Cyber criminals have caused economic losses and operational disruptions to organisations involved in vaccine research and distribution.
In less than a year after the first Covid-19 death was reported from China, the first clinically approved vaccine by Pfizer-BioNtech was administered to Margaret Keenan in the United Kingdom (UK) on December 8, 2020. The Pfizer-BioNtech vaccine, a messenger Ribonucleic Acid (mRNA) vaccine, is the fastest ever vaccine developed.
Subsequently, a handful of other vaccines have also been rolled out, including by Oxford-AstraZeneca in the UK, Moderna in the US, Sinovac and Sinopharm in China, Bharat Biotech in India, and Sputnik V and Epivaccorona in Russia.
Even as the world celebrates the success of the roll-out of these vaccines, some of the companies involved in vaccine development and distribution had to face disruptions due to cyber threats.
Cyberattacks on vaccine information
In July 2020, the US Justice Department accused two Chinese nationals of spying on Moderna, involved in Covid-related medical research, in a bid to steal its data.1
In October 2020, the pharmaceutical company, Dr. Reddy’s Lab, was the victim of a cyber-attack. After a data breach was reported in its servers, the company had to shut down its plants and isolate its data centres across the world, to contain the attack. The company centre in India is the contractor for Russia’s ‘Sputinik V’ Covid-19 vaccine.2 According to a report, after the data breach, the company’s stocks had gone down by around three percent. 3
In November 2020, state-sponsored hackers from China, Russia, Iran and North Korea attempted to steal valuable vaccine secrets, by targeting British drug maker AstraZeneca.4 The hackers approached AstraZeneca staff with fabricated job descriptions laced with malicious codes.5
In December 2020, IBM reported that the vaccine supply chain linked to Gavi, the international vaccine alliance which helps distribute vaccines around the world, was targeted by cyber-espionage. The logistics network used to keep the vaccines at the right temperature during transportation, was targeted with malicious codes, via phishing emails.6 While the identity of the attackers was not apparent, the sophistication of their methods indicated a nation state, according to IBM.
According to Microsoft’s Corporate Vice-President for Customer Security and Trust, Tom Burt, cyberattacks on prominent vaccine research companies in Canada, France, India, South Korea and the US were detected in recent months, by actors originating from Russia and North Korea, who used password spray — a method that uses thousands or millions of rapid attempts to hack into email accounts and brute force login attempts to steal login credentials.7
Phishing campaigns, in general, have risen ‘dramatically’ since January 2020, according to the cyber security company, FireEye.8Such phishingcampaigns have risen due to the increased need for information on Covid-related topics and the subsequent rise in the number of websites that provide such information. Inimical actors specifically created websites with the intention to spread misinformation and malware.
Some hackers used ‘socially-engineered’ coronavirus-themed phishing emails ‘crafted’ with interesting facts on Covid-19, health and lifestyle advice, and information on vaccine development. Such sites contained malicious files which impersonated official websites to ask for bitcoin donations to fund fake vaccines.9
According to a report, the top malware threats at the beginning of the pandemic included Emotet (an advanced Trojan that uses multiple evasion techniques to avoid detection) which was distributed as a coronavirus-themed messages in Japan, and Lokibot, which targeted users in Indonesia.10 As per an Interpol assessment, from January to April 2020, nearly 50,000 malicious URLs related to Covid-19 were detected.11
Stakeholder responses
Given the rise in cyber-crimes during the pandemic, various stakeholders have been urging caution on the part of the public and organisations involved in developing and distributing the vaccine. Microsoft, for instance, stated that the majority of attacks on organisations that use its security protections, were detected or prevented.12 Facebook has been working with fact-checking organisations and has set aside funds for reviewing and rating content related to the Covid-19 vaccine.13
Interpol has convened a Global Malicious Domain Taskforce tomitigate the impact of the use of such tactics. Its Cybercrime Directorate has been working with member countries, private sector partners and cybersecurity communities on the prevention, detection and investigation of Covid-19 related cybercrime.14
Government organisations like the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) of the US Department of Homeland Security, Britain’s National Cyber Security Centre (NCSC), as well as global organisations like IBM, have encouraged organisations involved in vaccine storage and transport to remain vigilant and proactive in the fight against vaccine cyber-attacks.15
Many health care-related organisations have joined the Paris Call for Trust and Security in Cyberspace. The Paris Call, issued in 2018, is the largest multi-stakeholder coalition to address issues in the cyberspace that threaten critical infrastructure.16
The Oxford Process, a group of the world’s most prominent international law experts, has affirmed that organisations that research, manufacture and distribute Covid-19 vaccines are a part of a States’ critical infrastructure and were protected against cyber threats by international law at all times.17
Conclusion
The Covid-19 pandemic has been exploited by various cyber criminals, to mount attacks on healthcare institutions, as well as organisations involved in vaccine research and distribution. The attacks have caused operational disruptions (like in the case of the Gavi cold chain network) and economic losses (like in the case of Dr. Reddy’s Labs). With the global rollout of vaccines underway, the task ahead is not only to tackle the huge logistical challenges of producing, shipping and administering the vaccine but to detect and prevent cyberattacks that could hamper the process. A robust technology infrastructure, strong partnerships between government organisations and vaccine companies, proper incident response plans, use of multifactor authentication across organisations, awareness on phishing campaigns and increased support from cybersecurity experts and companies, can no doubt help in the efficient distribution of vaccines.
Views expressed are of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the Manohar Parrikar IDSA or of the Government of India.
Even as Kazakhstan is making slow but steady progress towards further democratisation and openness of its political system, jostling by elites to secure their positions ahead of the ultimate exit of first President Nursultan Nazarbayev from the political scene, is set to grow.
Elections to the Kazakh Majilis (lower house of Parliament) as well as the maslikhats (local government bodies) were held on January 10, 2021. These were the first elections held after the implementation of a package of political reforms, announced by President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev in December 2019, designed to further enhance the ‘’openness, fairness, and transparency’’ of Kazakhstan’s electoral system.
The reforms included the establishment of an Institute of Parliamentary Opposition to provide additional guarantees for representation of minority parties in the governing structures of the legislative body.
In addition, the number of signatures needed to create a political party with the ability to contest elections was halved, from 40,000 to 20,000. Furthermore, procedures for political activism, including holding national assemblies and rallies, were simplified.
In an attempt to modernise the system and make politics attractive to women and youth under 29 years of age, the government stipulated a quota of 30 per cent for this segment in the candidate lists of political parties.
Kazakhstan’s bicameral parliament consists of the (mostly) elected Majilis and the Senate (Upper House). Of the 107 seats in the Majilis, 98 are elected via party lists to five-year terms. The remaining nine seats are filled by the Assembly of the People, a body with delegates from regional assemblies of the people intended to represent the many ethnic groups within Kazakhstan; its members are appointed by the president.
The Senate is also mostly elected, with 34 of 49 members being indirectly elected by regional parliaments (two for each of the 14 regions and two each from the cities of Almaty, Nur-Sultan, and Shymkent). The remaining 15 Senate seats are decided by the President.
For the January 10 elections, 10,061 polling stations were made available for an electorate of 11 million voters, including 66 polling stations in Kazakhstan’s overseas missions in 53 countries. While a turnout of 63.3 per cent was announced, some commentators noted that it appeared to be on the high side on account of the COVID pandemic and temperatures of minus 10 degrees celsius in the capital, Nur-Sultan and several regions of the country.
As per results announced by the Central Election Commission, three parties garnered enough votes to pass the required 7 per cent threshold: The Nur Otan (Radiant Fatherland) Party – 71.97 per cent; the Ak Zhol (White Path) Democratic Party – 10.18 per cent; and the People’s Party (formerly the Communist People’s Party) – 9.03 per cent. The Auyl (Village) People’s Democratic Patriotic Party obtained 5.75 per cent and the Adal (Justice) Party secured 3.07 per cent. These two parties, therefore, will not find a place in the new parliament.
These percentages translate into 76, 12, and 10 seats respectively for the three parties in the 107-member lower chamber. In 2016, the number of seats for Nur Otan, Ak Zhol and People’s Party were 80, and nine each respectively. This indicates a loss of four seats by Nur Otan as compared to its performance in the 2016 elections, three of them going to Ak Zhol and one to the People’s Party. Nur Otan though continues to have a pre-dominant majority in the Majilis.
The decisive victory of Nur Otan party does not come as a surprise as it has occupied a commanding position in the country’s political life since it was established by the first president of the country, Nursultan Nazarbayev, in 1999. Nur Otan has the most organised and cohesive infrastructure in the country, with various internal committees, a youth wing, its own media resources, etc. Till date, Nur Otan has enjoyed a complete and unquestioned supremacy in the domestic polity, society, business and media.
The Ak Zhol party calls itself “the” parliamentary opposition. It has identified bureaucracy and corruption, social injustice and the growing gap between the rich and the poor, and monopolisation of the economy and power by a select few, as the main threats to Kazakhstan. Azat Perushaev, the party’s president, has warned that further intensification of reforms could lead to a crisis of statehood, as happened in Belarus and Kyrgyzstan, and earlier in Ukraine.
The elections were monitored by 398 accredited foreign observers, including from 10 international organisations and 31 foreign states, as well as numerous domestic observers. Some international election monitors criticised the elections for absence of real competition and raised concerns over freedom of assembly. The main charge was that since all political parties contesting the elections were supportive of the policies of the ruling party, the campaign was not competitive, and voters had no genuine political alternatives to choose from.
Elite rivalry
Some candidates from the Nur Otan Party who will be entering the Majilis in the aftermath of the January 10 elections include First Deputy Chairman of the party, Bauyrzhan Baibek; Prime Minister Askar Mamin; former speaker of the Senate and daughter of first President Nazarbayev, Dariga Nazarbayeva; Chief of Staff of President of Kazakhstan, Yerlan Koshanov; Chairman of the Board of the Sovereign Wealth Fund, Samruk-Kazyna Akhmetzhan Yesimov; and Majilis Chairman Nurlan Nigmatulin — all heavy weights of the ruling party.
What is interesting and noteworthy is that Dariga Nazarbayeva has also been included in the list at a prominent position. This will provide her an opportunity to rehabilitate herself in the political landscape of Kazakhstan. It would be recalled that Nazarbayeva had replaced Tokayev as President of the Senate when he took over as the interim President of the country after Nazarbayev suddenly tendered his resignation on March 20, 2019.
She was then seen to have been positioned by Nazarbayev, her father, to be next in succession to Tokayev when he would relinquish the office of the President in the coming years. This assessment however received a rude shock when she was removed, without a comment or explanation, from the position of President of the Senate by Tokayev in May 2020 and also lost her parliament seat.
This development led to several speculations by analysts and observers. Some opined that it was done by Tokayev to exercise his full control and authority during the time of the pandemic and curb Nazarbayeva’s political ambitions. It was also suggested that she might have considered it prudent to be at least officially one step removed from power as Kazakhstan faced down the coronavirus pandemic. There were also a few scandals linked to Nazarbayeva reported in the press at that time, which could also have contributed to this outcome.
Nazarbayeva’s induction into the new Majilis will provide her with the possibility to establish and enhance her authority and influence in the evolving political matrix of the country.
Recent events in the political spectrum in the country would appear to suggest that rivalries among the elites of Kazakhstan have got sharper after Nazarbayev demitted office in March 2019. While not as dramatic as the events in Kyrgyzstan or Belarus, these rivalries have intensified dramatically over the last 22 months since the transition of power from Nazarbayev to Tokayev.
In a new development, elite groups started using international journalists and publications to pass compromising material, kompromat, on one another. In the past few months, there have been major exposes in the Financial Times, Wall Street Journal, and London Times on Dariga Nazarbayeva; Taimur Kulibayev, Nazarbayev’s son-in-law; and Bulat Utemuratov, a major Nazarbayev confidant, financier and mining magnate.
The parliament (Majilis and Senate) whose powers were significantly enhanced at the expense of the presidency by Nazarbayev before demitting office in March 2019, could hence play a much more significant role in determining the evolving balance of power and influence between the different political elites of the country.
Conclusion
Since its independence in 1991, political stability, security, and economic growth have been of paramount importance to the Kazakh leadership. The country’s leadership has paid lip-service to the goal of promoting democracy in the country.
It has been insisting that free and transparent elections, freedom of media and expression, freedom to organise political protests and demonstrations will be made available only in due course after stability and development are assured.
As Nazarbayev has often said, ‘’Democracy is a long-term goal but stability could be at risk if change is too swift.’’ So although Tokayev has promised that he will introduce a government that listens to the people, he is moving on the path laid down by Nazarbayev.
The January 10 elections were the eighth parliamentary election in Kazakhstan’s history since its independence in 1991, and the first under Tokayev’s presidency. In remarks delivered after election results became clear, first President Nursultan Nazarbayev highlighted unity and continuity and stated that “Kazakhstanis associate the further development of the country with our party.” He concluded that “Unity is our strength.”
Kazakhstan is making slow but steady progress towards further democratisation and openness of its political system, even as jostling by elites to secure their positions ahead of the ultimate exit of Nazarbayev from the political scene is set to grow.
Views expressed are of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the Manohar Parrikar IDSA or of the Government of India.
Even as the Al-Ula summit has set a positive tone for the restoration of unity in the GCC, a high level of commitment is required by all parties to bridge the trust deficit.
A day before the 41st annual summit of the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC), held at Al-Ula in Saudi Arabia, the Kuwaiti Foreign Minister, Ahmad Nasser Mohammed Al Sabah, announced on January 4, 2021 that Saudi Arabia and Qatar had agreed to resume full diplomatic relations and open their air space, land and sea borders. Along with Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Bahrain and Egypt also decided to end their boycott of Qatar, imposed in June 2017.
In the Al-Ula Declaration, the GCC pledged to restore collaboration among the member countries, strengthen military integration to face emerging challenges, cooperate on health issues and further integrate their economies. The GCC also agreed to implement King Salman’s proposal at the 36th Summit in 2015 calling for joint defence and security systems and a unified foreign policy for all the members.1
Differences among the member states over a common approach on foreign and security policies, in fact, had triggered the Qatar crisis. When the three GCC member states — Saudi Arabia, UAE and Bahrain (along with Egypt) in June 2017 announced the boycott of diplomatic and commercial ties, they required Qatar it to abide by as many as 13 conditions, for ties to be restored.
These included the scaling down of its relationship with Iran, the shutting down of a Turkish military base on its territory, withdrawing alleged support to terrorist groups and aligning its political, military, economic and social policies with the other GCC countries. Egypt, Saudi Arabia and the UAE were particularly concerned with the activities of the Muslim Brotherhood in their respective countries and Qatari support to the organisation.
Qatar did not agree to these 13 demands and insisted that the boycott was a violation of international law and its sovereignty. Instead of downgrading its ties with Iran and Turkey, Qatar came closer to these two countries in the aftermath of the boycott. Qatar’s support for the Muslim Brotherhood also continued.
The UAE Minister of State for Foreign Affairs, Anwar Gargash, in the aftermath of the Al-Ula summit, insisted that the demands placed on Qatar were ‘maximalist’ negotiating positions.2 Qatari Foreign Minister, Mohammed bin Abdulrahman Al Thani’s statement that all the countries agreed on ‘basic principles to overcome the current differences’ indicates that the member states have decided to leave behind the acrimonious past, in the larger interests of the organisation’s unity and regional stability.3
Regional geo-political context
Saudi Crown Prince, Mohammed bin Salman, in his address to the Al-Ula summit, emphasised on unity and solidarity among the member states to face common challenges. He charged Iran with playing a destabilising role in the region, highlighting its alleged support to terrorist proxies, its regional sectarian agenda and the nuclear programme.4
The reconciliation among the GCC countries comes in the backdrop of heightened US-Iran tensions in the Gulf. Iranian nuclear scientist Mohsen Farkhrizadeh was assassinated in November 2020. There have been sabotage attacks on nuclear, industrial and petrochemical sites in Iran in the recent past.
The Al-Ula summit was also held in the aftermath of Israel’s normalisation agreements, the ‘Abraham Accords’, with the UAE and Bahrain. These accords pave the way for the strengthening of the relationship between Israel and critical Gulf States, neighbouring Iran.
Riyadh and Tehran continue to be at the opposing ends of regional flashpoints. The Yemeni government, for instance, is backed by Saudi Arabia while the Houthi rebels are backed by Iran. The Bashar Al Assad regime in Syria is supported by Iran, while the opposition coalition is supported by Saudi Arabia. Tensions between these two big regional players have also increased in the waters of the Persian Gulf and the Gulf of Oman.
