JFP 6/9: 16 Sens. on Drawdown Letter; Webb Intros Libya bill

Just Foreign Policy News
June 9, 2011

Support the Work of Just Foreign Policy

Go Straight to the News Summary

I) Actions and Featured Articles

*Action: 16 Senators have signed Merkley-Lee-Udall letter
Senators Merkley-Lee-Udall are circulating a bipartisan letter to the President in support of a substantial July drawdown of US troops from Afghanistan. As of this writing, 16 Senators have signed. The current deadline for signing is close of business Thursday, but this deadline may be extended if Senators continue to sign – Jeff Bingaman signed today. Urge your Senators to sign. The Congressional switchboard is 202-225-3121. Ask to be transferred to your Senator’s office; ask to talk to the staffer that handles foreign affairs, or leave a voice mail for that person.

The letter, including the 16 current signers:
https://www.justforeignpolicy.org/node/933
[you can leave a comment here with any feedback from your Senator’s office.]
Senators Webb and Corker introduce bill barring ground troops from Libya
Building on the actions of the House, including the passage of the Conyers Amendment.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/robert-naiman/afghanistan-war-leaving-_b_873910.html

Video: Senator Webb Introduces Bill barring ground troops from Libya
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ScizDJKVAMk

*Action: Help Just Foreign Policy Get to Gaza:
Urge Hillary to Act to Protect the Passengers on the Flotilla
https://www.justforeignpolicy.org/act/audacityofhope/hillarypetition

Donate to support our participation:
https://www.justforeignpolicy.org/donate/audacityofhope

Video: New Seasons Supermarket Flashmobbed by Portland BDS
"New Seasons, you say you’re local but you buy into Israeli occupation."
http://bmediacollective.org/?p=628

Help Support Our Advocacy for Peace and Diplomacy
The opponents of peace and diplomacy work every day. Help us be an effective counterweight.
https://www.justforeignpolicy.org/donate

II) Summary:
U.S./Top News
1) Senate Armed Services Chair Levin, who has long been one of the most stalwart supporters of Obama’s policy in Afghanistan, is letting the White House know he expects the U.S. to withdraw a substantial number of troops from Afghanistan this year, the Politico reports. "The president said on April 15th that he planned a significant reduction in our troop levels in Afghanistan, and I hope he sticks to that," Levin said through a spokeswoman Wednesday. "To be significant, I believe it should be a reduction of at least 15,000 troops by the end of the year, and it should include both combat and support troops."

2) A bipartisan resolution sponsored by Sens. Jim Webb (D-Va.) and Bob Corker (R-Tenn.), both members of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, admonishes Obama for failing to offer a good argument for the use of armed forces in Libya, The Hill reports. The resolution also demands Obama answer 21 questions about U.S. involvement in Libya, prohibits the use of U.S. forces on the ground and calls on the White House to request permission for the continuation of U.S. involvement.

3) Responding to growing concern among war-weary constituents about the purpose and cost of the U.S. mission in Libya, senators are poised to debate whether to send Obama a message that he needs to be more specific about his goals there, McClatchy reports. A full debate is expected next week. "We’re going to have lots of opportunities to vote on different things on how people feel about Libya," said Senate Majority Leader Reid.

4) In an op-ed in the Washington Post, Henry Kissinger calls the "inconclusive effort" in Afghanistan "inherent implausible," saying that the "surge," which he supported, has "reached its limit." He says the stated goal of "creating a government and domestic security structure to which responsibility for the defense of Afghanistan can be turned over" is "widely recognized as unreachable by 2014."

For negotiation to turn into a viable exit strategy, four conditions must be met: a cease-fire; withdrawal of all or most American and allied forces; the creation of a coalition government or division of territories among the contending parties (or both); and an enforcement mechanism, Kissinger writes.

