Zooming in on the conflict in northern Yemen

Wirepullers: lo Yemen rischia di fare la fine della Somalia e entrare presto nella lista degli stati falliti (se già non ci fosse) oltre a scivolare verso il caos e l'ingovernabilità. Da anni ormai i ribelli guidati da Sayyid Abd al-Malik al-Houthi cercano di abbattere il governo di Abdullah Saleh, nell'eterno scontro tra diverse correnti dell'Islam. Ma sorge il dubbio che qualcuno da dietro il sipario tiri i fili di questa ribellione e questo qualcuno, guarda caso, sarebbe il solito Ahmadinejad, desideroso di mettere le mani sul corno d'Africa e avvantaggiato, in questo, da un governo che di fatto non ha più nessuna autorità in Somalia e da un altro che potrebbe presto perderla a Sanaa, capitale yemenita. Da Washington poi arriva l'avvertimento che uno Yemen instabile sarebbe terreno fertile per Al Qaida, come sempre. Il golfo di Aden insomma fa gola a molti. (3)

In mid-August, just prior to the start of Ramadan, the Yemeni government launched an all-out offensive on rebel positions in the northern governorate of Saada. Leaving no doubt as to its intentions, the government dubbed the campaign Operation Scorched Earth. The fighting between the government and the Huthis, as the rebel group is known, has been some of the fiercest since the conflict began in June 2004 when government forces attempted to arrest the founder of the movement, Husayn Badr al-Din al-Huthi.

The conflict has created thousands of internal refugees and has spread to neighboring governorates. Repeated calls for humanitarian aid have been largely ignored by the international community even as many, most notably the United States and the EU, worry that instability in Yemen will allow a resurgent Al-Qaeda the space to plan and launch attacks.

The Huthis subscribe to a sect of Shiite Islam called Zaydism, although the Zaydis in Yemen are traditionally closer to Sunni Islam than they are to the type of Shiite Islam practiced in Iran, and are often referred to as the “fifth school” of Sunni Islam. The government has provided differing rationale for war since the fighting began, but at this point it believes that the existence of an autonomous Zaydi-governed region presents an existential threat to the survival of President Ali Abdullah Saleh’s regime. The Zaydis in Saada meanwhile view themselves as a community under attack and in danger of cultural extinction.

Since the 1980s there has been sporadic fighting between Zaydis and Wahhabi-inspired Salafis in the North, with the latter destroying sacred tombs and attempting to convert Zaydi youth. The Zaydi responded with a vigorous campaign, publishing religious material designed to shore up local support, and forming a youth organization that combines theological teaching with military training.

The government is seen as backing the Salafis against the local Zaydis. This divide-and-rule approach to governing has long been favored by Saleh as a way of keeping potential opposition groups perpetually dependent on government support. In Saada the local Zaydis were usually deemed to be more of a threat to the government than the interloping Salafis.

In 2004 the conflict shifted from periodic clashes between competing Huthi and Salafi paramilitary forces to open war.

Due to the fear that Al-Qaeda would find a safe haven in an unstable Yemen, the United States and the EU have a significant stake in a stable Yemen, and therefore a role to play in ending open military conflict. The United States, which has limited influence in Yemen, must work behind the scenes to steadily convince Saudi Arabia that the threat of a strong Al-Qaeda in Yemen takes precedence over fears of a Shiite state on its southern border. Saudi Arabia, in turn, must use its considerable influence with Sanaa to bring it to the bargaining table.

Such steps would be a significant reversal of policy for both countries, but silence has done little to encourage stability in Yemen.

The United States appears reluctant to push Yemen toward a political settlement to the crisis with the Huthis for fear that any pressure will further dissuade a reluctant ally from taking action against Al-Qaeda, which is viewed by many Yemenis as a Western problem. Some worry that if the United States does not support Yemen in what it describes as its own “war against terror,” the Yemeni government will not support the United States against Al-Qaeda.

The protracted nature of the Yemeni conflict has also led to evolving justifications for its continuation. Tribesmen have been brought into the fighting on both sides. Those backing the Huthis are doing so not out of any adherence to Zaydi theology but rather as a response to government overreaching and military mistakes. In effect, the government’s various military campaigns have created more enemies than it had when the conflict began.

There is, as five years of fighting have made clear, no military solution to this conflict. The Yemeni government has tried and failed numerous times to bomb the Huthis into submission, to no avail.

Neither side has the political capital to yield to the demands of the other, and members of both sides are benefiting financially from a thriving war economy. But the longer the fighting goes on, the greater the threat to regional security.

