Arakan Army, are taken solely on the military’s initiative, or whether the armed forces even really consult with the civilian government before acting. But Southeast Asia is not unique. In Sudan this week, the armed forces indeed launched a coup, removing longtime leader Omar al-Bashir. To be sure, Bashir was one of the most repressive rulers in the world, and came to power three decades ago in a coup as well. But the military takeover could neuter the massive protest movement in Sudan, prevent a real transition to a freer form of government, and install just as repressive a regime in Khartoum as Bashir’s government. Just as other types of autocratic regimes have freer rein today than they did in the 1990s and early 2000s, militaries also face fewer constraints on their power. Democratic powers are distracted by their own deep political problems, populations in some states have soured on democracy and looked to other alternatives, and the U.S. government views regions like Southeast Asia as places home to a growing contest for influence with China—and thus requiring closer ties with almost any government willing to align with Washington. The U.S. government appeared ready to completely normalize military-to-military relations with Bangkok, before the election last month, even though the election process was unfair. With Egypt, the White House has lavished fulsome praise on autocratic leader Abdel Fatah al-Sisi, a military man who took power in a coup six years ago and now has indicated he wants to stay in office another fifteen years. The Indonesian military’s creeping re-emergence in Indonesian domestic politics has had little impact on U.S.-Indonesia security ties, or Indonesia’s security links with other regional democracies. Meanwhile, in a world increasingly looking for strongman rule as an alternative to democracy, to solve crises of graft and a lack of political accountability by elected leaders, military men have become more attractive. In some countries, like Thailand, where populists already have ruled, populations have looked to the military as means of ousting populist leaders—though in reality military governments only further erode democratic norms and institutions. In places like Egypt, Indonesia, Myanmar, Thailand, or even Brazil, armed forces, too, are again embedding within their military cultures a resistance to civilian oversight—or refusing to change their cultures to embrace civilian oversight. For a time in Thailand in the late 1990s and early 2000s, for instance, it appeared that the Thai armed forces were beginning to shift, with younger officers at least considering an end to the kingdom’s cycle of coups and military meddling in politics. Whatever glimmer of hope there was for a civilianization of the Thai military now has vanished. The country has had two coups in the past fifteen years, and both older and younger generations of Thai officers seem committed to the continuation of the Royal Thai Army as the dominant political actor.

The people of Sudan have earned the world’s admiration and respect. Their bravery, persistence, unity, and discipline have achieved what for so many years had seemed impossible - the end of Omar al-Bashir’s decades-long, brutal presidency.  It has been especially moving to see the prominent role of Sudanese women, many of whom suffered so deeply under Bashir’s rule, in the mass movement that brought Sudan to this moment.  But the struggle for Sudan’s future is far from over. Now more than ever, the Sudanese people need international support to push for real change in the country, not just a shuffling of personalities at the top. Right now the military has seized control, and canny securocrats are working to protect their privileged access to power and wealth.  But these same people opted for pushing Bashir out rather than once again massacring their own citizens because they know that there is no resuscitating Sudan’s economy without significant international help.  The United States and others should deliver clear, specific, and credible messages about what they would be willing to do to help Sudan recover. At the same time, they must make it plain that Bashir’s ouster alone is insufficient, and no one should be left with any delusion about continued counterterrorism cooperation being the sole determinant of American support. Informed by the demands of Sudanese civil society, and in concert with other donors and regional powers, the United States should articulate the transitional milestones and political conditions that must be met to gain access to each tranche of a recovery package that will address Sudan’s massive debt and help jumpstart the sickly economy. These conditions would include, but not be limited to, a commitment to respecting the civil and political rights of the Sudanese people, a transitional authority that includes civilians from outside the long-ruling National Congress Party (NCP), concrete steps toward greater budgetary transparency, and a clear timeline for and commitment to genuinely free and fair elections at the end of a transitional period.  The statement from the African Union Commission Chair rejecting a military government is encouraging in this respect. International cohesion is important to shut off avenues for hardliners to go forum shopping.   Undoubtedly the officers who have seized power in Sudan will paint themselves as necessary bulwarks against chaos and instability, or extremists with a taste for terrorism. The international community must not allow them to define the options for Sudan so narrowly. We must remember the courage of the Sudanese citizens, who clearly see a whole world of possibilities. 