The complexities of an exit strategy are compounded because relations with Pakistan and Iran are severely strained, Kissinger says. A partly regional, partly global diplomatic effort is needed to accompany direct negotiation with the Taliban. Kissinger also recommends establishing a deadline of 18 months to two years for reaching a "residual force" to encourage a diplomatic resolution.

5) President Obama said the US has achieved "a big chunk" of its strategic objectives during the war in Afghanistan, The Hill reports. The remark shines a light on the President’s thinking just weeks before his administration begins deliberations about how many U.S. forces to pull out of Afghanistan this year, The Hill says.

6) According to the findings of a two-year congressional investigation, the hugely expensive U.S. attempt at nation-building in Afghanistan has had only limited success and may not survive an American withdrawal, the Washington Post reports. The report prepared by the Senate Foreign Relations Committee’s Democratic majority staff calls on the administration to rethink urgently its assistance programs.

7) The US, the EU and the UN decided to support Haiti’s recent presidential and parliamentary elections despite believing that the country’s electoral body, "almost certainly in conjunction with President Preval," had "emasculated the opposition" by unwisely and unjustly excluding the country’s largest party, according to a secret US Embassy cable obtained by WikiLeaks, The Nation reports. Haiti’s electoral body banned the Fanmi Lavalas party from participating in the polls on a technicality. The FL is the party of former President Aristide, who was overthrown in 2004 as part of a coup that was supported by France, Canada, and the US.

This history made the Canadian Ambassador worry that "support for the elections as they now stand would be interpreted by many in Haiti as support for Preval and the CEP’s decision against Lavalas." But the US pushed for a minimal reaction to the exclusion and for the elections to go forward without FL.

Bahrain
8) Just five days after the governing body of Formula One racing approved a decision to hold the Bahrain Grand Prix in October, the sport’s most powerful man has admitted that the race cannot go ahead because of objections from the drivers, the New York Times reports. Avaaz has gathered more than 450,000 signatures on an Internet petition calling for the race to be canceled because of human rights concerns.

Colombia
9) The ICTU says 55% of trade unionist murders worldwide in 2010 occurred in Colombia making it "the world’s most dangerous place for trade unionists," Caracol Radio reported, according to Colombia Reports. 49 unionists were murdered in Colombia in 2010.

Interior and Justice Minister German Vargas Lleras announced on May 16 that Colombia had complied with the requisite of ensuring safety for union leaders and hoped that the U.S.-Colombian FTA will go through shortly. Colombian labor union leaders fired back rejecting government’s claims that human rights and trade unionist protection have improved, denigrating symbolic gestures aimed at securing the U.S. trade agreement, which they say will help multinational companies over Colombian workers.

Contents:
U.S./Top News
1) Carl Levin wants 15,000 US troops out of Afghanistan in 2011
Josh Gerstein, Politico, June 08, 2011
http://www.politico.com/blogs/joshgerstein/0611/Carl_Levin_wants_15000_US_troops_out_of_Afghanistan_in_2011.html

Senate Armed Services Committee Chairman Carl Levin, who has long been one of the most stalwart supporters of President Barack Obama’s policy in Afghanistan, is letting the White House know he expects the U.S. to withdraw a substantial number of troops from Afghanistan this year.

"The president said on April 15th that he planned a significant reduction in our troop levels in Afghanistan, and I hope he sticks to that," Levin said through a spokeswoman Wednesday. "To be significant, I believe it should be a reduction of at least 15,000 troops by the end of the year, and it should include both combat and support troops."

Defense Secretary Robert Gates has said in recent days that he hopes the initial pull-out Obama had pledged to begin next month will be "modest." He has also suggested that as many combat troops as possible should be kept in the theater as the withdrawal goes forward.

"For my money, if it were up to me, I’d leave the shooters for last," Gates said Sunday as he toured Afghanistan in advance of his planned exit from the secretary’s job at the end of June.

Levin’s comments, first made to reporters on Tuesday afternoon, suggest somewhat different priorities or emphasis from Gates.

White House spokesman Jay Carney said Wednesday that Obama has made no decision about how many troops should be pulled out or about the proper ratio between combat and non-combat personnel.