For the GCC, therefore, given the above geo-political context, bringing Qatar back into its fold was important to more effectively put up a common front against Iran’s regional policies.
Implications for Qatar’s regional policies
Qatar’s robust relationships with Iran and Turkey, and its approach towards the Muslim Brotherhood, will continue to be keenly watched by Saudi Arabia, UAE, Bahrain and Egypt.
During the period of its isolation, Qatar developed strong political, economic and security ties with Iran. High-level political interaction took place between the two countries, with Iranian Foreign Minister Javad Zarif visiting Doha in October 2017, and Qatari Emir, Sheikh Tamim, visiting Tehran in January 2020.
Even as Qatar gets reconciled with the GCC, it will be difficult for it to snap all its ties with Iran. Both countries share the South Pars (known as Northern Dome in Qatar) gas field. Iran and Qatar had also signed an agreement in April 2018 for joint patrols in the Gulf.
Similarly, Qatar’s relationship with Turkey was strengthened in the aftermath of the boycott. Turkish President Erdogan visited Qatar twice, in July 2017 and in July 2020, while Sheikh Tamim visited Turkey in September 2017.
A day after the boycott was announced in June 2017, the Turkish parliament fast-tracked and ratified two agreements relating to the deployment of troops in Qatar and the training of Qatari forces. The agreement relating to the latter was signed earlier in April 2016. Turkey has since established a military base in Qatar.
Further, in November 2017, Turkey, Iran and Qatar signed a tripartite trade and transport agreement which facilitates transfer of goods from Turkey to Qatar via Iran.
Turkey, along with Qatar, are alleged to have strong ties with the Muslim Brotherhood, including providing funding and shelter to the Muslim Brotherhood leaders. This continues to be a key concern for Saudi Arabia, UAE and Egypt, who have banned and labelled the Muslim Brotherhood as a terrorist group.
Conclusion
For Qatar, reconciliation without any conditions attached, was the most satisfactory and honourable way to have come out of the crisis. Even as the Al-Ula summit has set a positive tone for the restoration of unity in the GCC, a high level of commitment is required by all parties to bridge the trust deficit and overcome issues of mutual concern.
Views expressed are of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the Manohar Parrikar IDSA or of the Government of India.
Imran Khan and Pakistan’s Enduring Political Crisis
Nazir Ahmad Mir
January 04, 2021
While Imran Khan’s efforts to build legitimacy around his ‘personality’ as a religious person and a crusader against corruption do not seem to have convinced many people, his government’s inability to bring the much-promised tabdeeli (‘change’) to Pakistan is beginning to hurt him politically.
Pakistan is once again witnessing confrontational politics between the government and the opposition, with editorials slamming the ‘slowing down’ of democracy.1Academic-activist, Noam Chomsky, speaking at the Karachi-based Habib University’s flagship Yohsin Lecture Series on December 7, 2020, warned that democracy in Pakistan was in decline and the country had “no future if it is going to live in a world of religious superstition”.2
Instead of addressing the substantive issues being raised by the opposition, Pakistan Prime Minister Imran Khan is laying much stress on his religiosity and image as a crusader against the corrupt elite, who, in his view, are solely responsible for the country’s problems. Khan, it seems, is dabbling in the art of personalised politics, which turns the focus “from topics to people and from parties to politicians”.3
The art of personalised politics
Imran Khan has been able to mobilise people – especially the youth – around the narrative that all other politicians were corrupt, incompetent and self-serving, while he was a crusader against corruption and wished to build a ‘Naya Pakistan’.
Khan’s Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) party urged “voters to decide in favour of the party leader” instead of drawing attention to his stand on various issues.4 He has further invoked religion to run down other parties and political personalities by calling them supporters of heretics, hypocrites (munafiqins) and disrespectful of the Prophet.5 The strategy paid off with PTI emerging as the single largest party in the July 2018 elections to the National Assembly.
Two days prior to Chomsky’s lecture in Karachi, Khan gave an interview to actor Hamza Abbasi, which was mostly about his personal experiences and views on various issues. Khan emphasized his love for his own faith and the attendant values in his own society. He further underlined his (bad) experiences in the West, and added that Pakistan’s advantage was “our belief in God and the hereafter.”6
If the conservative rhetoric cited above is any indicator, Khan is trying to convey to his countrymen that the only reason they should trust him is because he is a ‘born-again’ Muslim and that he is trying ‘faithfully’ to deliver on his electoral promises. Khan, it seems, is taking refuge in religiosity, instead of addressing the issues confronting Pakistan by openly debating them democratically with his rivals.
The Pakistan prime minister keeps reiterating his promise to transform the country into a Riysat-e-Madina, a corruption free Islamic welfare state.7 However, he has not taken any action against his own party members or government ministers accused or found guilty of corruption.8
Apart from the rhetoric, he has also carefully cultivated his image as a pious believer. This is quite visible in the manner of his dress — long coats (sherwani), monochromatic tunics (kameez), white trousers (shalwars), and a waistcoat, apart from holding a string of beads (tasbih). Such tactics, however, are unlikely to resolve the myriad issues that plague the country.
Gap between rhetoric and action
At a public rally on July 30, 2017 to celebrate the ouster of then Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif on corruption charges, Imran Khan had called for “real democracy” in Pakistan.9 After being in power for two and half years, the contradictions in Khan’s statements and behavior stand out.
Contrary to the political morality that characterises democracy, he has even refused to meet opposition leaders and has not shown any interest to engage with them over the complex issues confronting the country. The opposition parties on their part also do not recognise the Pakistani premier as a legitimate winner of the July 2018 elections.
While the media has been gagged, some of his policy decisions, like the proposal to prepone Senate elections before the due dates in March 2021, have been arbitrary.10 The government has also constrained the voices against human rights violations in the country, even as it has been pretty vocal about perceived violations elsewhere (read India).11
Khan has built his image by claiming a moral high ground vis-à-vis other politicians in the country. Back in 2016, in the wake of Sharif’s name surfacing in the Panama papers, Khan had noted that unlike other types of rulers, like military dictators or kings, “democrats rule by moral authority. When you lose that, you can’t rule.”12 However, Khan’s rule, it seems, does not reflect a ‘moral authority’ either.
While the Pakistan premier has blamed wide spread corruption for the country’s ills, the accountability drive seems to be targeted only at the opposition leaders, leading to criticism that Khan was practicing ‘one-sided accountability’.13
The government’s incessant attacks on the opposition leaders are turning out to be counterproductive. The opposition, on its part, accuses him of being a ‘selected’ prime minister. Eleven political parties came together to form the People’s Democratic Movement (PDM) in September 2020, in an attempt to dislodge the premier. The PDM has held eight well-attended rallies so far.
In conclusion
Imran Khan’s rise in Pakistan’s politics was facilitated by people’s frustrations with the mis-governance of the past, and quiet support from the powerful military establishment. His efforts to build legitimacy around his ‘personality’ as a religious person and a crusader against corruption, do not seem to have convinced many people. His government’s inability to bring the much-promised tabdeeli (‘change’) to Pakistan is beginning to hurt him politically. The enthused participation of people in the opposition jalsas (demonstrations) in recent months, implies that the Khan magic is fast withering away.
Views expressed are of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the Manohar Parrikar IDSA or of the Government of India.
3. Silke Adam and Michaela Maier, “Personalization of politics: A critical review and agenda for research”, Annals of the International Communication Association, Vol. 34, No. 1, 2010, p. 231.
It remains to be seen to what extent Turkish President Recep Tayyeb Erdogan’s recent efforts to mend broken regional ties and address concerns over domestic policies will succeed.
If politics is the art of the possible, then Recep Tayyeb Erdogan is one of its most outstanding exponents. In September this year, the Turkish president was outraged by the decision of the UAE and Bahrain to normalise relations with Israel. By early December, however, the so-called neo-Ottoman himself sent a Hebrew-speaking ambassador to Israel to break a two-year diplomatic freeze.
Turkish military interventions in Syria and Iraq, its support for the Muslim Brotherhood and the Khashoggi killing, had cast a long shadow on Saudi-Turkey ties. However, King Salman’s telephone call with Erdogan on November 20, ahead of the G 20 Summit hosted by Riyadh, led to speculation about a thaw in the ties between the two countries. Curiously, Erdogan’s recitation of a politically contentious Azeri poem in Baku, led to a bitter spat with Iran.1
Erdogan has also reached out to the German Chancellor Angela Merkel to greet her ahead of Christmas and pledged to “open a new page in relations with the EU”.2
He has expressed eagerness to settle drilling issues in the Eastern Mediterranean with the EU, even as he complained to Merkel about Greece’s unwillingness to negotiate.
The imposition of the $500 million defence sanctions by the ‘friendly’ outgoing Donald Trump administration over Turkey’s purchase of the Russian S-400 missile defence system, meanwhile, has been a major setback. Reports have even speculated about the possibility of the step leading to the country’s expulsion from NATO.3
Most observers believe that Erdogan’s sudden and multiple foreign policy back flips over the last month or so can be attributed to the victory of Joseph Biden in the recent US presidential elections. It is noteworthy that in a January 2017 interview to New York Times, Biden had called Erdogan “an autocrat” who should “pay a price” for his political excesses.4
Ironically, Erdogan enjoyed the best time of his political career in the ensuing four years of what John Bolton called a Trump-Erdogan “bromance”. During this time, Erdogan carried out an assertive foreign policy across various theatres — in Syria, Libya and Azerbaijan. In fact, Biden, during the 2020 campaign trail, included Erdogan as among the “thugs of the world” that Trump embraces .5
Unlike others in the pack, Erdogan, as noted above, has made major foreign policy changes following Biden’s win in the US elections.
Erdogan’s domestic challenges
The Turkish strongman has also undertaken a series of measures domestically to address human rights and economic concerns. A Human Rights Action Plan was launched on December 9 to ostensibly redress international concerns over his regime’s imprisonment of tens of thousands of Turkish civilians, including prominent politicians and civil society members.6
Rights groups deem the measure an eyewash, as the president refuses to accept calls for the release of even noted politicians like Selahattin Demirtas and philanthropist Osman Kavala.7 It has also been pointed out that the talk of human rights reform is merely a façade, as security agencies recently detained over 500 people for criticizing the government’s mishandling of the COVID pandemic on social media.
Erdogan complemented the announcement of the human rights action plan with the sacking of his son-in-law, Baerat AlBayrak, from the office of Minister of Treasury and Finance (in the wake of a major financial crisis). With the lira sinking to an unprecedented 8 to the dollar (falling to a third of its value since last year) and with inflation officially shooting up to the 14 percent mark, Moody’s has downgraded Turkey’s debt rating to junk status amidst fears of a balance-of-payments crisis. To arrest the plummet, Erdogan installed a new Central Bank director who quickly raised rates and announced a wave of economic reforms.
The Turkish president is, therefore, re-engaging with the West — whom he and his supporters have been vilifying for years — in order to salvage a tanking economy and a highly restive, unemployed youth. In fact, the ruling AKP has been facing a large number of defections, and the party lost two of its largest cities in local elections last year, in Istanbul and Ankara. Recent opinion polls show that support for the AKP has fallen below 30 percent for the first time since its formation in 2001.8
Along with the growing economic problems, respondents cited an unmanageable COVID crisis as one of the main reasons for the grim approval ratings. After having suppressed the number of COVID cases for a long time by announcing only symptomatic cases, the government released the real figures that catapulted Turkey to the status of one of the countries with the largest number of infected citizens, with around 30,000 daily reported cases in early December.9 The Turkish Medical Association believes that the declared numbers are still substantially lower than the actual cases. The government re-imposed curfews and lockdowns until the New Year holidays.
Irritants in Turkey-Russia ties
The Turkish leader’s volte face is so stark, it even risks undermining relations with its new ally — Russia. Ankara, for instance, supports Kyiv over the issue of Crimea and has maintained that Russia should return the peninsula to Ukraine.10
Although Turkey has always sought to counterbalance Russian supremacy in the Black Sea, the recent visit of Ukrainian foreign minister to Ankara, which gave rise to rumours in the media that Turkey was planning to sell 48 of its Bayraktar TB2 drones to Ukraine11, might be a step too far. Having proven their mettle in the Armenia-Azerbaijan war, Turkey’s possible support to Ukraine with such sophisticated drones has the potential to roil Moscow-Ankara relations.
In recent months, Russia has supported Turkey on many fronts and even brokered an Azerbaijani victory against its own ally Armenia for the sake of its friendship with Turkey. Moscow has also been seen as sacrificing its interests in other theatres in favour of Ankara, such as in Syria and Libya. Without directly confronting Turkey, Russia is currently pleading with Kurdish People’s Protection Units (YPG) in Syria to cede control of Ain Issa town to Assad forces, in order to avert a Turkish assault on the area.12 However, there is a limit to which Russia could put up with Turkey’s errant ways, especially if tensions break out with Ukraine over Crimea.
Whither Erdogan’s support for ‘Islamist’ causes?
For many years, Erdogan had projected an image of being a wily, yet capable leader who could keep his country under an iron grip, while keeping the semblance of a democratic head of state. In the post-Saddam era, the Turkish leader had even emerged as a strongman for the Sunni world — particularly for votaries of Muslim Brotherhood — one who spoke about Islamist issues like Palestine and Kashmir unequivocally on the global stage.
However, the new image of an Erdogan fawning for support of the West would come as a major letdown even for his most ardent supporters in the wider Muslim world. The charm offensive by a leader who changed Hagia Sophia into a mosque this year may not convince many Western leaders against the Turkish president’s radical ways imminently. Erdogan stands precariously atop the two proverbial stools and some experts have even started counting down his days in politics.
When Saudi Arabia had poured cold water on Imran Khan’s plans to hold a special session of the OIC on the non-issue of Kashmir, the Pakistan premier had found support from Erdogan and Malaysia’s Mahathir Mohammed in raking up the matter on the international stage.
With Erdogan now normalising ties with Israel and responding to the Saudi King’s outreach, the chances of him supporting so-called Islamist issues like Kashmir with erstwhile gumption, giving it greater prominence than the Palestinian cause in the Muslim world, appears less likely. Perhaps, Erdogan’s policy stance on Kashmir may go the Malaysian way, which effortlessly changed tack once Mahathir left the political scene.
Erdogan’s recent foreign policy moves suggest that the world might be a different place once Biden comes to power.
Views expressed are of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the Manohar Parrikar IDSA or of the Government of India.
India and Bangladesh fought together “in the defence of human liberty”, in the words of Sheikh Mujib ur Rahman, to liberate Bangladesh, fifty momentous years ago.
December 16, 2020 marks the 50th Vijay Diwas or Victory Day, when the Pakistan Army surrendered to the India-Bangladesh Joint Command, known as Mitra Bahini (Allied Forces). More than 90,000 civilians and soldiers were taken as prisoners of war (PoW). Bangladesh is also celebrating the birth centenary of its founding leader, Sheikh Mujib ur Rahman, in 2020-21.
East-West Divergences
Bangladesh’s struggle against Pakistan started soon after its creation. The Bengalis rejected the imposition of Urdu as the national language of the newly emerged country – a language spoken by less than two per cent of its population, mainly migrants from Bihar and Uttar Pradesh. Those who argued in favour of Urdu insisted that it was an Islamic language appropriate for the Muslims. However, the Bengalis had a genuine demand – the recognition of their language spoken by the majority constituting 54 per cent of population.1
While the language demand was accommodated in the 1956 constitution (which was, however, abrogated after the military takeover in 1958), the East Pakistanis had differences over the official name of the country, namely, the Islamic Republic of Pakistan. They argued that given that the separate state for Muslims has been established, it was not necessary that it has to be called ‘Islamic’.2 Also, many Muslim countries in the world did not affix ‘Islamic’ to their formal names. Another major area of difference was regarding separate electorates for the minorities which was not acceptable to the leaders representing East Pakistan in the Constituent Assembly.3 These differences demonstrated explicitly that the aspirations of the two wings of Pakistan were different.
Bengalis were also underrepresented in the Pakistan Army and the civil services. They continued to remain under-developed in spite of contributing substantially to the national exchequer, primarily through the export earnings from jute. The differences were stark. For instance, by 1969-70, the per capita income in the West was 61 per cent higher than in the East .4
Despite all these grievances, the Bengalis participated in the 1970 elections, the first election based on universal adult franchise. Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujib ur Rahman and his party, the Awami league, emerged victorious, based on a six-point program — referred to as ‘Charter of Freedom’ — which embodied Bengali political aspirations. The mandate was not respected by the Pakistan military regime in conjunction with Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, whose party, the Pakistan Peoples’ Party (PPP), had swept the elections in the Western Wing. The PPP got 81 seats out of 138, while the Awami League won 160 seats in the Eastern Wing, out of 162 it contested.
