Category Archives: Counterinsurgency

Putin’s Folly

Posted on by Assistant Editor

Journal of Political Risk, Vol. 10, No. 2, February 2022

Protestors against 2022 Russia invasion of Ukraine, at the Hachiko square in Shibuya, Japan. Protesters drop the Ukrainian flag over the shoulders and hold up signs.

Protestors against 2022 Russia invasion of Ukraine, at the Hachiko square in Shibuya, Japan. Wikimedia.

Richard Shortt, Ph.D.
Leader of New Zealand’s multi-agency Combined Threat Assessment Group

The work of unravelling Putin’s folly in the Ukraine began February 24 with the firing of the first missiles and artillery shells that signalled his invasion. It will be slow, time-consuming work, assuming no national uprisings in either the Ukraine or Russia by ordinary folks demanding an end to the killing and destruction, or more significant interventions by Western powers – both of which I consider unlikely. It will, in all probability, take longer than the time Putin has left sitting on the Russian imperial throne. But it will happen.

We are currently in what I term the Chaos Phase of the work. This is where invasion leads to death, destruction, despair and defiance. It is the defiance that will ultimately lead us to the next phase, meanwhile, troops and civilians will die, infrastructure will be destroyed and damaged and people on all sides of the issue will watch in stunned horror at what modern warfare and forced occupation means in a modern-day European country.

The Russian forces will emerge victorious. There is very little doubt about that, but not before the Ukrainian efforts deliver martyrs who will fuel the next phase – Resistance. Continue reading →

The Banyamulenge Genocide in the Democratic Republic of Congo

Posted on by Assistant Editor

On the Interplay of Minority Groups’ Discrimination and Humanitarian Assistance Failure

Journal of Political Risk, Vol. 9, No. 11, November 2021

Village in Bibogobogo on fire. Some houses are dotted on a hill surrounded by trees. They are mostly obscured by thick, grey smoke.

Village in Bibogobogo set alight. Photograph by Neri Patrick, taken on October 19, 2021.

Delphin Ntanyoma
Erasmus University

For two weeks now, a humanitarian convoy (five trucks) transporting humanitarian assistance to support the Banyamulenge in Bibogobogo (sometimes spelled Bibokoboko) has been intercepted by administrative and security officials in the city of Baraka [1].Two international humanitarian organizations, including the World Food Program (WFP), that have been working in this region to support displaced and local populations, resolved to support internally displaced Banyamulenge in Bibogobogo. The WFP’s support used an intermediate humanitarian organization, familiar of the context, to provide the assistance. On its way from Uvira to Baraka, rumors circulated that this is not humanitarian assistance but rather that the trucks contained ammunition and guns. Several sources including ones linked to civil society organizations in the region have confirmed that youth in Baraka (who support administrative and security officials) erected barricades to block the trucks. Truck drivers were obliged to unload everything to check what was inside each box. In the end, the search found that there was nothing linked to guns and ammunition. However, the assistance is now stored in Baraka, and it is uncertain if these organizations will be courageous enough to reload and bring the assistance to Bibogobogo. Continue reading →

Mineral Revenue-Sharing as Peace Dividend: Incentivizing Stakeholders to Support Peace and Stability in Afghanistan

Posted on by admin

Journal of Political Risk, Vol. 9, No. 6, June 2021

The image shows a map of Afghanistan. A satellite image of the region is contained in the map.

Mineral Map of Afghanistan. Source: USGS

Priscilla A. Tacujan, Ph.D.
Analyst for the U.S. Department of Defense

 

Various players have raised the prospect over the years of Afghanistan developing its mineral wealth as a means to stabilize the country, but nobody believes that it could achieve enough security to prevent attacks on infrastructure and mining operations.  However, it is possible that Afghanistan might be able to broker peace and reconciliation through a mineral revenue-sharing scheme[1] that directly distributes mining dividends and profits to the general population as well as extract concessions from the Taliban — an approach that has helped mitigate conflict in some other war-torn areas where revenue-sharing has been part of their peace accords.[2]  A trickle-down incentive structure could incentivize the Afghan people and militant groups to pursue peace and reconciliation if they become vested stakeholders and direct beneficiaries of their country’s natural resources.  While security conditions in Afghanistan’s extractive industries remain a challenge, a review of successful revenue-sharing practices in other countries suggests that a similar practice in Afghanistan may yield long-term gains.

Continue reading →

Myanmar: A Fight For Democracy Against the February 1 Coup

Posted on by admin

Journal of Political Risk, Vol. 9, No. 3, March 2021

This article is by an anonymous university student in Myanmar (Burma) who is currently supporting the pro-democracy social movements there against the February 1 coup. Anonymity has been granted to the author due to the threat against his person that might result from a byline.

Protestors hold signs with #Say no to Dictatorship, #Save Myanmar, #Reject Military Coup, #We want Democracy, written on them.

Pro-democracy protesters in Myanmar (Burma) following the February 1, 2021 coup.

On March 15th, the Global Centre for the Responsibility to Protect (GCR2P) announced that they moved Myanmar (Burma) to the “Current Crisis” category, as populations here face crimes against humanity perpetrated by military coup leaders, known as the Junta. That followed the  the March 2 announcement by civil society groups of the Myanmar Military as a terrorist group. Their legitimacy and tactics are, in fact, those of terrorists rather than a government, as they have attacked democratically-elected government officials, and shot randomly into people’s homes in an attempt to quell a rising social movement in defense of President U Win Myint, Daw Aung San Suu Kyi, other government officials, and civil society leaders. Continue reading →

Beyond the Camps: Beijing’s Long-Term Scheme of Coercive Labor, Poverty Alleviation and Social Control in Xinjiang

Posted on by Adrian Zenz

Journal of Political Risk, Vol. 7, No. 12, December 2019

Soldiers are depicted dressed identically in grey uniforms. They are all lined up next to identical, maroon suitcases.

442 rural surplus laborers from Kashgar and Hotan, Xinjiang China, are sent off to work in an industrial park in Korla in a “centralized fashion”.

Adrian Zenz, Ph.D.
Senior Fellow in China Studies
Victims of Communism Memorial Foundation

1.0 Introduction

After recruiting a hundred or more thousand police forces, installing massive surveillance systems, and interning vast numbers of predominantly Turkic minority population members, many have been wondering about Beijing’s next step in its so-called “war on Terror” in Xinjiang. Since the second half of 2018, limited but apparently growing numbers of detainees have been released into different forms of forced labor. In this report it is argued based on government documents that the state’s long-term stability maintenance strategy in Xinjiang is predicated upon a perverse and extremely intrusive combination of forced or at least involuntary training and labor, intergenerational separation and social control over family units. Much of this is being implemented under the heading and guise of “poverty alleviation”.

Continue reading →