Abigail Van Buren is an interdepartmental program assistant at the Council on Foreign Relations in New York.  On December 19, 2018, Sudanese demonstrators took to the streets of Atbara after the government reduced bread subsidies, ostensibly because of a rise in inflation. From Atbara, the protests spread to al-Qadarif, Omdurman, and Khartoum, eventually spanning thirty-five cities and fifteen of Sudan’s eighteen provinces. In the last six weeks, police have fired tear gas and live ammunition, instituted curfews, arrested journalists, and blocked social media to quell protests. Bashir does not appear to have confirmed this himself. The government puts the death toll at thirty-five, while human rights groups put it at fifty-one. While initially triggered by the cost of bread, the protestors have since directed their anger at President Omar al-Bashir’s rule more generally. Most recently, in 2013, a comparable, youth-led protest erupted after the government reduced fuel and gas subsidies, which evolved into broad calls for solutions to youth unemployment, lower costs of living, and even Bashir’s resignation. Bashir approached this protest with the same tactics he is using today, including media blackouts and police crackdowns. In 2013, those tactics worked, and the demonstrations were quashed in just a few days. Youth unemployment has more or less hovered around twenty-seven percent since then. The 2013 protests had been the largest since Bashir’s rule began, but today’s are larger and appear to be different. At the very least, the strategies Bashir had typically used successfully to squelch dissent have yet to start working. Furthermore, Ghazi Salaheddine Atabani, once a top advisor to Bashir who left the party after the 2013 protests, recently said, “judged on the basis of what the [current] protests have achieved so far,” there is “a strong belief that things will change and people will triumph.” Bashir could once blame foreign sanctions, but with those gone, he has struggled to explain the country’s dire economic state. The protestors, led by students and other young professionals, only see excuses. The country has an overwhelming young population—61 percent of citizens are under the age of twenty-four. Indeed, the Sudanese Council of Ministers approved a youth empowerment plan last week, which expects to create jobs for over 160,000 young people in the country. During his rallies around the country in the past few weeks, Bashir himself addressed the youth directly when he called upon them for help to build the future of Sudan. Defense Minister Awad Mohamed Ahmed Ibn Auf acknowledged that the current situation in the country showed a schism between young and old and that Sudan “requires intergenerational communication and fair solutions to youth problems and realizing their reasonable ambition.” Prime Minister Moutaz Mousa Abdallah called the protests a "respectable youth movement" and said its voice should be heeded. On February 22, Bashir declared a year-long state of emergency, installing members of the security services as governors and deploying more troops across the country, who continue to use live ammunition against protesters. He also called on parliament to delay the planned amendments to the constitution that would have allowed him to run for another term. Further, his intelligence chief said that Bashir would step down as head of the ruling party and not run in the 2020 election. It appears that the protests could be starting to work.

In an article recently published in Foreign Affairs, Joshua Busby and Nina von Uexkull identify the countries that are most at risk from climate-related instability and humanitarian crises.

Since the middle of December, something extraordinary has been happening in Sudan. Fed up with crippling inflation, angry about years of economic mismanagement, and unconvinced that needed reforms are likely to come from the architects of the current crisis, the people of Sudan have been demanding change. It began with people rejecting a rise in bread prices, but for many, it has become a rejection of President Omar al-Bashir and his regime. For decades, Bashir and the ruling National Congress Party (NCP) had been able to blame hardships on the West and the international sanctions imposed in response to the government’s gross abuses of its own people. But when the United States lifted its sanctions on Sudan in October 2017, a convenient scapegoat disappeared. Over the past year, the overall state of Sudan’s economy—its $50 billion-plus debt burden, massive spending on security and the machinery of repression, pervasive corruption, and lack of competitiveness—has made it abundantly clear that the relief the Sudanese people seek requires far more than the lifting of sanctions. Sudan needs transformational reforms, and its citizens are demanding nothing less.  The bravery of the Sudanese protesters is astonishing. No one has any doubts about the Bashir regime’s capacity for violent repression; indeed, scores of protestors have been killed over the past month. Equally interesting and instructive is the protesters’ savvy. They know lies when they hear them, and disregard misleading state media reports aimed at discrediting calls for change. They are finding ways to organize and express solidarity even when the state shuts down social media. After nearly thirty years of Bashir’s brutal autocracy, the Sudanese people have developed certain immunities to some of its standard lines of attack. But years of repression have also bred cynicism and distrust that can sour the promise of a different future. Thoughtful Sudanese citizens are concerned about the breakdown in national identity and the absence of a positive and unifying vision for the country that speaks to shared values and aspirations. The change that the Sudanese people seek cannot simply be a rejection of what exists. What is needed is an inclusive vision of a new Sudan, and of its place in the region and in the world. Whether or not Sudanese can find the space to develop those ideas, to give voice to the aspirations of its diverse population, and to cultivate the leaders required to bring them to life, is well worth watching in the months ahead. 