After the failure of negotiations with the military regime of Yahya Khan to transfer power to the elected leader, Mujib on March 7, 1971 gave the famous speech exhorting the Bengalis to struggle for their ‘liberation’ and ‘independence’. The military launched a savage crackdown, ‘Operation Search light’, on March 25, targeting unarmed civilians, teachers and students of the Dhaka University campus. Foreign journalists reporting the Army brutality in the university campus were bundled to the Hotel Intercontinental next to the University and asked to leave the country immediately. As Hasan Zaheer, a civil servant posted in Dhaka writes, “it was an awkward time to allow foreigners to observe and report it to the outside world.” 5 On the same night, Bangladesh declared its independence.
The Refugees Challenge
As the Pakistani Army unleashed greater amounts of force to resolve the ‘East Pakistan Crisis’, refugees started trickling in to India. By August 10, 1971, over 75 lakh refugees from East Pakistan had crossed over to India. The influx of refugees at one point was at the rate of 45,000-60,000 persons per day. An overwhelming number of the refugees were Hindus. The brutality on the Hindu minorities was palpable, as they were singled out in the initial stages, along with Awami League workers. Prime Minister Indira Gandhi stated in Parliament that the refugees were ‘victims of war’ who belonged to all communities.6
India did not formally recognise the ‘provisional’ government formed by the elected leaders of the Awami League on April 10, 1971 in Baddayanathtala, a village in Meherpur, Khustia. It did, however, extend support to their endeavours, including funding their trips to convince foreign governments of their struggle and the brutality of the Pakistani military operation. It was felt that giving recognition to the Bangladesh government in exile in the early days of the liberation struggle would fan Pakistan’s propaganda against India.
There was immense pressure from the parliamentarians, especially from Tripura and West Bengal, two states which bore the burden of hosting the refugees. There were 277 camps for refugees set up in Tripura, for instance. Some members of the Lok Sabha, including from the ruling party, demonstrated against the government for not recognizing Bangladesh and were arrested under Section 188 of the Indian Penal Code.7 PM Gandhi pointed out that “what was claimed to be an internal problem of Pakistan, has also become an internal problem of India….”8
Pakistan’s attempt to project the liberation struggle of Bengalis as another bilateral India-Pakistan problem was rejected. The Deputy Minister of External Affairs, Shri Surendra Pal Singh, replying to a question in the Lok Sabha on November 25, 1971, affirmed that a dialogue between India and Pakistan on the Bangladesh issue was “wholly irrelevant and is obviously an attempt to make it appear to be an Indo Pakistan dispute, which it is not.”9
India made enormous efforts to see that the refugees were sheltered and supported. While the government received foreign assistance to the tune of Rs. 50 to 55 crore by November 1971, a supplementary grant of Rs. 200 crores was earmarked up to the end of December 1971. The government informed the parliament that additional resources were being mobilised through “fresh taxation and also by effecting economy both in Plan and non-Plan expenditure.”10
The central government’s non-Plan expenditure, for instance, was reduced by 5 per cent. At a conference called by Prime Minister Gandhi in November 1971, chief ministers and governors agreed to take measures to curtail non-essential expenditures in the state budget. The Minister of State in the Ministry of Finance, Shri K.R. Ganesh informed parliament that the government had imposed curbs on filling up of vacant posts, foreign travel, and even use of telephones and staff cars.11 Additionally, all the Members of the Council of Ministers accepted a cut in their respective salaries.12
A tax of 5 per cent was levied on long distance railway fares from November 15, to generate additional revenues.13 Additional surcharges on entertainment tax, sales tax, tax on bus fares, motor vehicles tax, stamp duty on instruments and on the price of lottery tickets, was also levied. Awards were instituted for Sarpanches and Pramukhs of the Gram Panchayat, who secured the highest collection of small savings in their respective blocks, beginning from October 31, 1971.14 The support for the refugees from the common people of India was also overwhelming, with even women donating jewellery.
Even as India took enormous steps to deal with the challenges posed by the refugees, the silence of the world community, especially the United States, was deafening. The US, for instance, continued with supplying arms to Pakistan. The atrocities committed by the Pakistan Army in East Pakistan was viewed as an internal matter of Pakistan. At the United Nations, in a resolution passed on December 7, over 100 nations voted to stop the war between India and Pakistan.15 India only won backing from the Soviet Union, a few countries in the Soviet camp, apart from neighbouring Bhutan.16
As K. Subrahmanyam and Mohammad Ayoob note, an overwhelming number of nations which voted to stop the India Pakistan war and the liberation of Bangladesh, on the basis of ‘peace at any price’, had populations significantly less than the number of refugees who fled from the country.17 Bass states that the voting in the UN General Assembly reflected “worldwide repudiation of India’s case for liberating Bangladesh”.18
The Aftermath
Three million Bengalis lost their lives and more than 200,000 women were raped. Intellectuals who could have played a significant role in guiding and shaping the politics of the liberated country were butchered on December 14, just before the surrender of the Pakistan Army. More than 2,000 Indian soldiers laid down their lives. There was large scale destruction of property in the loot and plunder unleased by the Pakistan Army.
After Mujib was released from the jail by Bhutto, he was sent to London in a PIA aircraft. From there, he travelled to his liberated country via Delhi. In a brief stopover at Delhi, Mujib, stated that he came “to pay personal tribute to the best friends of my people, the people of India” for working tirelessly in “this journey from darkness to light; from captivity to freedom; from desolation to hope.”19 While visiting Calcutta during his first state visit to India in February 1972, soon after taking over as the Prime Minister of Bangladesh, Rahman pointed out that India and Bangladesh “fought together in defence of human liberty”20
To a large extent, Bangladesh has closed one of the painful chapters in its history by addressing the long pending issue of trial of war criminals who collaborated with the Pakistan Army. India and Bangladesh meanwhile have crossed many hurdles in the past 50 years. The land boundary has been demarcated and ratified, while the maritime boundary has been settled. A Joint Consultative Committee at the level of Foreign Minister constantly reviews the strength of the bilateral ties.
Both countries are making efforts to re-establish the connectivity that existed between them prior to the 1947 partition, ease trade barriers and ensure no loss of lives at the border – an issue that has emerged as a major irritant in the bilateral relations. Not only a spirit of partnership but a spirit of liberation continues to guide the India-Bangladesh bilateral relations, aptly described by Prime Minister Narendra Modi on March 18, 2020, in his video message to the people of Bangladesh to mark the birth centenary celebrations of Sheikh Mujib ur Rahman, as Shonali Adhaya (‘Golden Chapter’).21
Views expressed are of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the Manohar Parrikar IDSA or of the Government of India.
1. Sheikh Mujib ur Rahman, The Unfinished Memoirs, UPL, 2012, p. 104.
2. Apart from the Hindu members of Constituent Assembly belonging to East Pakistan, prominent Muslim members who opposed this were H.S. Suhrawardy and Mujib ur Rahman. See Constituent Assembly of Pakistan Debates, 1(51), January 28, 1956, p. 2201.
3. For detailed discussion on this issue, see Smruti S Pattanaik, “Majoritarian State and the Marginalised Minorities: A Case of Hindus in Bangladesh”, Strategic Analysis, 37(4), 2013, pp. 414-15
4. G.W. Choudhury, “Bangladesh: Why It Happened”, International Affairs (Royal Institute of International Affairs 1944-), April 1972, Vol. 48, No. 2, p. 246.
5. Hasan Zaheer, “The Separation of East Pakistan: The Rise and Realisation of Bengali Muslim Nationalism”, Oxford University Press, 2001, p. 250
Disagreements on cabinet positions continue to hamper the formation of a new Lebanese government, even as the country is going through socio-economic turmoil, compounded by the pandemic and the Beirut port blast.
The political uncertainty in Lebanon that began with the resignation of Prime Minister Saad Hariri on October 29, 2019, in response to massive anti-government protests, has not been resolved as yet. The country has witnessed the resignations of two more prime ministers since then. Hariri was again nominated as the prime minister in October 2020, but he has not been able to form a cabinet so far. Public protests, meanwhile, due to the difficult socio-political and economic conditions, were regularly held throughout 2020, despite the lockdowns due to the Covid-19 pandemic.
The massive blast at the Beirut port on August 4, 2020, which took the lives of nearly 200 people, further added to the societal misery of the Lebanese people.1 The physical destruction at the main port and the loss of lives compounded the country’s economic woes.2 The GDP, for instance, fell from $84.29 billion to $74.63 billion, while unemployment increased from 6.23 percent to 6.28 percent, during 2019-2020.3 Construction, services, tourism, food services, among other sectors, have been severely affected, due to the economic downturn, compounded by the pandemic.4
Increased public pressure after the port blast and the government’s inability to effectively deal with the issue of long-standing bane of corruption, forced the resignation of Prime Minister Hassan Diab (an independent candidate backed by the Christian and Shiite parties), who took over as the PM from Hariri.5 Due to the prevailing uncertainties, there was an increase in mass emigration after the blast. According to reports, the number of Lebanese “leaving the country on a daily basis increased from 3,100 before the day of the blast, to 4,100 people after the incident.”6
The severity of the political and economic crises facing Lebanon forced its former colonial master, France, to come to its aid. President Emmanuel Macron paid a visit in the aftermath of the blast and told the political leadership that no financial aid would be given to the country unless they execute reforms and end widespread corruption7 An international conference was organised on August 9, 2020, during which nearly $300 million in aid was promised.8
In his second visit on September 1, Macron put forward a blueprint for political reforms, calling for a “new political chapter” in Lebanon. The main elements of the blueprint included an audit of the Central Bank of Lebanon, formation of an independent ‘technocrat’ cabinet and the holding of elections under a new election law, within a year.9
After Diab’s resignation, Mustafa Adib, a former ambassador to Germany, was appointed as the prime minister by President Michel Aoun. Adib previously served as an advisor to former Prime Minister Najib Mikati (from 2000 to 2004) and was an independent candidate. Unfortunately, Adib also had to resign on September 26, 2020 due to the political impasse encountered while trying to form the new cabinet. This failed mainly on account of the Hezbollah and the Amal – two key Shitte political parties, insisting on controlling the Finance Ministry portfolio. To the seasoned observers of Lebanese politics, such unfavourable outcomes were expected.
Roadblocks to resolving political deadlock
Surprisingly, amidst this political uncertainty, Hariri was designated as prime minister by President Aounon October 22, 2020. However, Hariri is still unable to form the government, due to disagreements over portfolio allocations, and the political stalemate continues.
The following table indicates the strength of each political party in the Lebanese parliament.
The major coalition partners such as the Hezbollah, the Amal and the Free Patriotic Movement (FPM), are unwilling to compromise on their core interests. Hezbollah, a key player in the government formation with 13 seats in the parliament, wants the Finance, Health and the Transport ministries.10 Amal, a Shia sectarian party which is an ally of Hezbollah, with 16 seats, wants to head the Finance Ministry, as it has led it since 2014.
The second major roadblock is the FPM, holding 23 seats in the parliament. FPM has been at odds with Hariri over the portfolios of Energy and Interior Ministries. During Hariri’s premiership previously, FPM was controlling the Defence and the Foreign Ministry, till October 2019. However, FPM is now also laying claims to the Interior Ministry, which was earlier held by a Sunni member of the Saad-Hariri-led Future Movement.11
Hariri does not intend to part with the Interior ministry but if he did so, that would be in exchange for the Foreign Ministry.12 The Energy Ministry is also a bone of contention between the two, with President Aoun’s party claiming exclusive rights over this ministry, stemming from the FPM’s hold over it since 2009.13 Hariri further fears sanctions by the US, in case the portfolio of public works is allotted to Hezbollah, as demanded by them.
Hezbollah’s role as a cog in the wheel of the country’s politics is evident in the number of seats it holds in the parliament (13). It has made effective use of its outreach programmes to conclusively garner support of the Shia population. However, its involvement in corrupt practises, heavy handedness against peaceful protestors, to name a few, has led to people gathering in towns and cities and calling Hezbollah, the main opposition party, a “gang of thieves and criminals” and a “mafia”.14
The US meanwhile in September 2020 levied sanctions on former Lebanese government officials such as Yusuf Finyanus (who was a Minister of Public Works and Transport from 2016-20) and Ali Hassan Khalil (who was finance minister from 2014-20) for providing material resources to Hezbollah.15 The Hezbollah, however, is a political entity that cannot be sidestepped in any government-formation or state-building efforts, due to its powerful militia and the wide regional support it enjoys from Syria to Iran.
Conclusion
Lebanon is going through a difficult time due to the port blast, the pandemic and the unending political deadlock. Another international aid conference was organised by the United Nations (UN) and France on December 2, 2020, attended by 32 countries, 12 international organisations and seven Lebanese civil society groups. The participants reiterated their commitment to provide humanitarian assistance to Lebanon and mobilise resources for the vulnerable groups. UN Secretary-General António Guterres launched the ‘Reform, Recovery and Reconstruction Framework’ (3RF), prepared jointly by the World Bank, the European Union and the UN. The main objective of the framework is the reconstruction of the Beirut port and the socio-economic recovery of the impacted areas and affected communities.16 While the government formation has still not fructified as yet, Hariri submitted a list of 18 names to President Aoun on December 9, 2020. Going forward, it remains to be seen the extent to which the Lebanese political elite can implement the political and economic reforms suggested by key external actors like France.
Views expressed are of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the Manohar Parrikar IDSA or of the Government of India.
Targeted Killings: How Precedents can Become Practice
D. Padma Kumar Pillay
December 10, 2020
Executing extra-territorial targeted killings to eliminate inimical people bent on wrecking death and destruction on Indian nationals and interests is an option India may explore more vigorously, within the confines of international law.
On November 27, 2020, Mohsen Fakhrizadeh, a Brigadier in the elite Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) and a nuclear scientist who was heading the Iranian Research and Innovation Organisation, was killed through a remotely operated machine gun from a self-destructing truck. His death follows the killing of the charismatic and popular head of the IRGC, Gen. Qassem Soleimani, by a drone strike outside the Baghdad airport earlier in the year.
The elimination of such a high value target did not quite elicit a major retaliation by Iran.1 Iran insisted that despite repeated provocations, its restraint should not be seen as a sign of weakness. It does, however, beg the question whether their policy of ‘strategic patience’ was a sign of demoralisation, given the ease with which such high-profile targets were eliminated.2
Historical context
Targeted killing involves the intentional and deliberate use of lethal force, with a degree of pre-meditation, acting under authority of domestic law, against an individual or individuals who are not in the physical custody of the perpetrator.3 These acts are committed by governments and their agents in times of peace as well as during armed conflict. The methods used to kill from stand-off ranges include snipers, missiles, gunships, drones, car bombs, or even poison in closer proximity. Even if complex operational planning is required to eliminate targets, there are increasingly fewer risks to the human assets of the targeting state.
One of the most famous cases of targeted killing remains the operation apparently authorised by the then Israeli Prime Minister, Golda Meir, following the massacre of Israeli Olympic athletes in Munich in 1972. It is reported that nine out of the 11 members of the Palestinian group, Black September, who were apparently involved in the massacre, were killed by Israeli agents. The term gained further prominence after Israel made public its policy of ‘targeted killings’ in the Supreme Court, following a lawsuit against its policies in the Palestinian territories.4
The US Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) was engaged in efforts to assassinate several high value targets like Che Guevara, as well as Patrice Lumumba of the Congo and Fidel Castro.5 US President Gerald Ford issued an executive order in 1976 prohibiting the assassination, or conspiring to commit assassination, by employees of the US government, including those acting on its behalf. This executive order established a global consensus that targeted killing and assassinations were unacceptable.6
The US policy changed after the September 2001 terror attacks. ‘Predator’ and ‘Reaper’ drones, special operations forces and even civilian contractors, were used to carry out targeted killings in Afghanistan and in places like Yemen. The first ‘sanctioned’ killing was in November 2002, when Qaed Senyan al-Harithi, an al-Qaeda leader responsible for the USS Cole bombing, was hit by a Predator drone in Yemen.7
The legality of ‘targeted killing’
The targeted killing of individuals identified as threats to the security of a nation state are, at best, contentious. Pre-emptive targeted killings have been pursued by nation states as a viable policy option within the framework of the laws governing armed conflict, as a legitimate response to ‘terrorist’ threats and challenges of ‘asymmetric warfare’. The US government, for instance, justified its policy of targeted killings as flowing from right to self-defence, as the country was in an armed conflict with terrorist groups like the al Qaeda.