The United States must persuade the EU and, more importantly, Saudi Arabia to present a unified front to the Yemenis, convincing them that the military phase of the conflict is over and that it’s time for a political solution.

Autore: Gregory D. Johnsen

Fonte: www.dailystar.com.lb

Tearing Yemen apart

Wirepullers: lo Yemen rischia di fare la fine della Somalia e entrare presto nella lista degli stati falliti (se già non ci fosse) oltre a scivolare verso il caos e l'ingovernabilità. Da anni ormai i ribelli guidati da Sayyid Abd al-Malik al-Houthi cercano di abbattere il governo di Abdullah Saleh, nell'eterno scontro tra diverse correnti dell'Islam. Ma sorge il dubbio che qualcuno da dietro il sipario tiri i fili di questa ribellione e questo qualcuno, guarda caso, sarebbe il solito Ahmadinejad, desideroso di mettere le mani sul corno d'Africa e avvantaggiato, in questo, da un governo che di fatto non ha più nessuna autorità in Somalia e da un altro che potrebbe presto perderla a Sanaa, capitale yemenita. Da Washington poi arriva l'avvertimento che uno Yemen instabile sarebbe terreno fertile per Al Qaida, come sempre. Il golfo di Aden insomma fa gola a molti. (2)

As clashes revive fears of a Saudi Arabia-Iran proxy war, the US is focused on al-Qaida's presence in a troubled nation.

Renewed fighting in northern Yemen between government and rebel forces is feeding fears that a Middle Eastern proxy war between Saudi Arabia and Iran is spreading to the ungoverned spaces of the southern Arabian peninsula. But western analysts are staring boggle-eyed at quite a different spectre: the prospect that the biggest beneficiaries of Yemeni weakness will be the fanatical jihadis of al-Qaida.

UN agencies raised the alarm last week after 55,000 people, mostly women and children, fled clashes in and around Sa'ada city in northern Yemen between the forces of President Ali Abdullah Saleh's Sunni-led government and the Zaydi Shia followers of Sayyid Abd al-Malik al-Houthi. The exodus brought to 150,000 the number of people rendered homeless since July by a conflict that rekindled in 2004 but whose roots reach back to 1962.

The UN complained that its $23m emergency appeal launched on 2 September "has not yet received a single cent" despite the refugees' acute need. "Internally displaced people from Sa'ada governorate who fled to Amran arrived traumatised and exhausted, having spent three to five days walking in the desert," the UN said. Access to the remote area was hazardous and attempts were under way to open a humanitarian corridor from Saudi Arabia.

Yet according to the Houthi rebels, the Saudis are part of the problem. Claiming Riyadh is arming and supporting government forces, they issued a video last week purporting to show captured Saudi mortars. They also claim to have been bombed by Saudi jets. "We are placing before everyone the fact of direct Saudi support," a rebel statement said. "The regime has ceded sovereignty [and] delivered the country to foreign interests." Saudi Arabia denies the charges.

Saleh's government in turn accuses Iran and its Iraqi Shia ally Muqtada al-Sadr of backing the Houthis, who say they want greater autonomy. They also oppose the spread of Saudi-inspired Wahhabi teaching – an ostensibly reasonable aim given the links between Wahhabism and Sunni extremism. Saleh told al-Jazeera television that unnamed Iranians were in direct communication with the rebels and had funded secret "cells" within Yemen's security apparatus. Iran's ambassador to Yemen was recently warned of "negative consequences" should Iranian media continue "to be a tool in the hands of the subversives in Sa'ada".

Saudi Arabia's concerns about its neighbour's plight go beyond northern instability. Reviving separatist tendencies in southern Yemen are combining with shrinking national earnings (caused by declining oil revenues), high male unemployment, corruption, kidnapping and a chronic water shortage to undermine the central government's ability to hold the country together. Last month's assassination attempt on a Saudi minister was launched from Yemen.

For its part, Iran believes it has good reason to be suspicious of the Yemeni government's pro-western stance, suspicions stoked last week by a visit to Sana'a by John Brennan, the White House's counter-terrorism chief. Ignoring the complex nuances of the war in the north, Brennan delivered a letter from Barack Obama declaring that "the security of Yemen is vital for the security of the United States" – a surprisingly brash commitment – and promised increased US and international assistance. Obama stressed partnership in confronting the "common threat" posed by al-Qaida and Islamic extremism in general.