Sudanese 19-year-old Noura Hussein was sentenced to death for fatally stabbing the man who raped her. Global leaders must stand up to this injustice and take action to help all women survivors of violence – whether that be intimate partner violence, or the violence of war – rebuild their lives.

The Five Questions Series is a forum for scholars, government officials, civil society leaders, and foreign policy practitioners to provide timely analysis of new developments related to the advancement of women and girls worldwide.

Egypt, Sudan, and Ethiopia are close to armed conflict over a Nile dam project; so far the United States is ignoring them.

This is a guest post by Caila Glickman, volunteer intern for the Council on Foreign Relations’ department of Global Health. Caila is currently a pre-med student at Oberlin College studying chemistry and international relations. Her interests are in medicine, environmental science, and international law. In a vicious dispute over water allocation of the Nile River, Ethiopia, Egypt and Sudan are wading through uncharted waters of international law. The dispute begins in Ethiopia’s attempt to regain control of its contributory river, the Blue Nile, by building the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam (GERD). However, the dam’s legality is being questioned by both Egypt and Sudan—two downstream Nile states eager to maintain the status quo of water allocation. Many believe the Nile River is sourced in Egypt, but it actually stretches from Burundi to the Mediterranean Sea. Egypt receives well over half of the river’s water because the river flows north; however, its two biggest feeders—the White Nile and the Blue Nile—are located in Uganda and Ethiopia, two southern but upstream Nile states with limited access to the Nile’s water. Historically, Egypt and Sudan have exploited the Nile through exclusive treaties that failed to include the upstream countries such as Ethiopia, Uganda, Kenya, and Rwanda. The main treaty, known as the 1959 Nile Waters Agreement, called for the unimpeded flow of Nile waters, but only included Egypt and Sudan in its negotiations and ratification. Egypt uses this treaty to object to the construction of the GERD. Sudan has essentially piggybacked off of Egypt’s objections, as the current system of water allocation benefits the Sudanese. Ethiopia’s right to the dam lies in the Cooperative Framework Agreement (CFA), which was adopted by Nile Basin Initiative member states, or all states that have some claim to the Nile. The CFA says that each Nile state is, “entitled to a reasonable share in the beneficial uses of water resources of the Nile system.” Ethiopia, a contributor of over 86 percent of the Nile River’s flow, receives only 5 percent of the Nile’s water, which is not enough to kick start its development. An electricity deficiency currently ails upstream Nile states and stifles their economic growth capability with constant power shortages. Ethiopia sees the GERD as the answer to the country’s stifling electricity issues. This dam will be used to create the continent’s largest hydropower plant that will fill all demand, generating three times the country’s current electricity production and providing neighboring states with all surplus power. Within the GERD dispute context, the greater issue at hand becomes clear—current international law does not reflect the less-developed riparian countries’ rights to water. In fact, many are cheated out of their water and the power it gives them to develop. As Zadig Abraha, deputy director of the dam’s public mobilization office, said, “To regain our lost greatness, to divorce ourselves from the status quo of poverty… we need to make use of our natural resources, like water.” The dam is a declaration of the country’s determination to pull itself up by its bootstraps. Ethiopia has convinced Egypt and Sudan to sign a declaration of principles that approved dam construction under the condition that studies be done to assess the impact the project will have on Egypt and Sudan. Despite this compromise, the issue will be continually present as developing countries around the world seek to reclaim their water rights to the dismay of developed countries banking on their silence.

The Africa Center for Strategic Studies (ACSS) has published a useful map showing the top ten countries in Africa for population displacement. It finds that 71 percent of the continent’s 18.5 million displaced are from Sudan, South Sudan, Somalia, Nigeria, and the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC). It observes that each of the five are experiencing serious conflict, and that of the top 10, nine are autocratically governed. (Nigeria is the exception, with credible elections in 2015 that brought opposition leader Muhammadu Buhari to the presidency.) This map was designed by the Africa Center for Strategic Studies. It was originally displayed in the update "Population Displacement in Africa: Top 10 Countries of Origin," on September 19, 2016. The ACSS map can be studied in conjunction with the Council on Foreign Relations Sub-Saharan Security Tracker (SST), which tracks violence. It is updated monthly. It shows violence concentrated in Sudan, South Sudan, Somalia, the DRC, the Central African Republic, and Nigeria—the same countries the ACSS identifies as having the largest displaced populations. The conclusion must be that the internally displaced and refugee flows are directly tied to internal conflict within African states. Elsewhere, on this enormous continent, levels of violence and displacement are low.

