Parallel Civil Society Forum Seeks Dialogue, Partnership But Questions Regimes' Legitimacy
Prior to the Forum for the Future, Arab civil society groups organized a parallel forum, also in Rabat, through which they promoted three imperatives for reform in the region: a freedom imperative, entailing the release of prisoners of conscience and their rehabilitation as leaders of opinion; a democratic imperative for peaceful, non-violent change (they propose an elections observatory and an international task force for ensuring free and fair elections); and a justice imperative, to call Arab or Middle Eastern leaders to account for abuses of human rights.

The parallel forum was sponsored by the World Bank and European Commission, organized by the Cairo Institute for Human Rights Studies in cooperation with the Moroccan Organization for Human Rights, the International Federation for Human Rights and the Euro-Mediterranean Human Rights Network and attended by 60 participants from civil society NGOs and actors from 15 Arab states, 9 international organizations and representatives of 4 Asian and European NGOs. The meeting aimed to generate dialogue with Arab governments, “the majority of which reject dialogue with civil society locally or on the regional level within the framework of the Arab League.”

The meeting was the latest in a series of gatherings by the region's civil society groups, following the earlier Beirut Forum which produced the “Second Independence" initiative detailing civil society reform proposals and the July 2004 Cairo forum which produced "Priorities and Mechanisms of Reform in the Arab World."

Moroccan communication minister and government spokesman Nabil Benabdellah called the forum "a non-constraining space for dialogue that concerns all Arab states and most of Islamic countries," as well as the G-8. "This is a space that is in line with previous encounters, particularly the Barcelona process and the Arab Summit of Tunis which approved modernization in the Arab world," he said.

A few civil society voices echoed the cynicism of Western media. "Nothing has changed,” said Lebanese lawyer Chibli Mallat. “The indices of democracy have fallen behind." Sustainable change requires that international agencies and foreign governments engage with civil society as well as the established regimes. "To be effective, the international community needs us. They have no legitimacy otherwise," Mallat insists.

But other civil society groups welcomed the Forum and the Democracy Assistance Dialogue for putting reform on the agenda and for creating the space within which democracy and human rights activists could engage the authorities. "For us, it's like a dream come true to have a day where we can sit with the governments and talk about political and democratic reforms," said Mohamed al-Tayeb of the Yemeni Committee on Human Rights, Liberties and Civil Organizations.

Arab governments and the Arab League have hitherto refused to recognize or consult with civil society groups on issues of political reform. The Arab League rejected a request to present the Beirut Forum recommendations to the Tunis Summit meeting in March 2004 and to involve NGO representatives as observers. The Algerian government has yet to respond to a months-old request to allow a civil society meeting parallel to the March 2005 Arab summit in Algiers.

Regimes Are Risking the Verdict of History, Arab Forum Warned
“If you do not initiate radical changes to restore respect to public duties, uphold the principles of lucidity, justice, and responsibility, your peoples will resent you, and the verdict of history on you will be severe,” the Crown Prince of Dubai warned fellow Arab leaders at this week's Arab Strategy Forum in Dubai. The forum, attended by leading business executives and luminaries including former US President Bill Clinton commenced a day after the Rabat Forum for the Future closed.

General Shaikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum “dropped a bombshell” in telling fellow Arab leaders: “If you do not change, you will be changed.” “Here is a message for all of us. We have to stop talking about dreams, what must, and what must not be,” he continued. “We have to start talking about procedures, budgets, projects, dates of completion and details of delivery.”

The Dubai forum sought to move beyond rhetoric and provide “a serious platform for the Arab world, with the aim of drawing long-term strategies to initiate work partnership, devise new measures leading to real commitments,” he said. “We are responsible for our destinies. It is by our hands, not the hands of others, that change and reform are realised,” he told the meeting of Arab leaders and business executives.

Lamenting the Arab tendency "to believe in false dawns" such as Nasserism, Fouad Ajami cautioned against seeing the US in the same vein as the purveyor of reform. Ajami told the forum that the Islamists and the regimes are de facto allies because the public will always go with the rulers given the choice of the status quo or a nihilistic opposition.

The Arab-Israeli conflict allows autocracies to justify their rule and maintain the status quo in the name of security, said Hanan Ashrawi, secretary general of the Palestinian Initiative for the Promotion of Global Dialogue and Democracy (MIFTAH) and a member of the Palestinian parliament. The onset of peace will destabilize entrenched autocratic rule in Palestine and elsewhere, depriving regimes of the pretext of war used to perpetuate autocratic rule.

The Middle East had been largely bypassed by global governance trends, said the World Bank's Robert Beschel, including the breakup of empires and emergence of new states, the expansion of democracy, smaller state size and roles, decentralization, anti-corruption, E-governance and the 'New Public Management.' The region scored badly on issues of decentralization, public voice, accountability and participation.

Yet the Dubai forum exhibited some of the same strains of denial and evasion evident in Rabat. Indeed, even a “very business and reform-oriented audience gave its loudest and most prolonged applause for speakers who strongly and explicitly criticized American and Israeli policies,” noted the Beirut-based Daily Star's Rami Khouri. On the plus side, however, while “a few years ago talk of reform focused almost exclusively on liberalizing domestic economic systems, today it encompasses almost every sector of society: security, governance, gender, education, global and intra-Arab trade and regional conflict resolution.”