"Even if the actual foreign material support in Yemen's civil strife is minimal, the conflict is probably the newest front in a broadening proxy war between Iran and Saudi Arabia," said Robert Haddick of Small Wars Journal. "Lebanon is one front. Iranian attempts to gain influence over Shia populations in eastern Saudi Arabia, Iraq and the Persian Gulf is another." Now Yemen must be added to the list, he said, with Saudi officials nervous that Tehran's ultimate aim was control over Red Sea shipping lanes.

All this is worrying enough for the Obama administration and allies such as Britain with its own colonial era links to Aden. But as Brennan's mission suggested, al-Qaida's ongoing, apparently successful effort to establish a regional base in Yemen, taking advantage of a weak, distracted government, remains Washington's uppermost concern.

"Only Pakistan's tribal regions rival Yemen as a terrorist Shangri-La," the Wall Street Journal commented recently. Osama bin Laden was of Yemeni extraction, while about 100 Yemenis were held in Guantánamo Bay, it noted. It went on to quote Yemen's estimate that up to 1,500 al-Qaida-linked jihadis are based in the country – including Nasir al-Wahayshi, al-Qaida's "emir of the Arabian peninsula" and Jamal al-Badawi, wanted for his role in the 2000 attack on the USS Cole in Aden harbour. The editorial accused Saleh of double-dealing, by pursuing "a tacit non-aggression pact" with al-Qaida that allowed him to deal with other challenges.

"If left unaddressed Yemen's problems could potentially destabilise Saudi Arabia and the other Gulf states," warned author Christopher Boucek in a new report for the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. "The inability of the Yemeni central government to fully control its territory will create space for violent extremists to regroup and launch attacks against domestic and international targets. The international community must be realistic about the limitations of intervention in Yemen. In the near term, however, inaction is not an option."

Autore: Simon Tisdall

Fonte: www.guardian.co.uk

Is Yemen Breaking Apart?

Wirepullers: lo Yemen rischia di fare la fine della Somalia e entrare presto nella lista degli stati falliti (se già non ci fosse) oltre a scivolare verso il caos e l'ingovernabilità. Da anni ormai i ribelli guidati da Sayyid Abd al-Malik al-Houthi cercano di abbattere il governo di Abdullah Saleh, nell'eterno scontro tra diverse correnti dell'Islam. Ma sorge il dubbio che qualcuno da dietro il sipario tiri i fili di questa ribellione e questo qualcuno, guarda caso, sarebbe il solito Ahmadinejad, desideroso di mettere le mani sul corno d'Africa e avvantaggiato, in questo, da un governo che di fatto non ha più nessuna autorità in Somalia e da un altro che potrebbe presto perderla a Sanaa, capitale yemenita. Da Washington poi arriva l'avvertimento che uno Yemen instabile sarebbe terreno fertile per Al Qaida, come sempre. Il golfo di Aden insomma fa gola a molti. (1)

Yemen may need the mediation of neighbouring countries -- including the Gulf States, Saudi Arabia and even Iran, to help it resolve its internal conflicts, notes Patrick Seale.

In power for more than 30 years, Field Marshall Ali Abdallah Saleh, Yemen’s veteran President, is battling for his political life. He has ruled the north since 1978, and the whole country since 1990, but the problems now assailing him on all sides are the worst he has ever had to deal with.
Like other Arab autocrats, such as President Husni Mubarak of Egypt, in power since 1981, and Muammar al-Qadhafi, the ‘Guide’ of Libya’s 1969 revolution, Yemen’s President runs a country which, in theory, has a multi-party system. In fact, his word is law -- but a law which is now being violently contested in several parts of the country.

Many of the problems he faces have roots in the key events of Yemen’s often violent past -- in particular, the overthrow of the theocratic Zaidi Imamate by a republican coup in 1962, and the union in 1990 of North Yemen, ruled by President Ali Abdallah Saleh’s People’s Conference Party, with South Yemen, then ruled by the Socialist Party. The union has not been altogether successful.

Disasters soon followed its formation, notably the expulsion in 1990 of close to a million Yemeni workers from Saudi Arabia, when Yemen backed Saddam Hussein in his occupation of Kuwait. This serious blow to what was already a very poor country brought widespread misery. In 1994, the South tried to break away with a war of secession. But the war ended, after much bloodshed, with the North’s victory and the occupation on 7 July of the South’s capital city of Aden. Many smouldering resentments were thus created, that are now bursting into flame.

One might say that history has caught up with the embattled Field Marshall. The South is once again clamouring to secede from the union and establish its own independent state, under the leadership of Ali Salem al-Beid, a former president of the southern region.