Led by Kenyan President Uhuru Kenyatta, the African Union (AU) voted by a huge margin in favor of a proposal for withdrawal from the International Criminal Court (ICC). In the aftermath of the vote, President Jacob Zuma reiterated his threat that South Africa would withdraw from the ICC’s jurisdiction: “Our strongly held view is that it is now impossible, under the circumstances, for South Africa to continue its participation…” The AU chairman, Chadian President Idriss Deby, repeated the regular criticism that the ICC is biased against Africa: “Elsewhere in the world, many things happen, many flagrant violations of human rights, but nobody cares.” The current ICC trial of the former president of the Ivory Coast, Laurent Gbagbo, has raised the court’s profile. Among many African elites, there is sensitivity about how many ICC cases involve Africans. At present, there are ICC probes underway in Kenya, Ivory Coast, Libya, Sudan, Democratic Republic of Congo, Central African Republic, Uganda, and Mali. Overlooked by critics is that many ICC prosecutions have been undertaken at the request of African governments. Moreover, many Africans, especially human rights advocates, support the ICC. The Nairobi newspaper Daily Nation, summed it up in an editorial: “It is far better for member states to stay in the court and advocate reforms, rather than bolting and leaving millions on the continent unprotected by an international court which can step in when national institutions fail.” Opposition to the ICC is led by many of Africa’s more disreputable leaders: Zimbabwe’s Robert Mugabe, Kenya’s Kenyatta, Equatorial Guinea’s Teodoro Obiang Nguema Mbasogo, and Chad’s Deby. Some African heads of state have personal axes to grind. Kenyatta was indicted by the court for allegedly directing violence in conjunction with Kenya’s 2007 elections; prosecutors eventually gave up the case, saying that the Kenyatta government not only failed to cooperate, but that there was also intimidation of witnesses. Kenyan Deputy President Willliam Ruto is still under ICC indictment. Zuma faced fierce criticism in South Africa when he failed to hand over Sudan’s Omar al-Bashir, under ICC indictment for genocide and other crimes in Darfur. The AU vote has little practical consequence. Participation in the ICC is a matter for an individual state. South Africa’s departure from the ICC would be especially difficult, despite Zuma’s rhetoric. The founding statute of the ICC, the Treaty of Rome, has been incorporated into South African law. Withdrawal would require a vote by parliament. If Zuma were successful, the parliamentary vote would be challenged by the opposition parties in the court system, ultimately the Constitutional Court, which is independent of any administration.