Whether or not a specific targeted killing is legal depends on the context in which it is conducted. Article 51 of the UN Charter allows states to act in self-defence.8 International humanitarian law (IHL) lets states take necessary steps to protect themselves. As per IHL, targeted killing is lawful when the target is a ‘combatant’ or ‘fighter’ or, if a civilian, only for such time as that person ‘directly participates in hostilities.’9
Given the principle of militarily necessity and proportionality, any anticipated military advantage has to be weighed against the purported harm to civilians. IHL does not permit reprisal or punitive attacks on civilians and will apply regardless of whether the armed conflict is between states (an international armed conflict) or between a state and a non-state armed group (non-international armed conflict), including with alleged terrorists.
Offensive actions such as targeted assassinations raise ethical questions but terrorism is a form of war — and in war, enemies can be attacked. While targeted killing could be considered as an option against terrorism, executed either within that nation state, or across borders, it should be within the ambit of international law.
India’s options
India has not been immune to the targeting of senior scientists working in sensitive positions by inimical forces. If the admissions of former CIA operatives are to be believed, the deaths of Indian scientists, Homi Bhabha (who was killed in a mid-air explosion aboard Air India 101 in 196510) and Vikram Sarabhai (killed at a beach resort in Kovalam in 197111), can be attributed to foreign agents intending to derail the country’s space and nuclear programmes.
Pakistan and China have provided shelter and support to trans-border terrorist activities. Dawood Ibrahim, India’s most wanted, along with designated terrorists like Hafiz Saeed and Masood Azhar, have all found safe haven in Pakistan. China has consistently supported and shielded Pakistan in international forums in this regard as well.12If measures to extradite such individuals and bring them to justice for their misdeeds are not successful, then punitive strikes to take out the targets should be considered.
If India has to execute extra-territorial targeted killings, it should credibly establish that its intelligence inputs are based on a high degree of certainty, with failsafe procedures for confirming the targets. Utmost care should be taken to minimise civilian casualties. In the eventuality of drone attacks and airstrikes, decision makers on the ground should be able to abort or suspend the attack, if it comes to light that the collateral loss of life or property damage is in excess of the original assessment.
It is not as if Indian forces are incapable of executing high profile operations. Unconfirmed rumours have long held that the exploding consignment of mangoes in Pakistani dictator, Gen. Zia ul-Haq’s plane, was delivered by Indian agents.13 More recently, the interception of a high profile West Asian personality in Indian territorial waters, was successfully executed.14
Given the experience of Balakot airstrikes in February 2019 and the subsequent incident of fratricidal shooting down of an IAF helicopter in the fog of war that followed the shooting down of Wg.Cdr. Abhinandan’s MIG -21, the imperatives of maintaining the robustness of information flow in real time, cannot be over emphasised.
The concept of targeted killing to gain military advantage is not alien to Indian statecraft. In the Ramayana, for instance, Rama eliminates Bali to gain a strategic alliance with Sugreeva, in his war with Ravana. Ancient texts like Arthashashtra prescribe elimination of threats before they become tangible. They also prescribe the creation of a cadre of assassins.15
Eliminating inimical people bent on wrecking death and destruction on Indian nationals and interests, before they execute their evil intent, is an option India may explore more vigorously, within the confines of international law.
Views expressed are of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the Manohar Parrikar IDSA or of the Government of India.
1. Iran did fire about a dozen ballistic missiles at two Iraqi military bases housing US troops in Erbil and Ain -al Assad. Meg Wagner, Ivana Kottasová, Mike Hayes, Veronica Rocha and Fernando Alfonso III, “Iran attacks bases housing US troops,” January 9, 2020.
15. The Arthashastra recommended that the Emperor needed to assassinate potential threats and needed operatives who were not just men but women (Vish Kanyas) trained to seduce, lure and kill.
Terrorist, Terrorism, Targeted Killings, Assasination, United Nations
In the aftermath of Samuel Paty’s beheading, France is taking measures that seek to reverse the processes through which individuals become ‘terrorists’. If successful, other countries could emulate such policy interventions in their own counter-radicalisation efforts.
Terrorism often hides behind the cover of individual and religious freedoms to attack liberal democracies. It even provokes overreaction from military and security agencies in order to then demonize them as its shadow image. On November 18, 2020, the French government decided to disarm this trite ‘jujitsu politics’ by issuing details of its new set of counterterrorism measures, which would soon be presented as a bill before its parliament.
It is noteworthy that France has been in the eye of a political storm in recent months over its stance on secularism vis-a-vis political Islam. In fact, the country’s body politic has been deeply impacted since 2015 when it was struck by one of the most dreadful terrorist attacks of all times. On January 7 that year, several masked gunmen – later identified as French nationals of Algerian descent – targeted the Paris office of the satirical publication Charlie Hebdo and killed 12 people over the publication of allegedly objectionable cartoons about Prophet Muhammad.
That very afternoon, another gunman shot four people and held a further 16 hostage at a kosher grocery store on the outskirts of Paris. The aftermath has since spewed complex and layered debates about power, colonial history, minority sentiments and free speech in the country.1
Another grievous tragedy struck on November 13, 2015, when ISIS carried out simultaneous attacks in several areas of Paris, in which 130 people were killed and hundreds more were injured. State response to these attacks was swift and decisive. The government declared a state of emergency and the police carried out hundreds of raids across the entirety of France and in Belgium in search of suspects as well as ISIS cells.2 These searches continued till 2016 as several Muslim homes were raided in and around Paris, allegedly without warrant3, in addition to many mosques and Muslim-owned businesses. These terrorist attacks and the subsequent police action gave rise to a growing public perception that Islam was incompatible with French secularism and way of life.
The beheading of Samuel Paty
The situation appeared to have stabilized in France from 2016 till early September 2020, when trials began against the suspected accomplices of terrorists who attacked the Charlie Hebdo. The weekly decided to republish the cartoons to reassert its freedom of expression. Unfortunately, a violent backlash preceded the commencement of the trial, when a 25-year-old Pakistani national, Zaher Hassan Mahmood, stabbed two people near the former offices of Charlie Hebdo in Paris.4 It is reported that Mahmood repeatedly had watched several videos of the founder of Tehreek-e-Labbaik, a group which held a series of demonstrations in Pakistan over the planned republication of the cartoons.
These brutalities peaked with the gruesome killing of a French middle-schoolteacher of history, Samuel Paty, on October 16, 2020, after he had displayed naked cartoons of the Prophet in a class on free speech. At the memorial service held in honour of the deceased teacher at The Sorbonne, President Emmanuel Macron vowed that France “will not give up cartoons”.5 Many French citizens projected huge images of Charlie Hebdo cartoons and the images of Paty onto government buildings in the Occitanie region — Montpellier and Toulouse — as a symbolic tribute to the deceased teacher.
The anti-French furore
Although the French Council of Muslim Faith, the main organisation of the public authorities of Islam in France, along with several of the prominent Muslims and Imams condemned Paty’s murder, Muslims around the world felt outraged over the projection of the Prophet’s caricatures on government buildings and the French President’s support for the cartoons as an assertion of freedom of expression. For instance, Turkish President Recep Erdogan said that the French president had “lost his mind”, which prompted France to recall its ambassador in Ankara.6 Public protests spread to many Muslim countries. Kuwait and Qatar boycotted French goods, ranging from President dairy and Evian mineral water to Peugeot cars and Cartier jewellery.7 Thus, the focus switched from the issue of terrorism to a debate between Islam and liberalism.8
The most fervent opposition to French counter-terrorism measures against radical Islam and terrorism came from Pakistani leaders, who further humiliated themselves by backtracking from their positions under French pressure. After Prime Minister Imran Khan accused President Macron of “attacking Islam”9 by encouraging the display of the Prophet’s cartoons, his government’shuman rights minister, Shireen Mazari, tweeted that Macron was treating Muslims like Nazis treated Jews in World War II. Following a stern condemnation by France’s foreign ministry, she tweeted: “The article I had cited has been corrected by the relevant publication, I have also deleted my tweet on the same.”10
The French concept of secularism gives liberal ideals like freedom of expression greater precedence than religious sensibilities in the public domain. Even prominent Western newspapers published articles capturing the divisions in French society. The Financial Times, for instance, published an article, "Macron's war on 'Islamic separatism' only divides France further”.11 This article, however, was later withdrawn, citing ‘factual errors’. TheNew York Times published “Macron’s rightward tilt, seen in new laws, sows wider alarm in France”.12 Macron criticized such articles as ‘legitimizing violence’ and insisted that the French model was different from the European model, in that while the latter was multi-culturalist, the French model was ‘universalist’.13
India meanwhile supported France and President Emmanuel Macron unequivocally. The Ministry of External Affairs, in a statement on October 28 strongly deplored the personal attacks on President Macron and condemned the “brutal terrorist attack that took the life of a French teacher in a gruesome manner that has shocked the world. We offer our condolences to his family and the people of France … There is no justification for terrorism for any reason or under any circumstance.”14
Counter-radicalisation measures
In the wake of these controversies, President Macron announced a slew of new counter-radicalisation measures that will be presented in parliament as part of a new bill. Among the measures, the French president asked Muslim leaders of his country to agree to a “charter of republican values”.15 It has been reported that the charter shall state that Islam is a religion and not a political movement, and that it prohibits "foreign interference" (particularly of Islamist groups like the Muslim Brotherhood) in the affairs of the French Muslim community. The French Council of the Muslim Faith has been asked to establish a National Council of Imams, which will reportedly issue Islamic clerics with official accreditation, which could even be withdrawn in case of violations.
Other set of measures to tackle “Islamist separatism”, as President Macron puts it, include:
Increased checks on foreign financing of mosques, with foreign donations over €10,000 must be declared.16
Restrictions on imams going abroad for training and on hosting of foreign preachers on French soil;17
Restrictions on religious home-schooling and strong punishments against those who intimidate officials on religious grounds;
Identification numbers for children to ensure they attend school; Parents who break the law could face up to six months in jail and may have to pay large fines;18
Community associations that receive state subsidies will not only have to sign a contract avowing their commitment to secular values, but they will be under closer scrutiny and the law could shutter them down in case of any breach of rules;
Ban on the wearing of religious symbols for employees of subcontractors providing public service, such as transport operators;
Provisions for closer scrutiny of private school curricula;
Prohibition on sharing personal information of a person in a way that allows them to be located by people who want to harm them.19
Crackdown on online hate speech by allowing for suspects to be summarily tried;
Making it illegal to intimidate public officials, including teachers;
Stringent prison terms of up to three years and €45,000 fine for violators.
There are several other provisions in the bill, which might be the subject of debate and possible review in parliament. Macron stated that the proposed new measures were part of a bill aiming to strengthen a 1905 law that established the concept of laïcité (meaning, “freedom of public institutions”) that separated church and state in France. Seen as the backbone of the French secularism, laïcité was established as a core principle of the French constitution that delineates a boundary between religious freedom in one’s private sphere and strict secularism in every element of public life.20
It now seems clear that in its fight against terrorism, France is not just focusing solely on detecting and preventing acts of ‘terrorism’, but is involved in reversing the processes through which individuals become ‘terrorists’. This policy shift opens new avenues for counter-radicalisation intervention, in particular, the mobilisation of new academic, police or legal measures to prevent radicalisation. If successful, it could provide an incentive for other countries to incorporate elements of such French policy interventions in their own counter-radicalisation efforts.
Views expressed are of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the Manohar Parrikar IDSA or of the Government of India.
US Elections 2020 and the Cybersecurity Challenges
Debopama Bhattacharya
December 03, 2020
It is critical to reduce the risks associated with cyber-enabled elections by ensuring end-to-end verifiability, protection of voter database, managing risks to the election infrastructure and curbing the menace of disinformation.
A few hours after the calling of the 2020 US election results from the various states in favour of the challenger, former Vice-president Joseph R. Biden, the incumbent President Donald J. Trump charged that the election was ‘rigged’.1 The US elections were held under tremendous scrutiny, given the widespread apprehension that foreign agencies might try to interfere again through the cyberspace domain, as was alleged to have happened in the 2016 elections.
The US electoral process begins with the primary elections and caucuses to select a potential presidential nominee. The primaries use secret ballots for voting. The voting procedure varies from state to state and some autonomy is granted to the states with respect to the voting rules.2 Each political party selects a presidential nominee and a vice-presidential mate. To win the election, a candidate must receive a majority of electoral votes from an ‘Electoral College’.3 This exclusive and exhaustive US system of election, however, is also not immune from security threats.
Potential security threats include disinformation campaigns, fake news, software hurdles, data breaches, ransomware attacks, ballot tampering, and even attacks on physical infrastructure. These threats can have serious repercussions on the democratic process and have national security implications, especially so if the involvement of a foreign government is established in executing these threats. Due to the ongoing pandemic, the 2020 US elections saw an increased use of online ballot delivery and returns. Cyber-enabled elections are inherently prone to hacks and data manipulation, which can potentially alter the electoral results.
Cyber vulnerabilities during elections
One month prior to the US elections, reports noted that registered Democratic voters had received threatening emails from the White nationalist group, Proud Boys, demanding that the recipients vote for Trump in the upcoming presidential election.4 These emails, according to the Director of National Intelligence, John Ratcliffe and FBI Director, Christopher A. Wray, were actually spoofed emails from Iran. Also, some publicly available voter registration information was obtained by Iran and Russia with the intention to harm Trump’s re-election efforts.5 The 2016 US Presidential elections had similar allegations about Russian hackers spreading misinformation via fake profiles on social media. Such campaigns are designed to intimidate voters and sway their preferences.
Disinformation is defined as the purposeful dissemination of false information intended to mislead or cause harm.6 Digital platforms have increased the vulnerability of the general public to manipulation by such false information. Targeted digital advertising on social media platforms prior to elections is a common form of spreading propaganda and influencing public opinion. According to a Facebook review of ad buys, around 3000 ads, focussed on divisive social and political messages by a number of non-authentic accounts and pages, likely operated out of Russia, were bought from June 2015 to September 2017.7
Fake news is a term related to disinformation but distinct from it. It refers to misleading content on social media that can range from false information about the chosen candidates of political parties to feeding marginalised populations with false or partially true information.8 It can also be intended to create confusion. For instance, it could include spreading false registration deadlines or election messages in order to disrupt the smooth functioning of the electoral process.9 In order to curb the menace of fake news, there needs to be a certain level of awareness among people to get voting information only from verified election offices.
Software like Democracy Live’s OmniBallot, online voting app Voatz, etc. provide electronic ballot solutions. These software have been used in a number of elections, especially by the US military, differently-abled citizens and overseas citizens.10 OmniBallot is used for online voting by at least three states in the US — West Virginia, Delaware and New Jersey. Other states like Utah and Colorado have conducted pilots of the online voting app, Voatz.
Researchers from MIT and University of Michigan have flagged the possible cyber threats and flaws in the OmniBallot system. OmniBallot's electronic ballot return (online voting) function, for instance, cannot achieve software independence or end-to-end verifiability, the two key goals for secure Internet voting.11 End-to-end verifiability (E2E) is a technique that scientists have been working on for several years to ensure secure remote voting. Researchers had reverse-engineered the OmniBallot app and stated that OmniBallot makes use of third party software and services like AngularJS, FingerprintJS, Google Analytics, reCAPTCHA and Democracy Live and is vulnerable to vote manipulation.
Apart from software hurdles, the online voter registration systems are vulnerable to cyberattacks from hackers, including nation-state actors, to gain access to voter registration database. The US Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) election infrastructure cyber risk assessment report therefore had recommended measures like same-day registration and provisional ballots to reduce the impact of integrity attacks to voter registration databases. Same-day registration, however, also utilizes network connected technology such as electronic poll books, which again are vulnerable to cyber risks.12
Trump’s allegations on election irregularities
Trump has repeatedly claimed that cyber frauds have occurred in the 2020 US elections, although there is no evidence for the same. He has alleged that the Democrats have ‘stolen’ the elections from him, which he was ‘easily winning’. 13 The Trump campaign has filed lawsuits in Georgia, Nevada and Pennsylvania, alleging that the ‘mail-in ballots’ were ‘improper’. Trump even fired the Director of CISA, Christopher Krebs, accusing him of issuing a “highly inaccurate” statement when Krebs refuted claims about election fraud. Most recently, the lawsuit in Nevada was denied while that in Georgia was dismissed by the court due to lack of substantial evidence. 14
According to CISA, 2020 US elections had security measures like pre-election testing, state certification of voting equipment, software checks, logic and accuracy tests, multiple audits of the voting software, including a post-election logic and accuracy test of the voting system, to ensure accuracy and reliability.15 The CISA also offered a suite of free, voluntary services to election officials to minimize cyber risks. These included a Phishing Campaign Assessment, Vulnerability Scanning and Remote Penetration Testing to identify and mitigate vulnerabilities in election systems.16 In a joint statement, the Election Infrastructure Government Coordinating Council and the Election Infrastructure Coordinating Executive Committees, have certified the November 3, 2020 US elections as the most secure in American history.17
Conclusion
Cyber-enabled elections are definitely prudent and efficient as they reduce manual efforts by speeding up the counting of ballots, reduce the cost of elections, and can provide increased voter participation. But there are risks associated with such processes. The onus lies on the election officials to put in place safe, secure, transparent and efficient systems. Use of high-end technologies, ensuring end-to-end verifiability, protection of voter database, managing risks to the election infrastructure and curbing the menace of disinformation are important goals in building confidence and trust in the e-electoral system.