2) Bipartisan resolution chastises Obama for failing to consult Congress on Libya
Josiah Ryan, The Hill, 06/08/11 04:32 PM ET
http://thehill.com/blogs/floor-action/senate/165469-bipartisan-resolution-chastises-obama-for-failing-to-consult-congress-on-libya-

A bipartisan resolution introduced on the Senate floor Wednesday offered a strong rebuke to President Obama for failing to consult Congress on the mission in Libya.

Sponsored by Sens. Jim Webb (D-Va.) and Bob Corker (R-Tenn.), both members of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, the measure admonishes Obama for failing to offer a good argument for the use of armed forces against the regime of Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi.

"The president has failed to provide Congress with a compelling rationale based upon United States national security interests for current United States military activities regarding Libya," it reads.

The resolution also demands Obama answer 21 questions about U.S. involvement in Libya, prohibits the use of U.S. forces on the ground and calls on the White House to request permission for the continuation of U.S. involvement.

In his remarks from the floor, Webb said this resolution is about defining any president’s power to wage war without the approval of the Congress.

"When we examine the conditions under which the President ordered our military into action in Libya, we are faced with the prospect of a very troubling historical precedent that has the potential to haunt us for decades," Webb said. "The issue for us to consider is whether a President – any President – can unilaterally begin, and continue, a military campaign for reasons that he alone defines."

Webb and Corker brought the resolution to the floor as Senate Foreign Relations Committee Chairman John Kerry (D-Mass.) indicated earlier in the day that due to lack of appetite for a vote in the upper chamber, he may scrap a resolution he was working on with Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) that would have backed President Obama’s use of military force in Libya.

The House last week approved a resolution from Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) that scolds the Obama administration for failing to seek congressional authority under the War Powers Act for military operations in Libya.

The House resolution demands more information about the scope, cost and duration of the intervention. House members rejected a Democratic resolution offered by Rep. Dennis Kucinich (D-Ohio) that would have required the withdrawal of all U.S. forces from Libya within 15 days.

3) Pushed by voters, senators to debate U.S. role in Libya
David Lightman and William Douglas, McClatchy Newspapers, June 08, 2011 05:44:30 PM
http://www.mcclatchydc.com/2011/06/07/115406/pushed-by-voters-senators-to-debate.html

Washington – Responding to growing concern among war-weary constituents about the purpose and cost of the U.S. mission in Libya, senators are poised to debate whether to send President Barack Obama a message that he needs to be more specific about his goals there.
[…] But on Capitol Hill, senators returning from a 10-day Memorial Day recess reported that their constituents want Congress to examine more closely the U.S. involvement in Libya, as well as Afghanistan and Iraq.

The House of Representatives last week approved a measure requiring Obama to report back to Congress on Libya by later this month. In another vote last month, it turned back by a 215 to 204 margin a bid to expedite U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan.

Libya is the immediate Senate concern, and Thursday the Senate Foreign Relations Committee plans to discuss legislation that will test Obama’s Senate support.
[…] A full debate is expected next week. "We’re going to have lots of opportunities to vote on different things on how people feel about Libya," said Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev. "I’ll be happy to look at every different idea people have."

There appear to be two major concerns among senators, one involving the extent of the mission, the other involving its cost.

"My concern is that the president didn’t address major questions from the onset, like what’s the endgame, or what is our exit strategy? I have yet to see any evidence of those questions answered," said Sen. Olympia Snowe, R-Maine, a Republican moderate who’s up for re-election next year.

"I think it’s fair to say, there are a lot of different points of view," added Sen. John Thune, R-S.D. "There’s been a lack of clarity on missions and objectives."
[…] The 1973 War Powers Resolution requires Obama to consult Congress before acting. He informed Congress of his Libya decision March 18, the day before the mission began. Under the resolution, Congress must approve any military action within 60 to 90 days, or it’s canceled; the 60th day came and went last month, but the mission goes on.