Heading the pressure for secession is the so-called Peaceful Southern Mobilization Movement, which is clearly not as peaceful as its name suggests. Indeed, the south appears to be arming itself in preparation for a new confrontation. This summer has seen a spate of violent demonstrations against the government in Sanaa -- and, in response, a violent crack-down by the authorities.

An enemy of the central government who is at least as dangerous is Abd al-Malik al-Huthi, leader of a rebel movement in the north of the country, which has been battling the government on and off since 2004. Abd al-Malik’s relative, Hussein al-Huthi, the first leader of the movement, was killed in the early months of the rebellion. President Ali Abdallah Saleh has vowed to crush the rebels, accusing the Huthis of wanting to destroy the Republic and restore the Zaidi Imamate.

This month, he sent his army on a punitive expedition against the northern rebels -- operation Scorched Earth -- which, according to Aboudou Karimou Adjibade, UNICEF representative in Yemen, has led to the flight, in great distress, of more than 100,000 people, many of them children. The UNHCR in Geneva says that, in the rebel stronghold of Saada -- capital of Yemen’s northernmost province on the Saudi border -- 35,000 people have fled their homes in the past two weeks alone. The UN World Food Program airlifted 40 tons of high-energy biscuits to Yemen last week to feed the refugees. But access to them is difficult because of the fighting.

Government troops, backed by aircraft and artillery, have tried to open the roads to Saada, which the rebels had managed to block. But the rebels still control the mountains overlooking the town. This is the worst outbreak of violence in Yemen since the 1994 war of secession. Casualties are said to be very great.

Although the Huthis are Zaidis -- a branch of Shi‘a Islam -- it is not clear whether they really aspire to restore the Imamate or are simply rebelling against what they consider unfair treatment and economic discrimination by Sanaa. They are certainly demanding a degree of autonomy.

In any event, the conflict is threatening to draw in outside powers. Yemen’s Information Minister Ahmad al-Lawzi has indirectly accused Iran of supporting the Huthi rebels, while the Yemeni army has claimed to have captured Iranian-made weapons -- including machine-guns, short-range rockets and ammunition. Saudi Arabia is concerned that the fighting could provide Iran with an opportunity to extend its influence to its borders. Tehran, meanwhile – always concerned for the safety of Shia communities -- has called for a peaceful settlement of the conflict.

These uprisings in the north and south have caught the President and his government at a difficult moment. Oil production at about 320,000 barrels daily is dwindling. The fall in oil prices has hit the country hard. A population growth rate of well over 3 per cent – the highest in the Middle East --is expected to boost the population from 18 million at present to 35 million in 2029, exacerbating the many social and economic problems.

A perennial Yemeni problem is the production of qat, a drug to which many Yemenis are addicted. It is the country’s primary cash crop, occupying an estimated 145,000 hectares of land, up from 80,000 hectares a decade ago. It is a major source of tax revenue, but also a source of great corruption, involving some of the highest officials as well as many farmers. It also contributes to Yemen’s grave water shortage.

If this were not enough, Yemen appears to have attracted Al-Qaeda cells, including the one responsible for the bombing of USS Cole in the port of Aden in October 2000, which killed 17 U.S. sailors. Many suspected Al-Qaeda operatives were rounded up and jailed, but in February 2006, 23 of them -- including those believed responsible for the bombing of the USS Cole -- managed to escape by tunnelling out of the prison to a nearby mosque.
Among those who escaped was Nasir al-Wahayshi, 33, a former secretary of Osama bin Laden, who is thought to be the leader of al-Qaeda in Yemen. Reports suggest that cells in Yemen and Saudi Arabia have united to form al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, raising the alarm of counter-terrorist agencies in the United States and elsewhere, which fear that Yemen may become a terrorist safe haven.

Yemen may need the mediation of neighbouring countries -- including the Gulf States, Saudi Arabia and even Iran, to help it resolve its internal conflicts. Above all, it urgently needs help for health, education, economic development and job creation. USAID is this year providing Yemen with the paltry sum of $24million, in scandalous contrast to the billions being wasted by the United States on unwinnable and unnecessary wars.

Autore: Patrick Seale

Fonte: www.middle-east-online.com

È davvero il momento di Tony Blair?