Views expressed are of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the Manohar Parrikar IDSA or of the Government of India.
Cyber criminals have caused economic losses and operational disruptions to organisations involved in vaccine research and distribution.
In less than a year after the first Covid-19 death was reported from China, the first clinically approved vaccine by Pfizer-BioNtech was administered to Margaret Keenan in the United Kingdom (UK) on December 8, 2020. The Pfizer-BioNtech vaccine, a messenger Ribonucleic Acid (mRNA) vaccine, is the fastest ever vaccine developed.
Subsequently, a handful of other vaccines have also been rolled out, including by Oxford-AstraZeneca in the UK, Moderna in the US, Sinovac and Sinopharm in China, Bharat Biotech in India, and Sputnik V and Epivaccorona in Russia.
Even as the world celebrates the success of the roll-out of these vaccines, some of the companies involved in vaccine development and distribution had to face disruptions due to cyber threats.
Cyberattacks on vaccine information
In July 2020, the US Justice Department accused two Chinese nationals of spying on Moderna, involved in Covid-related medical research, in a bid to steal its data.1
In October 2020, the pharmaceutical company, Dr. Reddy’s Lab, was the victim of a cyber-attack. After a data breach was reported in its servers, the company had to shut down its plants and isolate its data centres across the world, to contain the attack. The company centre in India is the contractor for Russia’s ‘Sputinik V’ Covid-19 vaccine.2 According to a report, after the data breach, the company’s stocks had gone down by around three percent. 3
In November 2020, state-sponsored hackers from China, Russia, Iran and North Korea attempted to steal valuable vaccine secrets, by targeting British drug maker AstraZeneca.4 The hackers approached AstraZeneca staff with fabricated job descriptions laced with malicious codes.5
In December 2020, IBM reported that the vaccine supply chain linked to Gavi, the international vaccine alliance which helps distribute vaccines around the world, was targeted by cyber-espionage. The logistics network used to keep the vaccines at the right temperature during transportation, was targeted with malicious codes, via phishing emails.6 While the identity of the attackers was not apparent, the sophistication of their methods indicated a nation state, according to IBM.
According to Microsoft’s Corporate Vice-President for Customer Security and Trust, Tom Burt, cyberattacks on prominent vaccine research companies in Canada, France, India, South Korea and the US were detected in recent months, by actors originating from Russia and North Korea, who used password spray — a method that uses thousands or millions of rapid attempts to hack into email accounts and brute force login attempts to steal login credentials.7
Phishing campaigns, in general, have risen ‘dramatically’ since January 2020, according to the cyber security company, FireEye.8 Such phishing campaigns have risen due to the increased need for information on Covid-related topics and the subsequent rise in the number of websites that provide such information. Inimical actors specifically created websites with the intention to spread misinformation and malware.
Some hackers used ‘socially-engineered’ coronavirus-themed phishing emails ‘crafted’ with interesting facts on Covid-19, health and lifestyle advice, and information on vaccine development. Such sites contained malicious files which impersonated official websites to ask for bitcoin donations to fund fake vaccines.9
According to a report, the top malware threats at the beginning of the pandemic included Emotet (an advanced Trojan that uses multiple evasion techniques to avoid detection) which was distributed as a coronavirus-themed messages in Japan, and Lokibot, which targeted users in Indonesia.10 As per an Interpol assessment, from January to April 2020, nearly 50,000 malicious URLs related to Covid-19 were detected.11
Stakeholder responses
Given the rise in cyber-crimes during the pandemic, various stakeholders have been urging caution on the part of the public and organisations involved in developing and distributing the vaccine. Microsoft, for instance, stated that the majority of attacks on organisations that use its security protections, were detected or prevented.12 Facebook has been working with fact-checking organisations and has set aside funds for reviewing and rating content related to the Covid-19 vaccine.13
Interpol has convened a Global Malicious Domain Taskforce to mitigate the impact of the use of such tactics. Its Cybercrime Directorate has been working with member countries, private sector partners and cybersecurity communities on the prevention, detection and investigation of Covid-19 related cybercrime.14
Government organisations like the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) of the US Department of Homeland Security, Britain’s National Cyber Security Centre (NCSC), as well as global organisations like IBM, have encouraged organisations involved in vaccine storage and transport to remain vigilant and proactive in the fight against vaccine cyber-attacks.15
Many health care-related organisations have joined the Paris Call for Trust and Security in Cyberspace. The Paris Call, issued in 2018, is the largest multi-stakeholder coalition to address issues in the cyberspace that threaten critical infrastructure.16
The Oxford Process, a group of the world’s most prominent international law experts, has affirmed that organisations that research, manufacture and distribute Covid-19 vaccines are a part of a States’ critical infrastructure and were protected against cyber threats by international law at all times.17
Conclusion
The Covid-19 pandemic has been exploited by various cyber criminals, to mount attacks on healthcare institutions, as well as organisations involved in vaccine research and distribution. The attacks have caused operational disruptions (like in the case of the Gavi cold chain network) and economic losses (like in the case of Dr. Reddy’s Labs). With the global rollout of vaccines underway, the task ahead is not only to tackle the huge logistical challenges of producing, shipping and administering the vaccine but to detect and prevent cyberattacks that could hamper the process. A robust technology infrastructure, strong partnerships between government organisations and vaccine companies, proper incident response plans, use of multifactor authentication across organisations, awareness on phishing campaigns and increased support from cybersecurity experts and companies, can no doubt help in the efficient distribution of vaccines.
Views expressed are of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the Manohar Parrikar IDSA or of the Government of India.
Even as Kazakhstan is making slow but steady progress towards further democratisation and openness of its political system, jostling by elites to secure their positions ahead of the ultimate exit of first President Nursultan Nazarbayev from the political scene, is set to grow.
Elections to the Kazakh Majilis (lower house of Parliament) as well as the maslikhats (local government bodies) were held on January 10, 2021. These were the first elections held after the implementation of a package of political reforms, announced by President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev in December 2019, designed to further enhance the ‘’openness, fairness, and transparency’’ of Kazakhstan’s electoral system.
The reforms included the establishment of an Institute of Parliamentary Opposition to provide additional guarantees for representation of minority parties in the governing structures of the legislative body.
In addition, the number of signatures needed to create a political party with the ability to contest elections was halved, from 40,000 to 20,000. Furthermore, procedures for political activism, including holding national assemblies and rallies, were simplified.
In an attempt to modernise the system and make politics attractive to women and youth under 29 years of age, the government stipulated a quota of 30 per cent for this segment in the candidate lists of political parties.
Kazakhstan’s bicameral parliament consists of the (mostly) elected Majilis and the Senate (Upper House). Of the 107 seats in the Majilis, 98 are elected via party lists to five-year terms. The remaining nine seats are filled by the Assembly of the People, a body with delegates from regional assemblies of the people intended to represent the many ethnic groups within Kazakhstan; its members are appointed by the president.
The Senate is also mostly elected, with 34 of 49 members being indirectly elected by regional parliaments (two for each of the 14 regions and two each from the cities of Almaty, Nur-Sultan, and Shymkent). The remaining 15 Senate seats are decided by the President.
For the January 10 elections, 10,061 polling stations were made available for an electorate of 11 million voters, including 66 polling stations in Kazakhstan’s overseas missions in 53 countries. While a turnout of 63.3 per cent was announced, some commentators noted that it appeared to be on the high side on account of the COVID pandemic and temperatures of minus 10 degrees celsius in the capital, Nur-Sultan and several regions of the country.
As per results announced by the Central Election Commission, three parties garnered enough votes to pass the required 7 per cent threshold: The Nur Otan (Radiant Fatherland) Party – 71.97 per cent; the Ak Zhol (White Path) Democratic Party – 10.18 per cent; and the People’s Party (formerly the Communist People’s Party) – 9.03 per cent. The Auyl (Village) People’s Democratic Patriotic Party obtained 5.75 per cent and the Adal (Justice) Party secured 3.07 per cent. These two parties, therefore, will not find a place in the new parliament.
These percentages translate into 76, 12, and 10 seats respectively for the three parties in the 107-member lower chamber. In 2016, the number of seats for Nur Otan, Ak Zhol and People’s Party were 80, and nine each respectively. This indicates a loss of four seats by Nur Otan as compared to its performance in the 2016 elections, three of them going to Ak Zhol and one to the People’s Party. Nur Otan though continues to have a pre-dominant majority in the Majilis.
The decisive victory of Nur Otan party does not come as a surprise as it has occupied a commanding position in the country’s political life since it was established by the first president of the country, Nursultan Nazarbayev, in 1999. Nur Otan has the most organised and cohesive infrastructure in the country, with various internal committees, a youth wing, its own media resources, etc. Till date, Nur Otan has enjoyed a complete and unquestioned supremacy in the domestic polity, society, business and media.
The Ak Zhol party calls itself “the” parliamentary opposition. It has identified bureaucracy and corruption, social injustice and the growing gap between the rich and the poor, and monopolisation of the economy and power by a select few, as the main threats to Kazakhstan. Azat Perushaev, the party’s president, has warned that further intensification of reforms could lead to a crisis of statehood, as happened in Belarus and Kyrgyzstan, and earlier in Ukraine.
The elections were monitored by 398 accredited foreign observers, including from 10 international organisations and 31 foreign states, as well as numerous domestic observers. Some international election monitors criticised the elections for absence of real competition and raised concerns over freedom of assembly. The main charge was that since all political parties contesting the elections were supportive of the policies of the ruling party, the campaign was not competitive, and voters had no genuine political alternatives to choose from.
Elite rivalry
Some candidates from the Nur Otan Party who will be entering the Majilis in the aftermath of the January 10 elections include First Deputy Chairman of the party, Bauyrzhan Baibek; Prime Minister Askar Mamin; former speaker of the Senate and daughter of first President Nazarbayev, Dariga Nazarbayeva; Chief of Staff of President of Kazakhstan, Yerlan Koshanov; Chairman of the Board of the Sovereign Wealth Fund, Samruk-Kazyna Akhmetzhan Yesimov; and Majilis Chairman Nurlan Nigmatulin — all heavy weights of the ruling party.
What is interesting and noteworthy is that Dariga Nazarbayeva has also been included in the list at a prominent position. This will provide her an opportunity to rehabilitate herself in the political landscape of Kazakhstan. It would be recalled that Nazarbayeva had replaced Tokayev as President of the Senate when he took over as the interim President of the country after Nazarbayev suddenly tendered his resignation on March 20, 2019.
She was then seen to have been positioned by Nazarbayev, her father, to be next in succession to Tokayev when he would relinquish the office of the President in the coming years. This assessment however received a rude shock when she was removed, without a comment or explanation, from the position of President of the Senate by Tokayev in May 2020 and also lost her parliament seat.
This development led to several speculations by analysts and observers. Some opined that it was done by Tokayev to exercise his full control and authority during the time of the pandemic and curb Nazarbayeva’s political ambitions. It was also suggested that she might have considered it prudent to be at least officially one step removed from power as Kazakhstan faced down the coronavirus pandemic. There were also a few scandals linked to Nazarbayeva reported in the press at that time, which could also have contributed to this outcome.
Nazarbayeva’s induction into the new Majilis will provide her with the possibility to establish and enhance her authority and influence in the evolving political matrix of the country.
Recent events in the political spectrum in the country would appear to suggest that rivalries among the elites of Kazakhstan have got sharper after Nazarbayev demitted office in March 2019. While not as dramatic as the events in Kyrgyzstan or Belarus, these rivalries have intensified dramatically over the last 22 months since the transition of power from Nazarbayev to Tokayev.
In a new development, elite groups started using international journalists and publications to pass compromising material, kompromat, on one another. In the past few months, there have been major exposes in the Financial Times, Wall Street Journal, and London Times on Dariga Nazarbayeva; Taimur Kulibayev, Nazarbayev’s son-in-law; and Bulat Utemuratov, a major Nazarbayev confidant, financier and mining magnate.
The parliament (Majilis and Senate) whose powers were significantly enhanced at the expense of the presidency by Nazarbayev before demitting office in March 2019, could hence play a much more significant role in determining the evolving balance of power and influence between the different political elites of the country.
Conclusion
Since its independence in 1991, political stability, security, and economic growth have been of paramount importance to the Kazakh leadership. The country’s leadership has paid lip-service to the goal of promoting democracy in the country.
It has been insisting that free and transparent elections, freedom of media and expression, freedom to organise political protests and demonstrations will be made available only in due course after stability and development are assured.
As Nazarbayev has often said, ‘’Democracy is a long-term goal but stability could be at risk if change is too swift.’’ So although Tokayev has promised that he will introduce a government that listens to the people, he is moving on the path laid down by Nazarbayev.
The January 10 elections were the eighth parliamentary election in Kazakhstan’s history since its independence in 1991, and the first under Tokayev’s presidency. In remarks delivered after election results became clear, first President Nursultan Nazarbayev highlighted unity and continuity and stated that “Kazakhstanis associate the further development of the country with our party.” He concluded that “Unity is our strength.”
Kazakhstan is making slow but steady progress towards further democratisation and openness of its political system, even as jostling by elites to secure their positions ahead of the ultimate exit of Nazarbayev from the political scene is set to grow.
Views expressed are of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the Manohar Parrikar IDSA or of the Government of India.
Even as the Al-Ula summit has set a positive tone for the restoration of unity in the GCC, a high level of commitment is required by all parties to bridge the trust deficit.
A day before the 41st annual summit of the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC), held at Al-Ula in Saudi Arabia, the Kuwaiti Foreign Minister, Ahmad Nasser Mohammed Al Sabah, announced on January 4, 2021 that Saudi Arabia and Qatar had agreed to resume full diplomatic relations and open their air space, land and sea borders. Along with Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Bahrain and Egypt also decided to end their boycott of Qatar, imposed in June 2017.
In the Al-Ula Declaration, the GCC pledged to restore collaboration among the member countries, strengthen military integration to face emerging challenges, cooperate on health issues and further integrate their economies. The GCC also agreed to implement King Salman’s proposal at the 36th Summit in 2015 calling for joint defence and security systems and a unified foreign policy for all the members.1
Differences among the member states over a common approach on foreign and security policies, in fact, had triggered the Qatar crisis. When the three GCC member states — Saudi Arabia, UAE and Bahrain (along with Egypt) in June 2017 announced the boycott of diplomatic and commercial ties, they required Qatar it to abide by as many as 13 conditions, for ties to be restored.
These included the scaling down of its relationship with Iran, the shutting down of a Turkish military base on its territory, withdrawing alleged support to terrorist groups and aligning its political, military, economic and social policies with the other GCC countries. Egypt, Saudi Arabia and the UAE were particularly concerned with the activities of the Muslim Brotherhood in their respective countries and Qatari support to the organisation.
Qatar did not agree to these 13 demands and insisted that the boycott was a violation of international law and its sovereignty. Instead of downgrading its ties with Iran and Turkey, Qatar came closer to these two countries in the aftermath of the boycott. Qatar’s support for the Muslim Brotherhood also continued.
The UAE Minister of State for Foreign Affairs, Anwar Gargash, in the aftermath of the Al-Ula summit, insisted that the demands placed on Qatar were ‘maximalist’ negotiating positions.2 Qatari Foreign Minister, Mohammed bin Abdulrahman Al Thani’s statement that all the countries agreed on ‘basic principles to overcome the current differences’ indicates that the member states have decided to leave behind the acrimonious past, in the larger interests of the organisation’s unity and regional stability.3
Regional geo-political context
Saudi Crown Prince, Mohammed bin Salman, in his address to the Al-Ula summit, emphasised on unity and solidarity among the member states to face common challenges. He charged Iran with playing a destabilising role in the region, highlighting its alleged support to terrorist proxies, its regional sectarian agenda and the nuclear programme.4
The reconciliation among the GCC countries comes in the backdrop of heightened US-Iran tensions in the Gulf. Iranian nuclear scientist Mohsen Farkhrizadeh was assassinated in November 2020. There have been sabotage attacks on nuclear, industrial and petrochemical sites in Iran in the recent past.