The Senate’s consideration of Libya policy comes after the House rejected a bid by Rep. Dennis Kucinich, D-Ohio, to call for a U.S. pullout from NATO’s Libyan operation within 15 days of passage.

The House instead adopted a weaker measure, introduced by House Speaker John Boehner, R-Ohio, that gives Obama 14 days to justify his Libya decision.

Boehner’s resolution scolded Obama but didn’t tie the president’s hands. It warned the administration that Congress "has the constitutional prerogative to withhold funding for any unauthorized use of the United States Armed Forces, including for unauthorized activities regarding Libya."

The cost of war, notably in Iraq and Afghanistan, has evolved as a major constituent concern.

The wars "are a big part of the spending equation," said Sen. Mark Pryor, D-Ark.

Lawmakers are desperately searching for ways to cut the federal budget, and defense spending is very much in play.

A Pew Research Center nationwide survey conducted May 25-30 found that 60 percent said the cost of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan has contributed a "great deal" to the nation’s debt.

4) How to exit Afghanistan without creating wider conflict
Henry Kissinger, Washington Post, June 7
http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/how-to-exit-afghanistan-without-creating-wider-conflict/2011/06/06/AG9ydPLH_story.html

The American role in Afghanistan is drawing to a close in a manner paralleling the pattern of three other inconclusive wars since the Allied victory in World War II: a wide consensus in entering them, and growing disillusionment as the war drags on, shading into an intense national search for an exit strategy with the emphasis on exit rather than strategy.

We entered Afghanistan to punish the Taliban for harboring al-Qaeda, which, under Osama bin Laden’s leadership, had carried out the Sept. 11 attacks. After a rapid victory, U.S. forces remained to assist the construction of a post-Taliban state. But nation-building ran up against the irony that the Afghan nation comes into being primarily in opposition to occupying forces. When foreign forces are withdrawn, Afghan politics revert to a contest over territory and population by various essentially tribal groups.

In our national debate, the inconclusive effort was blamed on the diversion of resources to Iraq rather than on its inherent implausibility. The new Obama administration coupled withdrawal from Iraq with a surge of troops and material in Afghanistan – an effort I supported in substance if not in every detail. We have now reached its limit.

The stated goal of creating a government and domestic security structure to which responsibility for the defense of Afghanistan can be turned over is widely recognized as unreachable by 2014, the time most NATO nations have set as the outer limit of the common effort. Polls show that more than 70 percent of Americans believe that the United States should withdraw from Afghanistan.

The quest for an alternative has taken the form – it is widely reported – of negotiations under German sponsorship between representatives of Mullah Omar, the head of the Taliban, and American officials. Most observers will treat this as the beginning of an inexorable withdrawal. The death of bin Laden, while not operationally relevant to current fighting, is a symbolic dividing line. Still, the challenge remains of how to conclude our effort without laying the groundwork for a wider conflict.

For negotiation to turn into a viable exit strategy, four conditions must be met: a cease-fire; withdrawal of all or most American and allied forces; the creation of a coalition government or division of territories among the contending parties (or both); and an enforcement mechanism.
[…] The complexities of an exit strategy are compounded because relations with Pakistan and Iran are severely strained. These countries do not have the option of withdrawing from the neighborhood. If their interests in Afghanistan are not related to ours to some extent, Afghanistan will exist under permanent threat. Without a sustainable agreement defining Afghanistan’s regional security role, each major neighbor will support rival factions across ancient ethnic and sectarian lines – and be obliged to respond to inevitable crises under the pressure of events. That is a prescription for wider conflict. Afghanistan could then play the role of the Balkans prior to World War I.