Wirepullers: l'Europa è tenuta in ostaggio da un ceco. Si chiama Vaclav Klaus, è il presidente della Repubblica Ceca e se entro maggio 2010 non firmerà la ratifica del Trattato di Lisbona l'Europa resterà senza costituzione ancora a lungo. Il 2 ottobre il Trattato è riuscito a superare anche l'ostacolo irlandese e a portarsi a "un solo uomo dalla meta". Ma i limiti dell'Unione Europea restano evidenti e anche se la firma dovesse arrivare, la paura di molti di venir derubati del potere di decidere in casa propria, cavallo di battaglia degli euroscettici, non svanirebbe da un giorno all'altro. E con essa la debolezza dell'Unione, ormai sempre più vicina a un grigiore e a un'irrilevanza politica evidenti. In Europa non c'è tanta voglia d'Europa e nel resto del mondo ancora meno. Se avranno la meglio gli euroscettici corriamo il rischio che nel Vecchio Continente ognuno finisca per coltivare il proprio giardino, mentre fuori gli altri decidono cosa fare del mondo. (3)

“Tieni duro, Vaclav!”: l’incitamento al presidente della Repubblica ceca Vaclav Klaus, euroscettico convinto, potrebbe paradossalmente divenire il nuovo slogan degli euroentusiasti. Se Klaus dovesse infatti superare le sue esitazioni e firmare la ratifica del Trattato di Lisbona - consentendone così l’entrata in vigore - all’Unione europea verrebbe a mancare ogni alibi: ciò renderebbe drammaticamente palese la mancanza di volontà di dare nuovo impulso al processo di integrazione. Se Klaus, invece, non firmasse, qualcuno afferma che la crisi che ne conseguirebbe potrebbe causare scossoni magari anche salutari per l'Ue, innescando ‘scatti in avanti’ dei paesi che storicamente hanno guidato il progetto europeo.

Per il momento, comunque a Praga il ‘fattore K’ resiste. L’Alta Corte ceca si riunirà a Brno il 27 ottobre per avviare l’esame del ricorso contro il Trattato di Lisbona presentato da 17 senatori. Klaus si rifiuta di garantire la firma alla ratifica anche se i giudici dovessero respingere il ricorso. La stasi ceca sta già avendo qualche riflesso sull’Ue: il Vertice di fine ottobre, ad esempio, non potrà sciogliere i nodi delle nomine dei membri della nuova Commissione europea, del presidente stabile del Consiglio europeo e del Signor ‘politica estera’, tutte dipendenti dall’entrata in vigore del Trattato di Lisbona.

Lo spettro dei conservatori inglesi

Dopo il sì nel referendum irlandese del 2 ottobre e la firma del presidente polacco Lech Kaczynsky, il presidente ceco resta l’unico dei 27 leader Ue a non avere perfezionato, nonostante il voto favorevole del parlamento nazionale, la procedura di ratifica. Se non lo facesse entro maggio 2010, i conservatori inglesi, probabili vincitori delle elezioni politiche della prossima primavera, già promettono di sottoporre il varo del Trattato ad un ennesimo, e probabilmente esiziale, referendum nazionale.

Lo scenario più verosimile è tuttavia che Klaus giunga alla firma entro l’autunno, facendo entrare in vigore il Trattato di Lisbona senza, tuttavia, che i cittadini europei percepiscano veri cambiamenti, fatta eccezione per le nuove nomine, che potrebbero essere discusse in un Vertice straordinario convocato dalla presidenza di turno svedese. Del resto, basta ripercorrere le principali novità previste dal Trattato di Lisbona per capire che esse non avranno, nell’immediato, un forte impatto sulla vita quotidiana degli europei. Il nuovo testo ha l’obiettivo, tra l’altro, di adattare il funzionamento della vecchia Ue - nata a 12 e pensata al massimo a 15 - a un’Unione che ha ormai 27 membri, destinati a loro volta ad aumentare. Firmando la ratifica, il presidente polacco Kaczynski, ha detto, ad esempio, che l’Ue deve restare aperta ad ulteriori allargamenti, fino alla Georgia.

I leader più restii alla ratifica sottolineano, a ogni occasione, che il nuovo Trattato costituisce “un passo in avanti”, ma che “l’Ue resta un’Unione di Stati nazionali” sovrani e gelosi della propria sovranità. Parole che cozzano un po’ con quelle d’augurio e speranza del messaggio inviato al collega polacco dal presidente italiano Giorgio Napolitano, secondo cui l’entrata in vigore del Trattato di Lisbona “potrà assicurare lo sviluppo dell’Unione e una maggiore solidarietà tra gli Stati e i Popoli d’Europa”.