The Al-Ula summit was also held in the aftermath of Israel’s normalisation agreements, the ‘Abraham Accords’, with the UAE and Bahrain. These accords pave the way for the strengthening of the relationship between Israel and critical Gulf States, neighbouring Iran.
Riyadh and Tehran continue to be at the opposing ends of regional flashpoints. The Yemeni government, for instance, is backed by Saudi Arabia while the Houthi rebels are backed by Iran. The Bashar Al Assad regime in Syria is supported by Iran, while the opposition coalition is supported by Saudi Arabia. Tensions between these two big regional players have also increased in the waters of the Persian Gulf and the Gulf of Oman.
For the GCC, therefore, given the above geo-political context, bringing Qatar back into its fold was important to more effectively put up a common front against Iran’s regional policies.
Implications for Qatar’s regional policies
Qatar’s robust relationships with Iran and Turkey, and its approach towards the Muslim Brotherhood, will continue to be keenly watched by Saudi Arabia, UAE, Bahrain and Egypt.
During the period of its isolation, Qatar developed strong political, economic and security ties with Iran. High-level political interaction took place between the two countries, with Iranian Foreign Minister Javad Zarif visiting Doha in October 2017, and Qatari Emir, Sheikh Tamim, visiting Tehran in January 2020.
Even as Qatar gets reconciled with the GCC, it will be difficult for it to snap all its ties with Iran. Both countries share the South Pars (known as Northern Dome in Qatar) gas field. Iran and Qatar had also signed an agreement in April 2018 for joint patrols in the Gulf.
Similarly, Qatar’s relationship with Turkey was strengthened in the aftermath of the boycott. Turkish President Erdogan visited Qatar twice, in July 2017 and in July 2020, while Sheikh Tamim visited Turkey in September 2017.
A day after the boycott was announced in June 2017, the Turkish parliament fast-tracked and ratified two agreements relating to the deployment of troops in Qatar and the training of Qatari forces. The agreement relating to the latter was signed earlier in April 2016. Turkey has since established a military base in Qatar.
Further, in November 2017, Turkey, Iran and Qatar signed a tripartite trade and transport agreement which facilitates transfer of goods from Turkey to Qatar via Iran.
Turkey, along with Qatar, are alleged to have strong ties with the Muslim Brotherhood, including providing funding and shelter to the Muslim Brotherhood leaders. This continues to be a key concern for Saudi Arabia, UAE and Egypt, who have banned and labelled the Muslim Brotherhood as a terrorist group.
Conclusion
For Qatar, reconciliation without any conditions attached, was the most satisfactory and honourable way to have come out of the crisis. Even as the Al-Ula summit has set a positive tone for the restoration of unity in the GCC, a high level of commitment is required by all parties to bridge the trust deficit and overcome issues of mutual concern.
Views expressed are of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the Manohar Parrikar IDSA or of the Government of India.
While Imran Khan’s efforts to build legitimacy around his ‘personality’ as a religious person and a crusader against corruption do not seem to have convinced many people, his government’s inability to bring the much-promised tabdeeli (‘change’) to Pakistan is beginning to hurt him politically.
Pakistan is once again witnessing confrontational politics between the government and the opposition, with editorials slamming the ‘slowing down’ of democracy.1Academic-activist, Noam Chomsky, speaking at the Karachi-based Habib University’s flagship Yohsin Lecture Series on December 7, 2020, warned that democracy in Pakistan was in decline and the country had “no future if it is going to live in a world of religious superstition”.2
Instead of addressing the substantive issues being raised by the opposition, Pakistan Prime Minister Imran Khan is laying much stress on his religiosity and image as a crusader against the corrupt elite, who, in his view, are solely responsible for the country’s problems. Khan, it seems, is dabbling in the art of personalised politics, which turns the focus “from topics to people and from parties to politicians”.3
The art of personalised politics
Imran Khan has been able to mobilise people – especially the youth – around the narrative that all other politicians were corrupt, incompetent and self-serving, while he was a crusader against corruption and wished to build a ‘Naya Pakistan’.
Khan’s Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) party urged “voters to decide in favour of the party leader” instead of drawing attention to his stand on various issues.4 He has further invoked religion to run down other parties and political personalities by calling them supporters of heretics, hypocrites (munafiqins) and disrespectful of the Prophet.5 The strategy paid off with PTI emerging as the single largest party in the July 2018 elections to the National Assembly.
Two days prior to Chomsky’s lecture in Karachi, Khan gave an interview to actor Hamza Abbasi, which was mostly about his personal experiences and views on various issues. Khan emphasized his love for his own faith and the attendant values in his own society. He further underlined his (bad) experiences in the West, and added that Pakistan’s advantage was “our belief in God and the hereafter.”6
If the conservative rhetoric cited above is any indicator, Khan is trying to convey to his countrymen that the only reason they should trust him is because he is a ‘born-again’ Muslim and that he is trying ‘faithfully’ to deliver on his electoral promises. Khan, it seems, is taking refuge in religiosity, instead of addressing the issues confronting Pakistan by openly debating them democratically with his rivals.
The Pakistan prime minister keeps reiterating his promise to transform the country into a Riysat-e-Madina, a corruption free Islamic welfare state.7 However, he has not taken any action against his own party members or government ministers accused or found guilty of corruption.8
Apart from the rhetoric, he has also carefully cultivated his image as a pious believer. This is quite visible in the manner of his dress — long coats (sherwani), monochromatic tunics (kameez), white trousers (shalwars), and a waistcoat, apart from holding a string of beads (tasbih). Such tactics, however, are unlikely to resolve the myriad issues that plague the country.
Gap between rhetoric and action
At a public rally on July 30, 2017 to celebrate the ouster of then Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif on corruption charges, Imran Khan had called for “real democracy” in Pakistan.9 After being in power for two and half years, the contradictions in Khan’s statements and behavior stand out.
Contrary to the political morality that characterises democracy, he has even refused to meet opposition leaders and has not shown any interest to engage with them over the complex issues confronting the country. The opposition parties on their part also do not recognise the Pakistani premier as a legitimate winner of the July 2018 elections.
While the media has been gagged, some of his policy decisions, like the proposal to prepone Senate elections before the due dates in March 2021, have been arbitrary.10 The government has also constrained the voices against human rights violations in the country, even as it has been pretty vocal about perceived violations elsewhere (read India).11
Khan has built his image by claiming a moral high ground vis-à-vis other politicians in the country. Back in 2016, in the wake of Sharif’s name surfacing in the Panama papers, Khan had noted that unlike other types of rulers, like military dictators or kings, “democrats rule by moral authority. When you lose that, you can’t rule.”12 However, Khan’s rule, it seems, does not reflect a ‘moral authority’ either.
While the Pakistan premier has blamed wide spread corruption for the country’s ills, the accountability drive seems to be targeted only at the opposition leaders, leading to criticism that Khan was practicing ‘one-sided accountability’.13
The government’s incessant attacks on the opposition leaders are turning out to be counterproductive. The opposition, on its part, accuses him of being a ‘selected’ prime minister. Eleven political parties came together to form the People’s Democratic Movement (PDM) in September 2020, in an attempt to dislodge the premier. The PDM has held eight well-attended rallies so far.
In conclusion
Imran Khan’s rise in Pakistan’s politics was facilitated by people’s frustrations with the mis-governance of the past, and quiet support from the powerful military establishment. His efforts to build legitimacy around his ‘personality’ as a religious person and a crusader against corruption, do not seem to have convinced many people. His government’s inability to bring the much-promised tabdeeli (‘change’) to Pakistan is beginning to hurt him politically. The enthused participation of people in the opposition jalsas (demonstrations) in recent months, implies that the Khan magic is fast withering away.
Views expressed are of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the Manohar Parrikar IDSA or of the Government of India.
It remains to be seen to what extent Turkish President Recep Tayyeb Erdogan’s recent efforts to mend broken regional ties and address concerns over domestic policies will succeed.
If politics is the art of the possible, then Recep Tayyeb Erdogan is one of its most outstanding exponents. In September this year, the Turkish president was outraged by the decision of the UAE and Bahrain to normalise relations with Israel. By early December, however, the so-called neo-Ottoman himself sent a Hebrew-speaking ambassador to Israel to break a two-year diplomatic freeze.
Turkish military interventions in Syria and Iraq, its support for the Muslim Brotherhood and the Khashoggi killing, had cast a long shadow on Saudi-Turkey ties. However, King Salman’s telephone call with Erdogan on November 20, ahead of the G 20 Summit hosted by Riyadh, led to speculation about a thaw in the ties between the two countries. Curiously, Erdogan’s recitation of a politically contentious Azeri poem in Baku, led to a bitter spat with Iran.1
Erdogan has also reached out to the German Chancellor Angela Merkel to greet her ahead of Christmas and pledged to “open a new page in relations with the EU”.2
He has expressed eagerness to settle drilling issues in the Eastern Mediterranean with the EU, even as he complained to Merkel about Greece’s unwillingness to negotiate.
The imposition of the $500 million defence sanctions by the ‘friendly’ outgoing Donald Trump administration over Turkey’s purchase of the Russian S-400 missile defence system, meanwhile, has been a major setback. Reports have even speculated about the possibility of the step leading to the country’s expulsion from NATO.3
Most observers believe that Erdogan’s sudden and multiple foreign policy back flips over the last month or so can be attributed to the victory of Joseph Biden in the recent US presidential elections. It is noteworthy that in a January 2017 interview to New York Times, Biden had called Erdogan “an autocrat” who should “pay a price” for his political excesses.4
Ironically, Erdogan enjoyed the best time of his political career in the ensuing four years of what John Bolton called a Trump-Erdogan “bromance”. During this time, Erdogan carried out an assertive foreign policy across various theatres — in Syria, Libya and Azerbaijan. In fact, Biden, during the 2020 campaign trail, included Erdogan as among the “thugs of the world” that Trump embraces .5
Unlike others in the pack, Erdogan, as noted above, has made major foreign policy changes following Biden’s win in the US elections.
Erdogan’s domestic challenges
The Turkish strongman has also undertaken a series of measures domestically to address human rights and economic concerns. A Human Rights Action Plan was launched on December 9 to ostensibly redress international concerns over his regime’s imprisonment of tens of thousands of Turkish civilians, including prominent politicians and civil society members.6
Rights groups deem the measure an eyewash, as the president refuses to accept calls for the release of even noted politicians like Selahattin Demirtas and philanthropist Osman Kavala.7 It has also been pointed out that the talk of human rights reform is merely a façade, as security agencies recently detained over 500 people for criticizing the government’s mishandling of the COVID pandemic on social media.
Erdogan complemented the announcement of the human rights action plan with the sacking of his son-in-law, Baerat AlBayrak, from the office of Minister of Treasury and Finance (in the wake of a major financial crisis). With the lira sinking to an unprecedented 8 to the dollar (falling to a third of its value since last year) and with inflation officially shooting up to the 14 percent mark, Moody’s has downgraded Turkey’s debt rating to junk status amidst fears of a balance-of-payments crisis. To arrest the plummet, Erdogan installed a new Central Bank director who quickly raised rates and announced a wave of economic reforms.
The Turkish president is, therefore, re-engaging with the West — whom he and his supporters have been vilifying for years — in order to salvage a tanking economy and a highly restive, unemployed youth. In fact, the ruling AKP has been facing a large number of defections, and the party lost two of its largest cities in local elections last year, in Istanbul and Ankara. Recent opinion polls show that support for the AKP has fallen below 30 percent for the first time since its formation in 2001.8
Along with the growing economic problems, respondents cited an unmanageable COVID crisis as one of the main reasons for the grim approval ratings. After having suppressed the number of COVID cases for a long time by announcing only symptomatic cases, the government released the real figures that catapulted Turkey to the status of one of the countries with the largest number of infected citizens, with around 30,000 daily reported cases in early December.9 The Turkish Medical Association believes that the declared numbers are still substantially lower than the actual cases. The government re-imposed curfews and lockdowns until the New Year holidays.
Irritants in Turkey-Russia ties
The Turkish leader’s volte face is so stark, it even risks undermining relations with its new ally — Russia. Ankara, for instance, supports Kyiv over the issue of Crimea and has maintained that Russia should return the peninsula to Ukraine.10
Although Turkey has always sought to counterbalance Russian supremacy in the Black Sea, the recent visit of Ukrainian foreign minister to Ankara, which gave rise to rumours in the media that Turkey was planning to sell 48 of its Bayraktar TB2 drones to Ukraine11, might be a step too far. Having proven their mettle in the Armenia-Azerbaijan war, Turkey’s possible support to Ukraine with such sophisticated drones has the potential to roil Moscow-Ankara relations.
In recent months, Russia has supported Turkey on many fronts and even brokered an Azerbaijani victory against its own ally Armenia for the sake of its friendship with Turkey. Moscow has also been seen as sacrificing its interests in other theatres in favour of Ankara, such as in Syria and Libya. Without directly confronting Turkey, Russia is currently pleading with Kurdish People’s Protection Units (YPG) in Syria to cede control of Ain Issa town to Assad forces, in order to avert a Turkish assault on the area.12 However, there is a limit to which Russia could put up with Turkey’s errant ways, especially if tensions break out with Ukraine over Crimea.
Whither Erdogan’s support for ‘Islamist’ causes?
For many years, Erdogan had projected an image of being a wily, yet capable leader who could keep his country under an iron grip, while keeping the semblance of a democratic head of state. In the post-Saddam era, the Turkish leader had even emerged as a strongman for the Sunni world — particularly for votaries of Muslim Brotherhood — one who spoke about Islamist issues like Palestine and Kashmir unequivocally on the global stage.
However, the new image of an Erdogan fawning for support of the West would come as a major letdown even for his most ardent supporters in the wider Muslim world. The charm offensive by a leader who changed Hagia Sophia into a mosque this year may not convince many Western leaders against the Turkish president’s radical ways imminently. Erdogan stands precariously atop the two proverbial stools and some experts have even started counting down his days in politics.
When Saudi Arabia had poured cold water on Imran Khan’s plans to hold a special session of the OIC on the non-issue of Kashmir, the Pakistan premier had found support from Erdogan and Malaysia’s Mahathir Mohammed in raking up the matter on the international stage.
With Erdogan now normalising ties with Israel and responding to the Saudi King’s outreach, the chances of him supporting so-called Islamist issues like Kashmir with erstwhile gumption, giving it greater prominence than the Palestinian cause in the Muslim world, appears less likely. Perhaps, Erdogan’s policy stance on Kashmir may go the Malaysian way, which effortlessly changed tack once Mahathir left the political scene.
Erdogan’s recent foreign policy moves suggest that the world might be a different place once Biden comes to power.
Views expressed are of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the Manohar Parrikar IDSA or of the Government of India.
India and Bangladesh fought together “in the defence of human liberty”, in the words of Sheikh Mujib ur Rahman, to liberate Bangladesh, fifty momentous years ago.
December 16, 2020 marks the 50th Vijay Diwas or Victory Day, when the Pakistan Army surrendered to the India-Bangladesh Joint Command, known as Mitra Bahini (Allied Forces). More than 90,000 civilians and soldiers were taken as prisoners of war (PoW). Bangladesh is also celebrating the birth centenary of its founding leader, Sheikh Mujib ur Rahman, in 2020-21.
East-West Divergences
Bangladesh’s struggle against Pakistan started soon after its creation. The Bengalis rejected the imposition of Urdu as the national language of the newly emerged country – a language spoken by less than two per cent of its population, mainly migrants from Bihar and Uttar Pradesh. Those who argued in favour of Urdu insisted that it was an Islamic language appropriate for the Muslims. However, the Bengalis had a genuine demand – the recognition of their language spoken by the majority constituting 54 per cent of population.1
While the language demand was accommodated in the 1956 constitution (which was, however, abrogated after the military takeover in 1958), the East Pakistanis had differences over the official name of the country, namely, the Islamic Republic of Pakistan. They argued that given that the separate state for Muslims has been established, it was not necessary that it has to be called ‘Islamic’.2 Also, many Muslim countries in the world did not affix ‘Islamic’ to their formal names. Another major area of difference was regarding separate electorates for the minorities which was not acceptable to the leaders representing East Pakistan in the Constituent Assembly.3 These differences demonstrated explicitly that the aspirations of the two wings of Pakistan were different.