Such an outcome would threaten the security of Afghanistan’s neighbors more than America’s. A partly regional, partly global diplomatic effort is needed to accompany direct negotiation with the Taliban. So long as America bears the primary burden, Afghanistan’s neighbors avoid difficult decisions. To the extent that U.S. postwar withdrawal is made explicit and inexorable, they will be obliged to take another look. The formal deadline established by NATO, the implicit Obama administration deadline and the public mood make it impossible to persist in an open-ended civil war. An immediate withdrawal largely for symbolic reasons would risk falling between all shoals. A multilateral diplomacy that defines a common international security interest proscribing terrorist training centers and terrorist infrastructure in Afghanistan should be undertaken urgently. To encourage this process, a deadline should be established for reaching a residual force – say, in 18 months to two years, with the major reductions coming at the end of the process. Should a reliable international enforcement mechanism emerge, the U.S. residual force can be merged into it. A regional conference is the only way a bilateral negotiation with the Taliban can be enforced. If the process proves in­trac­table, Afghanistan’s neighbors will eventually have to face the consequences of their abdication alone.

After America’s withdrawals from Iraq and Afghanistan and the constraint to our strategic reach produced by the revolution in Egypt, a new definition of American leadership and America’s national interest is inescapable. A sustainable regional settlement in Afghanistan would be a worthy start.

5) Obama: ‘Big chunk’ of Afghan objectives have already been achieved
John T. Bennett, The Hill, 06/07/11 02:42 PM ET
http://thehill.com/news-by-subject/defense-homeland-security/165169-obama-big-chunk-of-objectives-in-afghanistan-already-achieved

The United States has achieved "a big chunk" of its strategic objectives during the nearly decade-old war in Afghanistan, President Barack Obama said.

"By us killing Osama bin Laden, getting al Qaeda back on its heels, stabilizing much of the country in Afghanistan so that the Taliban can’t take it over…it’s now time for us to recognize that we’ve accomplished a big chunk of our mission and that it’s time for Afghans to take more responsibility," the president said Tuesday during a television interview.
[…] The remark also shines a light on the commander-in-chief’s thinking just weeks before his administration begins deliberations about how many U.S. forces to pull out of Afghanistan this year, and the shape of its war policy going forward.

Lawmakers increasingly want a sizable draw down; Pentagon officials, including Gates, are pushing a "modest" force reduction.

6) Afghan nation-building programs not sustainable, report says
Karen DeYoung, Washington Post, June 7
http://www.washingtonpost.com/national/national-security/afghan-nation-building-programs-not-sustainable-report-says/2011/06/07/AG5cPSLH_story.html

The hugely expensive U.S. attempt at nation-building in Afghanistan has had only limited success and may not survive an American withdrawal, according to the findings of a two-year congressional investigation to be released Wednesday.

The report calls on the administration to rethink urgently its assistance programs as President Obama prepares to begin drawing down the number of U.S. troops in Afghanistan this summer.

The report, prepared by the Senate Foreign Relations Committee’s Democratic majority staff, comes as Congress and the American public have grown increasingly restive about the human and economic cost of the decade-long war and reflects growing concerns about Obama’s war strategy even among supporters within his party.

The report describes the use of aid money to stabilize areas the military has cleared of Taliban fighters – a key component of the administration’s counterinsurgency strategy – as a short-term fix that provides politically pleasing results. But it says that the enormous cash flows can overwhelm and distort local culture and economies, and that there is little evidence the positive results are sustainable.

One example cited in the report is the Performance-Based Governors Fund, which is authorized to distribute up to $100,000 a month in U.S. funds to individual provincial leaders for use on local expenses and development projects. In some provinces, it says, "this amount represents a tidal wave of funding" that local officials are incapable of "spending wisely."

Because oversight is scanty, the report says, the fund encourages corruption. Although the U.S. plan is for the Afghan government to eventually take over this and other programs, it has neither the management capacity nor the funds to do so.

The report also warns that the Afghan economy could slide into a depression with the inevitable decline of the foreign military and development spending that now provides 97 percent of the country’s gross domestic product.