Un’Unione più forte

Ricordiamo, dunque, le novità:

- il Parlamento europeo rafforza il suo ruolo e potrà dire la sua, tramite il processo di codecisione con il Consiglio dei Ministri dell’Ue, su nuove importanti materie, come giustizia, immigrazione, trattati internazionali;

- in ben 45 settori, il sistema di voto esclude il potere di veto, ovvero non impone che le decisioni vengano assunte all’unanimità, mentre lo mantiene in aree chiave come fiscalità e difesa. Il Trattato introduce inoltre, progressivamente fino al 2017, un meccanismo di voto a doppia maggioranza: ponderata dei Paesi e assoluta della popolazione. Per la prima volta, i Parlamenti nazionali compaiono nella mappa istituzionale dell’Unione europea, con una funzione di verifica del principio di sussidiarietà (se sia cioè meglio trattare una materia a livello europeo o nazionale);

- il potere d’iniziativa legislativa non sarà più esclusivo appannaggio della Commissione europea, perché i cittadini potranno lanciare un’iniziativa legislativa se saranno in grado di raggiungere un milione di firme raccolte in diversi paesi;

- cambiano i criteri di composizione della Commissione e del Parlamento europeo; l’Ue acquisisce una personalità giuridica e viene introdotta una “clausola d’uscita” dall’Unione.

Le novità più attese e simbolicamente più rilevanti sono quelle del presidente stabile del Consiglio europeo e del “nuovo” Alto rappresentante per la politica estera. Il primo presiederà le riunioni dei capi di Stato o di governo dei 27 e avrà un mandato di due anni e mezzo rinnovabili, superando così, la mancanza di continuità determinata dalla rotazione semestrale delle presidenze. Il secondo è una sorta di ‘ministro degli esteri’, che sarà anche vice-presidente della Commissione e riunirà finalmente in una sola figura i poteri del commissario alle relazioni esterne e quelli dell’Alto rappresentante per la politica estera e di difesa già esistenti.

Come era inevitabile, a Bruxelles e nelle capitali si è già scatenato il ‘toto-nomine’, con la candidatura forte, per la presidenza dell’Ue di Tony Blair, laburista britannico, eurotiepido , e molto vicino al presidente Usa George Bush nel cruciale passaggio della guerra in Iraq. Sarebbe davvero singolare se l’Unione non riuscisse a darsi un ‘testimonial’ più rappresentativo di quello di un politico mai distintosi per europeismo, ormai marginale in patria - specie in caso di vittoria dei conservatori - e interprete di un atlantismo che sa più d’acquiescenza agli Stati Uniti che di paritario confronto fra alleati.

L’insoddisfazione per questa Europa “ibrida, ermafrodita, istituzionale e inter-governativa” - la definizione è di Giuliano Amato, ospite tempo fa di un Colloquio Spinelli - non deve tuttavia fare passare in secondo piano elementi positivi: che l’Unione non si sarebbe fatta tutta in una volta sola lo aveva già previsto il ministro degli esteri francese Robert Schuman nella lettera del 9 maggio 1950, da cui prese avvio il processo d’integrazione; e il percorso compiuto fino ad oggi è comunque stato, a parità di tempo decorso, maggiore di quello compiuto dagli Stati Uniti d’America nei loro primi sessant’anni di vita. Per non fermarsi proprio ora, tuttavia, è necessario scegliere leader non di facciata e che siano all’altezza della sfida. Che rimane, comunque, tutta in salita ed estremamente ambiziosa.

Autore: Giampiero Gramaglia

Fonte: www.affarinternazionali.it

The Other Vaclav

Wirepullers: l'Europa è tenuta in ostaggio da un ceco. Si chiama Vaclav Klaus, è il presidente della Repubblica Ceca e se entro maggio 2010 non firmerà la ratifica del Trattato di Lisbona l'Europa resterà senza costituzione ancora a lungo. Il 2 ottobre il Trattato è riuscito a superare anche l'ostacolo irlandese e a portarsi a "un solo uomo dalla meta". Ma i limiti dell'Unione Europea restano evidenti e anche se la firma dovesse arrivare, la paura di molti di venir derubati del potere di decidere in casa propria, cavallo di battaglia degli euroscettici, non svanirebbe da un giorno all'altro. E con essa la debolezza dell'Unione, ormai sempre più vicina a un grigiore e a un'irrilevanza politica evidenti. In Europa non c'è tanta voglia d'Europa e nel resto del mondo ancora meno. Se avranno la meglio gli euroscettici corriamo il rischio che nel Vecchio Continente ognuno finisca per coltivare il proprio giardino, mentre fuori gli altri decidono cosa fare del mondo. (2)

How the Czech president became Europe's public enemy number one.