Bengalis were also underrepresented in the Pakistan Army and the civil services. They continued to remain under-developed in spite of contributing substantially to the national exchequer, primarily through the export earnings from jute. The differences were stark. For instance, by 1969-70, the per capita income in the West was 61 per cent higher than in the East .4
Despite all these grievances, the Bengalis participated in the 1970 elections, the first election based on universal adult franchise. Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujib ur Rahman and his party, the Awami league, emerged victorious, based on a six-point program — referred to as ‘Charter of Freedom’ — which embodied Bengali political aspirations. The mandate was not respected by the Pakistan military regime in conjunction with Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, whose party, the Pakistan Peoples’ Party (PPP), had swept the elections in the Western Wing. The PPP got 81 seats out of 138, while the Awami League won 160 seats in the Eastern Wing, out of 162 it contested.
After the failure of negotiations with the military regime of Yahya Khan to transfer power to the elected leader, Mujib on March 7, 1971 gave the famous speech exhorting the Bengalis to struggle for their ‘liberation’ and ‘independence’. The military launched a savage crackdown, ‘Operation Search light’, on March 25, targeting unarmed civilians, teachers and students of the Dhaka University campus. Foreign journalists reporting the Army brutality in the university campus were bundled to the Hotel Intercontinental next to the University and asked to leave the country immediately. As Hasan Zaheer, a civil servant posted in Dhaka writes, “it was an awkward time to allow foreigners to observe and report it to the outside world.” 5 On the same night, Bangladesh declared its independence.
The Refugees Challenge
As the Pakistani Army unleashed greater amounts of force to resolve the ‘East Pakistan Crisis’, refugees started trickling in to India. By August 10, 1971, over 75 lakh refugees from East Pakistan had crossed over to India. The influx of refugees at one point was at the rate of 45,000-60,000 persons per day. An overwhelming number of the refugees were Hindus. The brutality on the Hindu minorities was palpable, as they were singled out in the initial stages, along with Awami League workers. Prime Minister Indira Gandhi stated in Parliament that the refugees were ‘victims of war’ who belonged to all communities.6
India did not formally recognise the ‘provisional’ government formed by the elected leaders of the Awami League on April 10, 1971 in Baddayanathtala, a village in Meherpur, Khustia. It did, however, extend support to their endeavours, including funding their trips to convince foreign governments of their struggle and the brutality of the Pakistani military operation. It was felt that giving recognition to the Bangladesh government in exile in the early days of the liberation struggle would fan Pakistan’s propaganda against India.
There was immense pressure from the parliamentarians, especially from Tripura and West Bengal, two states which bore the burden of hosting the refugees. There were 277 camps for refugees set up in Tripura, for instance. Some members of the Lok Sabha, including from the ruling party, demonstrated against the government for not recognizing Bangladesh and were arrested under Section 188 of the Indian Penal Code.7 PM Gandhi pointed out that “what was claimed to be an internal problem of Pakistan, has also become an internal problem of India….”8
Pakistan’s attempt to project the liberation struggle of Bengalis as another bilateral India-Pakistan problem was rejected. The Deputy Minister of External Affairs, Shri Surendra Pal Singh, replying to a question in the Lok Sabha on November 25, 1971, affirmed that a dialogue between India and Pakistan on the Bangladesh issue was “wholly irrelevant and is obviously an attempt to make it appear to be an Indo Pakistan dispute, which it is not.”9
India made enormous efforts to see that the refugees were sheltered and supported. While the government received foreign assistance to the tune of Rs. 50 to 55 crore by November 1971, a supplementary grant of Rs. 200 crores was earmarked up to the end of December 1971. The government informed the parliament that additional resources were being mobilised through “fresh taxation and also by effecting economy both in Plan and non-Plan expenditure.”10
The central government’s non-Plan expenditure, for instance, was reduced by 5 per cent. At a conference called by Prime Minister Gandhi in November 1971, chief ministers and governors agreed to take measures to curtail non-essential expenditures in the state budget. The Minister of State in the Ministry of Finance, Shri K.R. Ganesh informed parliament that the government had imposed curbs on filling up of vacant posts, foreign travel, and even use of telephones and staff cars.11 Additionally, all the Members of the Council of Ministers accepted a cut in their respective salaries.12
A tax of 5 per cent was levied on long distance railway fares from November 15, to generate additional revenues.13 Additional surcharges on entertainment tax, sales tax, tax on bus fares, motor vehicles tax, stamp duty on instruments and on the price of lottery tickets, was also levied. Awards were instituted for Sarpanches and Pramukhs of the Gram Panchayat, who secured the highest collection of small savings in their respective blocks, beginning from October 31, 1971.14 The support for the refugees from the common people of India was also overwhelming, with even women donating jewellery.
Even as India took enormous steps to deal with the challenges posed by the refugees, the silence of the world community, especially the United States, was deafening. The US, for instance, continued with supplying arms to Pakistan. The atrocities committed by the Pakistan Army in East Pakistan was viewed as an internal matter of Pakistan. At the United Nations, in a resolution passed on December 7, over 100 nations voted to stop the war between India and Pakistan.15 India only won backing from the Soviet Union, a few countries in the Soviet camp, apart from neighbouring Bhutan.16
As K. Subrahmanyam and Mohammad Ayoob note, an overwhelming number of nations which voted to stop the India Pakistan war and the liberation of Bangladesh, on the basis of ‘peace at any price’, had populations significantly less than the number of refugees who fled from the country.17 Bass states that the voting in the UN General Assembly reflected “worldwide repudiation of India’s case for liberating Bangladesh”.18
The Aftermath
Three million Bengalis lost their lives and more than 200,000 women were raped. Intellectuals who could have played a significant role in guiding and shaping the politics of the liberated country were butchered on December 14, just before the surrender of the Pakistan Army. More than 2,000 Indian soldiers laid down their lives. There was large scale destruction of property in the loot and plunder unleased by the Pakistan Army.
After Mujib was released from the jail by Bhutto, he was sent to London in a PIA aircraft. From there, he travelled to his liberated country via Delhi. In a brief stopover at Delhi, Mujib, stated that he came “to pay personal tribute to the best friends of my people, the people of India” for working tirelessly in “this journey from darkness to light; from captivity to freedom; from desolation to hope.”19 While visiting Calcutta during his first state visit to India in February 1972, soon after taking over as the Prime Minister of Bangladesh, Rahman pointed out that India and Bangladesh “fought together in defence of human liberty”20
To a large extent, Bangladesh has closed one of the painful chapters in its history by addressing the long pending issue of trial of war criminals who collaborated with the Pakistan Army. India and Bangladesh meanwhile have crossed many hurdles in the past 50 years. The land boundary has been demarcated and ratified, while the maritime boundary has been settled. A Joint Consultative Committee at the level of Foreign Minister constantly reviews the strength of the bilateral ties.
Both countries are making efforts to re-establish the connectivity that existed between them prior to the 1947 partition, ease trade barriers and ensure no loss of lives at the border – an issue that has emerged as a major irritant in the bilateral relations. Not only a spirit of partnership but a spirit of liberation continues to guide the India-Bangladesh bilateral relations, aptly described by Prime Minister Narendra Modi on March 18, 2020, in his video message to the people of Bangladesh to mark the birth centenary celebrations of Sheikh Mujib ur Rahman, as Shonali Adhaya (‘Golden Chapter’).21
Views expressed are of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the Manohar Parrikar IDSA or of the Government of India.
Disagreements on cabinet positions continue to hamper the formation of a new Lebanese government, even as the country is going through socio-economic turmoil, compounded by the pandemic and the Beirut port blast.
The political uncertainty in Lebanon that began with the resignation of Prime Minister Saad Hariri on October 29, 2019, in response to massive anti-government protests, has not been resolved as yet. The country has witnessed the resignations of two more prime ministers since then. Hariri was again nominated as the prime minister in October 2020, but he has not been able to form a cabinet so far. Public protests, meanwhile, due to the difficult socio-political and economic conditions, were regularly held throughout 2020, despite the lockdowns due to the Covid-19 pandemic.
The massive blast at the Beirut port on August 4, 2020, which took the lives of nearly 200 people, further added to the societal misery of the Lebanese people.1 The physical destruction at the main port and the loss of lives compounded the country’s economic woes.2 The GDP, for instance, fell from $84.29 billion to $74.63 billion, while unemployment increased from 6.23 percent to 6.28 percent, during 2019-2020.3 Construction, services, tourism, food services, among other sectors, have been severely affected, due to the economic downturn, compounded by the pandemic.4
Increased public pressure after the port blast and the government’s inability to effectively deal with the issue of long-standing bane of corruption, forced the resignation of Prime Minister Hassan Diab (an independent candidate backed by the Christian and Shiite parties), who took over as the PM from Hariri.5 Due to the prevailing uncertainties, there was an increase in mass emigration after the blast. According to reports, the number of Lebanese “leaving the country on a daily basis increased from 3,100 before the day of the blast, to 4,100 people after the incident.”6
The severity of the political and economic crises facing Lebanon forced its former colonial master, France, to come to its aid. President Emmanuel Macron paid a visit in the aftermath of the blast and told the political leadership that no financial aid would be given to the country unless they execute reforms and end widespread corruption7 An international conference was organised on August 9, 2020, during which nearly $300 million in aid was promised.8
In his second visit on September 1, Macron put forward a blueprint for political reforms, calling for a “new political chapter” in Lebanon. The main elements of the blueprint included an audit of the Central Bank of Lebanon, formation of an independent ‘technocrat’ cabinet and the holding of elections under a new election law, within a year.9
After Diab’s resignation, Mustafa Adib, a former ambassador to Germany, was appointed as the prime minister by President Michel Aoun. Adib previously served as an advisor to former Prime Minister Najib Mikati (from 2000 to 2004) and was an independent candidate. Unfortunately, Adib also had to resign on September 26, 2020 due to the political impasse encountered while trying to form the new cabinet. This failed mainly on account of the Hezbollah and the Amal – two key Shitte political parties, insisting on controlling the Finance Ministry portfolio. To the seasoned observers of Lebanese politics, such unfavourable outcomes were expected.
Roadblocks to resolving political deadlock
Surprisingly, amidst this political uncertainty, Hariri was designated as prime minister by President Aoun on October 22, 2020. However, Hariri is still unable to form the government, due to disagreements over portfolio allocations, and the political stalemate continues.
The following table indicates the strength of each political party in the Lebanese parliament.
S. No.
Political Party
Number of Seats
S. No
Political Party
Number of Seats
1
Free Patriotic Movement (FPM) (Christian)
23
11
Independent
11
2
Amal (Shia)
16
12
Future Movement
21
3
Hezbollah (Shia)
13
13
Lebanese Force
15
4
Marada (Maronite Christian)
3
14
Progressive Socialist Party (Druze)
9
5
Tashnag
3
15
Azm Movement
2
6
Arab Liberation Party
1
16
Syrian Social National Party
3
7
Ba’th Party
1
17
Kataeb
3
8
Al-Ahbash
18
Popular Nasserist Movement
1
9
Lebanese Democratic Party
1
19
National Dialogue Party
1
10
Sabaa
1
Source: National Democratic Institute, p. 38.
The major coalition partners such as the Hezbollah, the Amal and the Free Patriotic Movement (FPM), are unwilling to compromise on their core interests. Hezbollah, a key player in the government formation with 13 seats in the parliament, wants the Finance, Health and the Transport ministries.10 Amal, a Shia sectarian party which is an ally of Hezbollah, with 16 seats, wants to head the Finance Ministry, as it has led it since 2014.
The second major roadblock is the FPM, holding 23 seats in the parliament. FPM has been at odds with Hariri over the portfolios of Energy and Interior Ministries. During Hariri’s premiership previously, FPM was controlling the Defence and the Foreign Ministry, till October 2019. However, FPM is now also laying claims to the Interior Ministry, which was earlier held by a Sunni member of the Saad-Hariri-led Future Movement.11
Hariri does not intend to part with the Interior ministry but if he did so, that would be in exchange for the Foreign Ministry.12 The Energy Ministry is also a bone of contention between the two, with President Aoun’s party claiming exclusive rights over this ministry, stemming from the FPM’s hold over it since 2009.13 Hariri further fears sanctions by the US, in case the portfolio of public works is allotted to Hezbollah, as demanded by them.
Hezbollah’s role as a cog in the wheel of the country’s politics is evident in the number of seats it holds in the parliament (13). It has made effective use of its outreach programmes to conclusively garner support of the Shia population. However, its involvement in corrupt practises, heavy handedness against peaceful protestors, to name a few, has led to people gathering in towns and cities and calling Hezbollah, the main opposition party, a “gang of thieves and criminals” and a “mafia”.14
The US meanwhile in September 2020 levied sanctions on former Lebanese government officials such as Yusuf Finyanus (who was a Minister of Public Works and Transport from 2016-20) and Ali Hassan Khalil (who was finance minister from 2014-20) for providing material resources to Hezbollah.15 The Hezbollah, however, is a political entity that cannot be sidestepped in any government-formation or state-building efforts, due to its powerful militia and the wide regional support it enjoys from Syria to Iran.
Conclusion
Lebanon is going through a difficult time due to the port blast, the pandemic and the unending political deadlock. Another international aid conference was organised by the United Nations (UN) and France on December 2, 2020, attended by 32 countries, 12 international organisations and seven Lebanese civil society groups. The participants reiterated their commitment to provide humanitarian assistance to Lebanon and mobilise resources for the vulnerable groups. UN Secretary-General António Guterres launched the ‘Reform, Recovery and Reconstruction Framework’ (3RF), prepared jointly by the World Bank, the European Union and the UN. The main objective of the framework is the reconstruction of the Beirut port and the socio-economic recovery of the impacted areas and affected communities.16 While the government formation has still not fructified as yet, Hariri submitted a list of 18 names to President Aoun on December 9, 2020. Going forward, it remains to be seen the extent to which the Lebanese political elite can implement the political and economic reforms suggested by key external actors like France.
Views expressed are of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the Manohar Parrikar IDSA or of the Government of India.
Executing extra-territorial targeted killings to eliminate inimical people bent on wrecking death and destruction on Indian nationals and interests is an option India may explore more vigorously, within the confines of international law.
On November 27, 2020, Mohsen Fakhrizadeh, a Brigadier in the elite Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) and a nuclear scientist who was heading the Iranian Research and Innovation Organisation, was killed through a remotely operated machine gun from a self-destructing truck. His death follows the killing of the charismatic and popular head of the IRGC, Gen. Qassem Soleimani, by a drone strike outside the Baghdad airport earlier in the year.
The elimination of such a high value target did not quite elicit a major retaliation by Iran.1 Iran insisted that despite repeated provocations, its restraint should not be seen as a sign of weakness. It does, however, beg the question whether their policy of ‘strategic patience’ was a sign of demoralisation, given the ease with which such high-profile targets were eliminated.2
Historical context
Targeted killing involves the intentional and deliberate use of lethal force, with a degree of pre-meditation, acting under authority of domestic law, against an individual or individuals who are not in the physical custody of the perpetrator.3 These acts are committed by governments and their agents in times of peace as well as during armed conflict. The methods used to kill from stand-off ranges include snipers, missiles, gunships, drones, car bombs, or even poison in closer proximity. Even if complex operational planning is required to eliminate targets, there are increasingly fewer risks to the human assets of the targeting state.
One of the most famous cases of targeted killing remains the operation apparently authorised by the then Israeli Prime Minister, Golda Meir, following the massacre of Israeli Olympic athletes in Munich in 1972. It is reported that nine out of the 11 members of the Palestinian group, Black September, who were apparently involved in the massacre, were killed by Israeli agents. The term gained further prominence after Israel made public its policy of ‘targeted killings’ in the Supreme Court, following a lawsuit against its policies in the Palestinian territories.4
The US Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) was engaged in efforts to assassinate several high value targets like Che Guevara, as well as Patrice Lumumba of the Congo and Fidel Castro.5 US President Gerald Ford issued an executive order in 1976 prohibiting the assassination, or conspiring to commit assassination, by employees of the US government, including those acting on its behalf. This executive order established a global consensus that targeted killing and assassinations were unacceptable.6
The US policy changed after the September 2001 terror attacks. ‘Predator’ and ‘Reaper’ drones, special operations forces and even civilian contractors, were used to carry out targeted killings in Afghanistan and in places like Yemen. The first ‘sanctioned’ killing was in November 2002, when Qaed Senyan al-Harithi, an al-Qaeda leader responsible for the USS Cole bombing, was hit by a Predator drone in Yemen.7
The legality of ‘targeted killing’
The targeted killing of individuals identified as threats to the security of a nation state are, at best, contentious. Pre-emptive targeted killings have been pursued by nation states as a viable policy option within the framework of the laws governing armed conflict, as a legitimate response to ‘terrorist’ threats and challenges of ‘asymmetric warfare’. The US government, for instance, justified its policy of targeted killings as flowing from right to self-defence, as the country was in an armed conflict with terrorist groups like the al Qaeda.