The "single most important step" the Obama administration could take, the report says, is to stop paying Afghans "inflated salaries" – often 10 or more times as much as the going rate – to work for foreign governments and contractors. Such practices, it says, have "drawn otherwise qualified civil servants away from the Afghan government and created a culture of aid dependency."

Even when U.S. development experts determine that a proposed project "lacks achievable goals and needs to be scaled back," the U.S. military often takes it over and funds it anyway, the report says.

It also cites excessive use and poor oversight of contractors. Although the report provides some examples of successful projects, it is critical overall of what one senior committee aide called the U.S. focus on a rapid "burn rate" of available funding as a key metric for success. The aide spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss the report before its release.

Debate has begun within the White House and in Congress over how quickly to begin withdrawing the 100,000 U.S. troops in Afghanistan, with senior Defense Department figures cautioning against a precipitous drawdown this summer. Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates has called for a "modest" decrease that would avoid jeopardizing recent combat gains.

Sen. Carl Levin (D-Mich.), chairman of the Armed Services Committee, told reporters Tuesday that he would like to see a minimum of 15,000 U.S. troops withdrawn by the end of the year. Sen. John McCain (Ariz.), the committee’s ranking Republican, was quoted in the Financial Times as saying that he thought the number should be no more than 3,000.

But an increasing number of lawmakers on both sides have called for a more wholesale reconsideration of Obama’s strategy in Afghanistan, saying that the war’s cost cannot be sustained at a time of domestic economic hardship. They point as well to changing realities on the ground, including signs of growing extremist violence in Pakistan and the killing last month of al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden.

"I’m personally for changing the military strategy to some degree," Sen. John F. Kerry (D-Mass.), chairman of the committee, said in an interview. Because the military and civilian components are tightly intertwined in Afghanistan, Kerry said, both have to be considered at the same time.

"We’ve created a … wartime economy" that is a "huge distortion" of Afghanistan’s revenue production, he said. "It’s very dangerous, and we have to get a handle on it rapidly."
[…] Last week, the bipartisan Commission on Wartime Contracting in Iraq and Afghanistan said in a separate report that billions of dollars in U.S.-funded reconstruction projects in both countries could fall into disrepair over the next few years because of inadequate planning to pay for their ongoing operations and maintenance. That report warned that "the United States faces new waves of waste in Iraq and Afghanistan."

Foreign aid expenditures by the State Department and the U.S. Agency for International Development in Afghanistan, about $320 million a month, pale beside the overall $10 billion monthly price tag for U.S. military operations. But Afghanistan is the biggest recipient of U.S. aid, with nearly $19 billion spent from 2002 to 2010. Much of that money has been expended in the past two years, most of it in war zones in the south and east of the country as part of the counterinsurgency strategy adopted by Obama just months after he took office.

The strategy, devised by Gen. David H. Petraeus, the commander of U.S. and coalition forces in Afghanistan, calls for pouring U.S. development aid into areas that the military has cleared of Taliban fighters to persuade the population to support the Afghan government.

But evidence of successful aid programs based on "counterinsurgency theories" is limited, the Senate committee report says. "Some research suggests the opposite, and development best practices question the efficacy of using aid as a stabilization tool over the long run."

"The administration is understandably anxious for immediate results to demonstrate to Afghans and Americans alike that we are making progress," the report says. "However, insecurity, abject poverty, weak indigenous capacity, and widespread corruption create challenges for spending money."

High turnover among U.S. civilians working in Afghanistan, estimated at 85 percent a year, along with "pressure from the military, imbalances between military and civilian resources, unpredictable funding levels from Congress, and changing political timelines, have further complicated efforts," it says.

The report is gently but unmistakably critical of the "whole of government" approach implemented by Richard C. Holbrooke, who served as Obama’s special representative for the region until his death in December. Control of all civilian operations on the ground were shifted to the State Department from the USAID, the traditional manager of development assistance.

"This new approach," the report says, "created new levels of bureaucracy, diminished USAID’s voice at the table, and put decision-making on development issues in the hands of diplomats instead of development experts."