After two years of debate, referendums, furious revision, and campaigning, the fate of the Lisbon Treaty to reform the European Union has come down to the signature of one man. Unfortunately for advocates of European integration, that man is Czech President Vaclav Klaus.
In his latest bid to scuttle the treaty's adoption, Klaus is insisting that a new, basically meaningless footnote be added, a demand that the the Czech government, which previously endorsed the treaty, is grudgingly supporting, despite the fact the treaty had been approved by the Czech Parliament. If he can delay matters long enough until an anti-Lisbon Conservative government comes to power in Britain, Klaus now has a small but not insignificant chance to sink the treaty altogether, a fitting swan song for the lifelong Euroskeptic.

Although mostly known outside his country for his skeptical views on global warming (environmentalism, in his opinion, is "the most prominent antiliberal, populist ideology of the contemporary world, comparable to communism and Nazism.) Klaus is one of the most important figures in post-communist Czech history, and the Lisbon battle is just the latest in a long series of controversial stances in his career. But lately, this lifelong iconoclast appears more and more as a tragic political figure. He is now totally isolated in Europe, shunned by most EU politicians, who view his obstructions as proof of his, and his country's, lack of democratic credentials.
When Klaus first appeared on the Czech political scene shortly after the fall of communism in November 1989, the public viewed him as a godsend. Compared with both the former communist power elite and the anti-communist dissident leaders who came to power at the end of 1989, he appeared, well, very Western.
He differed from the former dissidents not only in ideology but in appearance. Impeccably dressed and groomed, the well-spoken Klaus had nothing but scorn for those hairy men in old sweaters, many of whom still adhered to slightly utopian ideas of post-totalitarian politics.
Former Czech President Vaclav Havel, the unofficial leader of the dissident movement in the 1980s, has recalled that Klaus was first introduced to pro-democracy leaders of the Civic Forum movement during their negotiations with the communist regime in the late 1980s. The dissidents were desperately searching for an economist familiar with Western free market theories. Klaus, who had studied at the University of Chicago as a disciple of Milton Friedman, fit the bill. He was hardly a dissident, having worked for years as a clerk for the Czechoslovak Central Bank -- but he certainly appeared to be competent.

Klaus became the first non-communist minister of finance in the government of "national reconciliation" that was created as a result of round-table talks with the communists in December 1989. He was later reappointed to the same position when the Civic Forum overwhelmingly won the first free elections in June 1990.
By then, however, his disputes with political theories voiced by some dissidents were growing increasingly vocal. Although some former dissident leaders believed that a broadly based civil movement, such as the Civic Forum, could continue governing and represent an alternative to political parties, Klaus wanted to follow political formulas used in the West. As a result, he began to use his increasing popularity to push the Civic Forum to transform into a regular political party.

In 1991, he and his followers broke from the Civic Forum to create a new conservative political party called the Civic Democratic Party. Klaus, who had already begun to be known both at home and abroad as an economic reformer, thus became also the most prominent political reformer in Czechoslovakia, taking this label away from Havel, the other Vaclav.
But 1991 was also the year when it started to be apparent that there were significant differences between Klaus' rhetoric and his policies. Klaus presented himself as a classic neoliberal, but in reality he tried to keep the state in control of many areas of the economy and had little taste for the controversial "shock therapy" privatization tactics used in neighboring Poland.
He defended a policy of what could be called "economic nationalism," keeping the most important Czech companies in Czech hands, and he resisted the privatization of banks. The privatization schemes that were carried out under Klaus' watch were plagued by corruption and lack of transparency.
Klaus also played a key role in the breakup of Czechoslovakia. In 1992, his Civic Democrats won elections in what is now the Czech Republic. In Slovakia, by contrast, leftist and nationalist parties dominated. Sensing the writing on the wall, Klaus began advocating the dissolution of the country.

Although this effort was strongly resisted by President Havel and other former dissidents, Klaus' actions were, in retrospect, quite rational. The Czechoslovakian government was already paralyzed by growing Slovak demands for autonomy, but after Slovak nationalist parties were swept into power in 1992, it became obvious that the state could no longer function.
The fact that Klaus was able to force the volatile Slovak nationalist leader Vladimir Meciar to sit down with him and organize a civilized, nonviolent division of Czechoslovakia into two independent states is today viewed as a major achievement.