Whether or not a specific targeted killing is legal depends on the context in which it is conducted. Article 51 of the UN Charter allows states to act in self-defence.8 International humanitarian law (IHL) lets states take necessary steps to protect themselves. As per IHL, targeted killing is lawful when the target is a ‘combatant’ or ‘fighter’ or, if a civilian, only for such time as that person ‘directly participates in hostilities.’9
Given the principle of militarily necessity and proportionality, any anticipated military advantage has to be weighed against the purported harm to civilians. IHL does not permit reprisal or punitive attacks on civilians and will apply regardless of whether the armed conflict is between states (an international armed conflict) or between a state and a non-state armed group (non-international armed conflict), including with alleged terrorists.
Offensive actions such as targeted assassinations raise ethical questions but terrorism is a form of war — and in war, enemies can be attacked. While targeted killing could be considered as an option against terrorism, executed either within that nation state, or across borders, it should be within the ambit of international law.
India’s options
India has not been immune to the targeting of senior scientists working in sensitive positions by inimical forces. If the admissions of former CIA operatives are to be believed, the deaths of Indian scientists, Homi Bhabha (who was killed in a mid-air explosion aboard Air India 101 in 196510) and Vikram Sarabhai (killed at a beach resort in Kovalam in 197111), can be attributed to foreign agents intending to derail the country’s space and nuclear programmes.
Pakistan and China have provided shelter and support to trans-border terrorist activities. Dawood Ibrahim, India’s most wanted, along with designated terrorists like Hafiz Saeed and Masood Azhar, have all found safe haven in Pakistan. China has consistently supported and shielded Pakistan in international forums in this regard as well.12If measures to extradite such individuals and bring them to justice for their misdeeds are not successful, then punitive strikes to take out the targets should be considered.
If India has to execute extra-territorial targeted killings, it should credibly establish that its intelligence inputs are based on a high degree of certainty, with failsafe procedures for confirming the targets. Utmost care should be taken to minimise civilian casualties. In the eventuality of drone attacks and airstrikes, decision makers on the ground should be able to abort or suspend the attack, if it comes to light that the collateral loss of life or property damage is in excess of the original assessment.
It is not as if Indian forces are incapable of executing high profile operations. Unconfirmed rumours have long held that the exploding consignment of mangoes in Pakistani dictator, Gen. Zia ul-Haq’s plane, was delivered by Indian agents.13 More recently, the interception of a high profile West Asian personality in Indian territorial waters, was successfully executed.14
Given the experience of Balakot airstrikes in February 2019 and the subsequent incident of fratricidal shooting down of an IAF helicopter in the fog of war that followed the shooting down of Wg.Cdr. Abhinandan’s MIG -21, the imperatives of maintaining the robustness of information flow in real time, cannot be over emphasised.
The concept of targeted killing to gain military advantage is not alien to Indian statecraft. In the Ramayana, for instance, Rama eliminates Bali to gain a strategic alliance with Sugreeva, in his war with Ravana. Ancient texts like Arthashashtra prescribe elimination of threats before they become tangible. They also prescribe the creation of a cadre of assassins.15
Eliminating inimical people bent on wrecking death and destruction on Indian nationals and interests, before they execute their evil intent, is an option India may explore more vigorously, within the confines of international law.
Views expressed are of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the Manohar Parrikar IDSA or of the Government of India.
In the aftermath of Samuel Paty’s beheading, France is taking measures that seek to reverse the processes through which individuals become ‘terrorists’. If successful, other countries could emulate such policy interventions in their own counter-radicalisation efforts.
Terrorism often hides behind the cover of individual and religious freedoms to attack liberal democracies. It even provokes overreaction from military and security agencies in order to then demonize them as its shadow image. On November 18, 2020, the French government decided to disarm this trite ‘jujitsu politics’ by issuing details of its new set of counterterrorism measures, which would soon be presented as a bill before its parliament.
It is noteworthy that France has been in the eye of a political storm in recent months over its stance on secularism vis-a-vis political Islam. In fact, the country’s body politic has been deeply impacted since 2015 when it was struck by one of the most dreadful terrorist attacks of all times. On January 7 that year, several masked gunmen – later identified as French nationals of Algerian descent – targeted the Paris office of the satirical publication Charlie Hebdo and killed 12 people over the publication of allegedly objectionable cartoons about Prophet Muhammad.
That very afternoon, another gunman shot four people and held a further 16 hostage at a kosher grocery store on the outskirts of Paris. The aftermath has since spewed complex and layered debates about power, colonial history, minority sentiments and free speech in the country.1
Another grievous tragedy struck on November 13, 2015, when ISIS carried out simultaneous attacks in several areas of Paris, in which 130 people were killed and hundreds more were injured. State response to these attacks was swift and decisive. The government declared a state of emergency and the police carried out hundreds of raids across the entirety of France and in Belgium in search of suspects as well as ISIS cells.2 These searches continued till 2016 as several Muslim homes were raided in and around Paris, allegedly without warrant3, in addition to many mosques and Muslim-owned businesses. These terrorist attacks and the subsequent police action gave rise to a growing public perception that Islam was incompatible with French secularism and way of life.
The beheading of Samuel Paty
The situation appeared to have stabilized in France from 2016 till early September 2020, when trials began against the suspected accomplices of terrorists who attacked the Charlie Hebdo. The weekly decided to republish the cartoons to reassert its freedom of expression. Unfortunately, a violent backlash preceded the commencement of the trial, when a 25-year-old Pakistani national, Zaher Hassan Mahmood, stabbed two people near the former offices of Charlie Hebdo in Paris.4 It is reported that Mahmood repeatedly had watched several videos of the founder of Tehreek-e-Labbaik, a group which held a series of demonstrations in Pakistan over the planned republication of the cartoons.
These brutalities peaked with the gruesome killing of a French middle-schoolteacher of history, Samuel Paty, on October 16, 2020, after he had displayed naked cartoons of the Prophet in a class on free speech. At the memorial service held in honour of the deceased teacher at The Sorbonne, President Emmanuel Macron vowed that France “will not give up cartoons”.5 Many French citizens projected huge images of Charlie Hebdo cartoons and the images of Paty onto government buildings in the Occitanie region — Montpellier and Toulouse — as a symbolic tribute to the deceased teacher.
The anti-French furore
Although the French Council of Muslim Faith, the main organisation of the public authorities of Islam in France, along with several of the prominent Muslims and Imams condemned Paty’s murder, Muslims around the world felt outraged over the projection of the Prophet’s caricatures on government buildings and the French President’s support for the cartoons as an assertion of freedom of expression. For instance, Turkish President Recep Erdogan said that the French president had “lost his mind”, which prompted France to recall its ambassador in Ankara.6 Public protests spread to many Muslim countries. Kuwait and Qatar boycotted French goods, ranging from President dairy and Evian mineral water to Peugeot cars and Cartier jewellery.7 Thus, the focus switched from the issue of terrorism to a debate between Islam and liberalism.8
The most fervent opposition to French counter-terrorism measures against radical Islam and terrorism came from Pakistani leaders, who further humiliated themselves by backtracking from their positions under French pressure. After Prime Minister Imran Khan accused President Macron of “attacking Islam”9 by encouraging the display of the Prophet’s cartoons, his government’shuman rights minister, Shireen Mazari, tweeted that Macron was treating Muslims like Nazis treated Jews in World War II. Following a stern condemnation by France’s foreign ministry, she tweeted: “The article I had cited has been corrected by the relevant publication, I have also deleted my tweet on the same.”10
The French concept of secularism gives liberal ideals like freedom of expression greater precedence than religious sensibilities in the public domain. Even prominent Western newspapers published articles capturing the divisions in French society. The Financial Times, for instance, published an article, "Macron's war on 'Islamic separatism' only divides France further”.11 This article, however, was later withdrawn, citing ‘factual errors’. The New York Times published “Macron’s rightward tilt, seen in new laws, sows wider alarm in France”.12 Macron criticized such articles as ‘legitimizing violence’ and insisted that the French model was different from the European model, in that while the latter was multi-culturalist, the French model was ‘universalist’.13
India meanwhile supported France and President Emmanuel Macron unequivocally. The Ministry of External Affairs, in a statement on October 28 strongly deplored the personal attacks on President Macron and condemned the “brutal terrorist attack that took the life of a French teacher in a gruesome manner that has shocked the world. We offer our condolences to his family and the people of France … There is no justification for terrorism for any reason or under any circumstance.”14
Counter-radicalisation measures
In the wake of these controversies, President Macron announced a slew of new counter-radicalisation measures that will be presented in parliament as part of a new bill. Among the measures, the French president asked Muslim leaders of his country to agree to a “charter of republican values”.15 It has been reported that the charter shall state that Islam is a religion and not a political movement, and that it prohibits "foreign interference" (particularly of Islamist groups like the Muslim Brotherhood) in the affairs of the French Muslim community. The French Council of the Muslim Faith has been asked to establish a National Council of Imams, which will reportedly issue Islamic clerics with official accreditation, which could even be withdrawn in case of violations.
Other set of measures to tackle “Islamist separatism”, as President Macron puts it, include:
There are several other provisions in the bill, which might be the subject of debate and possible review in parliament. Macron stated that the proposed new measures were part of a bill aiming to strengthen a 1905 law that established the concept of laïcité (meaning, “freedom of public institutions”) that separated church and state in France. Seen as the backbone of the French secularism, laïcité was established as a core principle of the French constitution that delineates a boundary between religious freedom in one’s private sphere and strict secularism in every element of public life.20
It now seems clear that in its fight against terrorism, France is not just focusing solely on detecting and preventing acts of ‘terrorism’, but is involved in reversing the processes through which individuals become ‘terrorists’. This policy shift opens new avenues for counter-radicalisation intervention, in particular, the mobilisation of new academic, police or legal measures to prevent radicalisation. If successful, it could provide an incentive for other countries to incorporate elements of such French policy interventions in their own counter-radicalisation efforts.
Views expressed are of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the Manohar Parrikar IDSA or of the Government of India.
It is critical to reduce the risks associated with cyber-enabled elections by ensuring end-to-end verifiability, protection of voter database, managing risks to the election infrastructure and curbing the menace of disinformation.
A few hours after the calling of the 2020 US election results from the various states in favour of the challenger, former Vice-president Joseph R. Biden, the incumbent President Donald J. Trump charged that the election was ‘rigged’.1 The US elections were held under tremendous scrutiny, given the widespread apprehension that foreign agencies might try to interfere again through the cyberspace domain, as was alleged to have happened in the 2016 elections.
The US electoral process begins with the primary elections and caucuses to select a potential presidential nominee. The primaries use secret ballots for voting. The voting procedure varies from state to state and some autonomy is granted to the states with respect to the voting rules.2 Each political party selects a presidential nominee and a vice-presidential mate. To win the election, a candidate must receive a majority of electoral votes from an ‘Electoral College’.3 This exclusive and exhaustive US system of election, however, is also not immune from security threats.
Potential security threats include disinformation campaigns, fake news, software hurdles, data breaches, ransomware attacks, ballot tampering, and even attacks on physical infrastructure. These threats can have serious repercussions on the democratic process and have national security implications, especially so if the involvement of a foreign government is established in executing these threats. Due to the ongoing pandemic, the 2020 US elections saw an increased use of online ballot delivery and returns. Cyber-enabled elections are inherently prone to hacks and data manipulation, which can potentially alter the electoral results.
Cyber vulnerabilities during elections
One month prior to the US elections, reports noted that registered Democratic voters had received threatening emails from the White nationalist group, Proud Boys, demanding that the recipients vote for Trump in the upcoming presidential election.4 These emails, according to the Director of National Intelligence, John Ratcliffe and FBI Director, Christopher A. Wray, were actually spoofed emails from Iran. Also, some publicly available voter registration information was obtained by Iran and Russia with the intention to harm Trump’s re-election efforts.5 The 2016 US Presidential elections had similar allegations about Russian hackers spreading misinformation via fake profiles on social media. Such campaigns are designed to intimidate voters and sway their preferences.
Disinformation is defined as the purposeful dissemination of false information intended to mislead or cause harm.6 Digital platforms have increased the vulnerability of the general public to manipulation by such false information. Targeted digital advertising on social media platforms prior to elections is a common form of spreading propaganda and influencing public opinion. According to a Facebook review of ad buys, around 3000 ads, focussed on divisive social and political messages by a number of non-authentic accounts and pages, likely operated out of Russia, were bought from June 2015 to September 2017.7
Fake news is a term related to disinformation but distinct from it. It refers to misleading content on social media that can range from false information about the chosen candidates of political parties to feeding marginalised populations with false or partially true information.8 It can also be intended to create confusion. For instance, it could include spreading false registration deadlines or election messages in order to disrupt the smooth functioning of the electoral process.9 In order to curb the menace of fake news, there needs to be a certain level of awareness among people to get voting information only from verified election offices.
Software like Democracy Live’s OmniBallot, online voting app Voatz, etc. provide electronic ballot solutions. These software have been used in a number of elections, especially by the US military, differently-abled citizens and overseas citizens.10 OmniBallot is used for online voting by at least three states in the US — West Virginia, Delaware and New Jersey. Other states like Utah and Colorado have conducted pilots of the online voting app, Voatz.
Researchers from MIT and University of Michigan have flagged the possible cyber threats and flaws in the OmniBallot system. OmniBallot's electronic ballot return (online voting) function, for instance, cannot achieve software independence or end-to-end verifiability, the two key goals for secure Internet voting.11 End-to-end verifiability (E2E) is a technique that scientists have been working on for several years to ensure secure remote voting. Researchers had reverse-engineered the OmniBallot app and stated that OmniBallot makes use of third party software and services like AngularJS, FingerprintJS, Google Analytics, reCAPTCHA and Democracy Live and is vulnerable to vote manipulation.
Apart from software hurdles, the online voter registration systems are vulnerable to cyberattacks from hackers, including nation-state actors, to gain access to voter registration database. The US Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) election infrastructure cyber risk assessment report therefore had recommended measures like same-day registration and provisional ballots to reduce the impact of integrity attacks to voter registration databases. Same-day registration, however, also utilizes network connected technology such as electronic poll books, which again are vulnerable to cyber risks.12
Trump’s allegations on election irregularities
Trump has repeatedly claimed that cyber frauds have occurred in the 2020 US elections, although there is no evidence for the same. He has alleged that the Democrats have ‘stolen’ the elections from him, which he was ‘easily winning’. 13 The Trump campaign has filed lawsuits in Georgia, Nevada and Pennsylvania, alleging that the ‘mail-in ballots’ were ‘improper’. Trump even fired the Director of CISA, Christopher Krebs, accusing him of issuing a “highly inaccurate” statement when Krebs refuted claims about election fraud. Most recently, the lawsuit in Nevada was denied while that in Georgia was dismissed by the court due to lack of substantial evidence. 14
According to CISA, 2020 US elections had security measures like pre-election testing, state certification of voting equipment, software checks, logic and accuracy tests, multiple audits of the voting software, including a post-election logic and accuracy test of the voting system, to ensure accuracy and reliability.15 The CISA also offered a suite of free, voluntary services to election officials to minimize cyber risks. These included a Phishing Campaign Assessment, Vulnerability Scanning and Remote Penetration Testing to identify and mitigate vulnerabilities in election systems.16 In a joint statement, the Election Infrastructure Government Coordinating Council and the Election Infrastructure Coordinating Executive Committees, have certified the November 3, 2020 US elections as the most secure in American history.17
Conclusion
Cyber-enabled elections are definitely prudent and efficient as they reduce manual efforts by speeding up the counting of ballots, reduce the cost of elections, and can provide increased voter participation. But there are risks associated with such processes. The onus lies on the election officials to put in place safe, secure, transparent and efficient systems. Use of high-end technologies, ensuring end-to-end verifiability, protection of voter database, managing risks to the election infrastructure and curbing the menace of disinformation are important goals in building confidence and trust in the e-electoral system.
Views expressed are of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the Manohar Parrikar IDSA or of the Government of India.
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