7) WikiLeaks Haiti: Cable Depicts Fraudulent Haiti Election
Dan Coughlin and Kim Ives, The Nation, June 8, 2011
http://www.thenation.com/article/161216/wikileaks-haiti-cable-depicts-fraudulent-haiti-election

The United States, the European Union and the United Nations decided to support Haiti’s recent presidential and parliamentary elections despite believing that the country’s electoral body, "almost certainly in conjunction with President Preval," had "emasculated the opposition" by unwisely and unjustly excluding the country’s largest party, according to a secret US Embassy cable.

The cable was obtained by WikilLeaks and made available to the Haitian newspaper Haïti Liberté, which is collaborating with The Nation on a series of reports on US and UN policy toward the country.

At a December 1, 2009, meeting, a group of international election donors, including ambassadors from Brazil, Canada, Spain and the United States, concluded that "the international community has too much invested in Haiti’s democracy to walk away from the upcoming elections, despite its imperfections," in the words of the EU representative, according to US Ambassador Kenneth Merten’s December 2009 cable.

Haiti’s electoral body, the Provisional Electoral Council (CEP), banned the Fanmi Lavalas (FL) from participating in the polls on a technicality. The FL is the party of then-exiled former President Jean-Bertrand Aristide, who was overthrown on February 29, 2004, and flown to Africa as part of a coup d’état that was supported by France, Canada, and the United States.

This history made Canadian Ambassador Gilles Rivard worry at the December donor meeting that "support for the elections as they now stand would be interpreted by many in Haiti as support for Preval and the CEP’s decision against Lavalas." He said that the CEP had reneged on a pledge to "reconsider their exclusion of Lavalas."

"If this is the kind of partnership we have with the CEP going into the elections, what kind of transparency can we expect from them as the process unfolds?" Rivard asked.

Despite the Lavalas exclusion, the European Union and Canada proposed that donors "help level the playing field"-they could, for instance, "purchase radio air time for opposition politicians to plug their candidacies." They were presumably referring to "opposition candidates" who would come from parties other than the FL.

That plan was nixed by the United Nations, but when the elections finally did take place on November 28, 2010, followed by a runoff on March 20, 2011, Washington and the international donor community played an influential role in determining their outcome.

When the first-round results were disputed, international donors arranged for an evaluation by the Organization of American States, which pronounced that pro-coup candidate Michel "Sweet Micky" Martelly, 50, a former konpa musician, should face another neo-Duvalierist candidate, Mirlande Manigat, in the final round. Martelly emerged as the victor in the runoff.

Less than 23 percent of Haiti’s registered voters had their vote counted in either of the two presidential rounds, the lowest electoral participation rate in the hemisphere since 1945, according to the Washington-based Center for Economic and Policy Research.

Furthermore, the second round was illegal because the eight-member CEP could never muster the five votes necessary to ratify the first-round results.
[…] According to the December 4, 2009, cable, US officials pushed hard for the election.

Ambassador Merten urged a minimal donor reaction to the FL’s exclusion, saying they should just "hold a joint press conference to announce donor support for the elections and to call publicly for transparency," because "without donor support, the electoral timetable risks slipping dangerously, threatening a timely presidential succession."
[…] Merten explained in the cable that he had opposed FL’s exclusion because the party would come out looking "like a martyr and Haitians will believe (correctly) that Preval is manipulating the election."

The election’s low turnout has been ascribed to Haitians’ sense of futility in the choice between two unappealing candidates, to a grassroots boycott campaign and, primarily, to popular dismay over the FL’s exclusion, the very issue that gave rise to the December 2009 meeting.

Former President Aristide, who returned to Haiti from exile on March 18, two days before the second round, drove the point home when he declared on his arrival: "The problem is exclusion, the solution is inclusion."