Brandon Valeriano is a Senior Lecturer at the University of Glasgow, and author of Cyber War versus Cyber Realities on Oxford University Press. Allison Pytlak is a policy and advocacy specialist at Control Arms. Donald Trump calls for “closing that Internet up” due to the rise of Islamic extremism, Hillary Clinton says the same thing, just a bit more diplomatically, asking the great disrupters to go to work disrupting the so-called Islamic State. Given that it is impossible to shut down the Internet in the United States, even if Russian submarines were to cut transatlantic cables, this move by Trump to enter the arena of information security demonstrates one of the most pernicious challenges in our digital era: the rise of cyber repression. Even the New York Times is exploring challenging the First Amendment in the age of digital extremism, which suggests Trump’s ideas are not at all fringe. While the actions of the Islamic State and other malicious actors online pose security problems, especially in their ability help recruit and promote offensive ideologies, the rush to react to this threat may harm civil liberties, or as Trump says “oh freedom of speech, freedom of speech.” The great hope of the Internet as a path to digital freedom has quickly given way to the reality of the structural control imposed by states on activists in cyberspace. The danger posed by digital threats is not severe enough to warrant a challenge the freedoms and liberties inherent in Western political ideologies. There has been a precipitous rise in malicious hacking but it is not exhibited between states, rather it is from within them by governments seeking to maintain control over their populations. There is increasing utilization of cyber technology to silence dissent, often in direct contradiction with human rights law. The dramatic rise of digital control by the state is a development that has been relatively overlooked by both mainstream media and the United Nations compared to the concern exhibited for the as of yet mythical cyberwar. The latest Citizen Lab report exposes the efforts of an espionage team named Packrat to silence dissent in Ecuador, Venezuela, and Argentina. The group used malware, phishing and disinformation, even going so far as to threaten an investigator looking into their activities. The scope, funding, and targets suggest this group is either directed or serves as a proxy for state interests. The story of Hacking Team, which made headlines earlier this year, also illustrates the ability of governments to use malicious code to target activists. Based in Italy, Hacking Team is an information technology company that sells intrusion and surveillance capabilities to governments, law enforcement agencies, and corporations. While it claims to not sell to governments with poor human rights records, evidence from a counter hack points to the contrary. Hacking Team software was found on the office computers of Mamfakinch, an award-winning Moroccan news website that is critical of the Moroccan government. The Hacking Team’s products have also surfaced in Ethiopia, a country notorious for its repression and strict governmental control over all channels of communications, as well as in Sudan, Bahrain and Saudi Arabia. Digital tools clearly have as much potential for harm as good because governments, with their many resources, can leverage these tools to suppress dissent as described. As well, the ability of social media to facilitate rapid organization or protest, or to share video or photo footage is tremendous but not foolproof. Governments have been known to respond to digitally organized protests with traditional weapons. For example, agents of the Thai government killed dozens of protesters after the Red Shirt uprising, which was coordinated largely via Twitter. There are similar examples from Iran and Belarus. This kind of digital repression may not seem as dire, dramatic, or tragic as other crimes that occur regularly against civilians, but it does constitute a human rights violation. This is largely based in Article 19 of the International Convention on Civil and Political Rights guarantees the “freedom to seek, receive and impart information and ideas of all kinds, regardless of frontiers, either orally, in writing or in print, in the form of art, or through any other media of his choice.” The question then is, what must be done to help activism flourish and protect civil liberties? The first step should be collect better data to obtain a realistic picture of how and when cyber repression happens. Valeriano and Maness catalog attacks between states but now the focus must shift towards collecting data on domestic attacks perpetrated by states and their proxies. Data collection should start with defining a list of actions that constitute cyber repression, the perpetrator, target, degree of severity, goal of operation, and method of attack. This goes beyond Freedom on the Net’s ranking of countries based on Internet openness or the former OpenNet Initiative’s measuring of information controls, instead we must catalog specific abuses and methods. Once this information is collected, like any human rights abuse, action can be taken. Parties cannot be credibly named and shamed without evidence. Repression by digital means deserves attention and action. Our future is not one of constant cyber war between countries, tracing dots as they bounce around the digital map between countries, but rather one of digital violence and repression directed at both internal and external enemies. To address digital repression, we first need better awareness of the extent of the problem, followed by actions seeking to end the harm. This is a call for a control over the digital arms of repressive regimes, and the need to construct a digital society that even Russia, China, and the United States could agree to.

The African National Congress (ANC) wants South Africa to withdraw from the International Criminal Court (ICC). Obed Bapela, a deputy minister in the presidency, said that the ICC “has lost its way.” According to the media, the Minister for International Relations (foreign minister) Maite Nkoana-Mashabane indicated that the process would be orderly and not hasty. South Africa will place the issue of its withdrawal on the agenda for November’s Assembly of States Parties meeting attended by all ICC members and it would table it at the January African Union (AU) summit, she said. The ANC will bring the issue to parliament for debate. The ANC government of President Jacob Zuma is no doubt smarting from the domestic and international criticism that followed its failure to arrest Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir when he was in Johannesburg for an AU heads of state summit. Bashir is under ICC indictment for war crimes and crimes against humanity. The South African High Court has ruled that the government acted unconstitutionally when it failed to arrest Bashir, and the ICC has asked for an explanation. Other factors are likely at play in the ANC decision. There is resentment that the United States, among others, supports the ICC but does not accept its jurisdiction. Bapela referred to a handful of powerful countries which refused to be ICC members, yet they still had the power to refer matters to the court.” He went on, “They would rather put their own interests first than the world’s interest.” There is also within the ANC an “Africanist” trend which seeks to align South Africa more with other African states. Many of these states object to the ICC as essentially employing a “double standard” by which Africans are prosecuted but others are not. While not unchallenged within the party, the “Africanists” appear to be growing in strength. Some of their spokesmen are highly critical  of the United States as being ”unilateralist” with little respect for African sensitivities. South Africa under Nelson Mandela was one of the founding supporters of the ICC. The Court continues to have strong support in South Africa among the opposition parties in parliament and among civil society. South Africa’s court system is strong and independent. Despite the ANC’s large majority in parliament, it is by no means certain that South Africa’s departure from the ICC will occur.