It was shortly after this that Klaus' distrust of the European project came to the forefront. Although, as prime minister of the independent Czech Republic, Klaus had submitted the Czech Republic's application for membership in the European Union in 1995, he was always less then enthusiastic about the EU, which he saw as an over regulated socialist enterprise. By the time a successor left-wing Czech government completed the process of accession in 2002, Klaus had already positioned himself as a Euroskeptic.
After losing power in 1997, Klaus had decided to give his Civic Democrats a different image. Reformist policies were to a large extent replaced by an emphasis on nationalism, Euroskepticism, and populism. Klaus' change in tone did boost his popularity to some extent, but was not successful enough to bring him back as the prime minister.
But Klaus accomplished a major political coup in 2003 when he was elected to succeed Havel as the country's president. Ironically, the Czech Republic's most prominent right-winger could never have pulled it off without securing the support of the unreformed Communist Party.

The Czech presidency is traditionally a mostly ceremonial position, and the limits of the office have often proved frustrating for the proactive Klaus. During his first term, he repeatedly tested the limits of his constitutional powers by refusing, for example, to name judges recommended to him by the Ministry of Justice or by refusing to sign international treaties that had been recommended to him for ratification by the parliament. He also vetoed many bills approved by the Parliament, often simply because he disagreed with them ideologically.
This was a departure from Havel's relatively light touch and was certainly not appreciated by the leftist government. Klaus also found himself on a collision course with the pro-EU forces in Parliament when he criticized various reforms the Czech Republic had adopted to meet EU membership criteria.

To maintain high visibility as Czech president, despite his lack of executive powers, Klaus has repeatedly chosen highly controversial topics to call attention to himself. He criticized, for example, the influence of civil society as a new ideology, which he calls "NGO-ism." He also protested what he deems a new, potentially totalitarian ideology, which he calls "human-rightism." And he has fought repeated wars with the judiciary, describing its influence in modern democratic societies as a "tyranny of judges."

Klaus also became one of the chief opponents of the conventional wisdom on global warming, claiming, for example, that "icebergs melt only in the films of Al Gore," whom he describes as "the arch-priest" of the new totalitarian ideology of environmentalism. In the past few years, he spent more of his intellectual energy and travel time fighting the proponents of global-warming theories than speaking on relevant issues in Czech politics.
Klaus' dislike of the European Union is the one issue that has remained dominant throughout his years in power, and it has only grown more extreme over time. Although he once felt that realistically, the Czechs have no alternative to EU membership, he now claims that the EU is more dangerous to Czech security than is Russia.

He is also a staunch opponent of the common European currency and he does not mind using offensive language and exaggerations to support his views. In 1999 he declared that "efforts to introduce the euro are to a large extent driven by EU bureaucrats who eat breakfast in Venice, lunch in Paris, and dine in Copenhagen, and do not like changing money three times a day."
His opposition to further European integration stems not only from his nationalism, which is rooted in romantic 19th-century ideas of national identity, but also from his libertarian and conservative beliefs. In Klaus's world, the EU is an increasingly over-regulated, socialist organization that artificially suffocates the national identities of its members.
The Lisbon fight is Klaus' highest profile anti-European battle yet. and the president has made numerous efforts to sabotage the approval of the treaty in the Czech Republic. Last year he made an emotional appeal to the Constitutional Court to reject the treaty because it is supposedly incompatible with the Czech Constitution.

The Constitutional Court in the end ruled the opposite, and subsequently both houses of the Czech Parliament recommended the treaty to Klaus for ratification. Now that Ireland has finally approved the treaty in its second referendum, and Klaus' closest ally in the European Union, Polish President Lech Kaczynski, ratified the treaty in Poland, the completion of the ratification process in the entire EU depends on Klaus' signature.
To at least delay the ratification, he now wants the EU -- after the ratification process has been finished in 26 other EU countries and despite the approval of the treaty by the Czech Parliament -- to guarantee to the Czech Republic that the European Charter of Rights, which is part of the Lisbon Treaty, will not apply to the Czech Republic and cannot, therefore, be used by Sudeten Germans, 3 million of whom were expelled from Czechoslovakia after World War II, to reclaim their property confiscated by the Czechoslovak state.

This is a transparent ploy. All legal studies show that there is no such danger, because the charter cannot be applied retroactively. The EU may try to accommodate Klaus's demand, but more likely he is on a collision course not only with the EU, but also with the Czech government and major political parties, who increasingly view his behavior as violating his constitutional duties.
A man who was once viewed by many Czechs as a guarantee that Western democratic procedures would prevail in the Czech Republic is now seen as defying these very procedures for the sake of his own increasingly extremist beliefs. It's a sad end for a remarkable political career.

Autore: Jiri Pehe

Fonte: www.foreignpolicy.com