Bahrain
8) Bahrain Grand Prix ‘Not On,’ After Teams Object
Robert Mackey, New York Times, June 8, 2011, 10:06 AM
http://thelede.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/06/08/bahrain-grand-prix-not-on-after-teams-object/

Updated | 1:48 p.m. Just five days after the governing body of Formula One racing approved a decision to hold the Bahrain Grand Prix in October, the sport’s most powerful man has admitted that the race cannot go ahead because of objections from the drivers.

Speaking to the BBC on Wednesday, Bernie Ecclestone, the chief executive of the Formula One Group, acknowledged that the governing body had failed to obtain the necessary consent of the teams before announcing that the race, which was put on hold in March because of political unrest in Bahrain, would be held later this year.

"Hopefully we can return in the future, but of course it’s not on," Mr. Ecclestone told BBC Sport. "The schedule cannot be rescheduled without the agreement of the participants, they’re the facts."

On Tuesday, the Formula One Teams’ Association, wrote to the governing body, citing logistical and safety concerns and arguing that extending the season by adding a race in Bahrain in October would be "unbearable to our staff."

In an interview with BBC Radio 4, Max Mosely, the former head of the governing body, explained that the the Formula One schedule can never be changed without the prior, unanimous agreement of all of the teams.

The teams sent their letter the same day that Avaaz.org, an organization that has gathered more than 450,000 signatures on an Internet petition calling for the race to be canceled because of human rights concerns, released a leaked copy of a report by a fact-finding delegation that visited Bahrain last week on behalf of the race organizers, one day before a state of emergency was lifted and protesters returned to the streets.

The report’s author, Carlos Gracia, a senior member of the sport’s governing body, described a visit to a shopping mall and meetings with government officials and a representative of a human rights body established by Bahrain’s government last year. According to Mr. Gracia, the rights advocate, who was appointed by Bahrain’s king, said that "no human rights were violated" during the crackdown on dissent in the country.
[…] Mr. Mosely, the former head of the governing body – who comes at discussions of autocracy from an interesting perspective [a reference to the fact that his father founded the British Union of Fascists – JFP] – told The BBC that Mr. Gracia is a "very, very nice man," but speaks no English, and so might have had a hard time seeing past the surface that was presented to him by his hosts in Bahrain.
[…] Online, the news that the race will almost certainly not be held was hailed by supporters of Bahrain’s protest movement but criticized by some members of the country’s business community.
[…]

Colombia
9) Colombia ‘most dangerous place’ for labor unionists.
Jim Glade, Colombia Reports, Tuesday, 07 June 2011 14:29
http://colombiareports.com/colombia-news/news/16801-colombia-most-dangerous-place-in-the-world-to-be-a-union-representative.html

The International Confederation of Trade Unionists (CIS) reported 55% of trade unionist murders worldwide occurred in Colombia making it "the world’s most dangerous place for trade unionists," Caracol Radio reported Tuesday.

According to the report which will be presented by the CIS at the International Labor Conference in Geneva, 49 unionists were murdered in Colombia in 2010.

In addition, the report counted 20 attacks or attempted assassinations of union representatives, in particular against representatives from the mining industry.

Latin America as a whole ranks as the world’s most dangerous region for trade unionists with an especially alarming amount of 100 kidnappings reported the CIS.

The laws set to protect unions and their members from interference and violence are not yielding results, reported the CIS. Impunity enjoyed by masterminds of the persecution lead to more "systematic" persecution, the NGO added.

Interior and Justice Minister German Vargas Lleras announced on May 16 that Colombia had complied with the requisite of ensuring safety for union leaders and hoped that the U.S.-Colombian FTA will go through shortly. Colombian labor union leaders fired back rejecting government’s claims that human rights and trade unionist protection have improved, denigrating symbolic gestures aimed at securing the U.S. free trade agreement, which they say will help multinational companies over Colombian workers.

–

Just Foreign Policy is a membership organization devoted to reforming US foreign policy so it reflects the values and interests of the majority of Americans. The archive of the Just Foreign Policy News is here:

https://www.justforeignpolicy.org/blog/dailynews