Palestinian Elections
Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas seems assured of victory in the January 9 presidential election after the withdrawal of chief rival Marwan Barghouti on Sunday. Barghouti succumbed to pressure from the dominant Fatah faction of the PLO which threatened to expel its former West Bank leader, currently serving five life prison terms for his role in terrorist attacks.

His candidacy had threatened to split the PLO vote, with opinion polls showing Barghouti and Abbas running neck and neck. The prospect of an electoral victory for the founder of the Al Aqsa Brigades, who still refuses to renounce violence, also worried US and European officials. "Such a development would not only mean a setback to peace efforts,” said a State Department official, “but an egg on the face of our policy to democratize the Middle East." If Barghouti had been elected, it would have “validate[d] the notion that democracy-promotion is tinkering with a Pandora's box," according to Martin Kramer, a professor at Tel Aviv University and visiting fellow at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy.

The European Union will deploy over 260 election observers for the poll, including a delegation of 30 European Parliament members. The mission is headed by Euro-parliamentarian and former prime minister of France, Michel Rocard. The EU has allocated €14 million euros (about US $18.6m) since 2003 to prepare the elections, and €2.5 million euros ($3.33m) has been designated for the election observation.

The withdrawal of Barghouti is not an unmitigated blessing for the PLO leadership or for prospects for peace. A seriously contested race--had he won it-- would have given Mahmoud Abbas the legitimacy and political capital he needs to constrain violence and to sell a peace agreement with Israel, says Khalil Shikaki, director of the Palestinian Centre for Policy and Survey Research. Other commentators are skeptical of both the pacifying and democratizing potential of the elections. “The election is merely a one-candidate, one-party affair like those regularly held in Arab dictatorships, with the establishment's man monopolizing media coverage and active regime backing,” says Barry Rubin, director of the Global Research in International Affairs (GLORIA) Center in Israel. Although the election will still be contested by candidates of less stature than Barghouti, they do not offer the same potential for generating democratic ferment, and Abbas seems assured of at least 80 percent of the vote.

British Prime Minister Tony Blair is among those who have emphasized the links between peace, security and democracy, arguing that elections will only contribute to a settlement of Palestinian-Israeli conflict if democratic institutions and mores take hold. "Afghanistan will not be stable if it isn't democratic. In Iraq, democracy will in the end defeat the insurgents. The Palestinian state will only be viable if it is not just based on a territory but also on democratic values," he said this week.

EU Prepares to Lift Arms Embargo as China Hits Dissidents
Two Chinese dissidents were released Tuesday after being detained the previous night for ``jeopardizing national security.'' Yu Jie and Liu Xiaobo were questioned about their writings which have frequently criticized the ruling Communist Party. Both Yu and Liu are active members of International PEN which defends writers against persecution. The arrests were the latest in a series of recent incidents of official harassment as Chinese authorities show increasing concern at the autonomy and assertiveness of intellectuals and civil society groups, including the re-emergence of civil disobedience.

The recent clampdown appears to signal a move by Chinese President Hu Jintao "to dispel hopes--already greatly diminished--that he would usher in a period of relative political relaxation when he consolidated power." Yet despite the harsher line being taken by the Beijing authorities, the European Union looks set to lift the arms embargo imposed after the Tiananmen Square massacre 15 years ago.

“[F]or all the economic and political clout at its disposal.., Europe can also be shamefully feeble about where to apply it,” wrote The Economist after the European Union's December 8th summit. The EU gave Beijing a "positive signal" that the embargo would soon be lifted but certainly not until after President George W. Bush's visit to Brussels next Spring. The US, along with some EU member states like Sweden, vigorously opposes lifting the ban, although former Secretary of State Colin Powell had declared Sino-American relations to be "the best since 1972," the height of Kissingerian realist rapprochement. Nevertheless, Europe does not anticipate a backlash, says François Godement, Director of the Asia Centre at the French Institute of International Relations, confident in the belief that American Wilsonian idealism has likely “exhausted itself in the quest to remake the Middle East.”

China's diplomatic coup followed intense lobbying to end the embargo by France and Germany. The conviction that such efforts would bear fruit appears to have convinced Beijing that it need not even offer concessions on human rights to ensure an end to the embargo. The communist regime had hinted that laws permitting arbitrary detention might be abolished but now appears unlikely even to ratify the UN's Convenant on Civil and Political Rights. Beijing's only cause for concern seems to be the threat of a code of conduct to regulate arms sales to China and other authoritarian regimes.

France sees China as an emerging power, one that is critical to President Jacques Chirac's notion of a multipolar world in which other regional powers provide a counterweight to the US. China's communist rulers have started to adopt the language of multipolarity and multilateralism and also threw their weight Germany's bid for a permanent seat on the UN Security Council. As UPI's Martin Walker notes, China carried out its largest-ever joint military exercise with a foreign power off the coast of Taiwan in March, just four days before the Taiwanese elections. The partner was France.

Although “mocked at home for wanting to be the next Third World hero, a French Nehru or Nasser,” Chirac is at least consistent in his insistence that a multipolar world "is challenging the longstanding pre-eminence of the West and all its models." Europe's “harmonious dialogue with the other major poles in the world is helping to promote the universal values that are at the heart of the trans-Atlantic link," insists Chirac. But this stance is difficult to square with his advocacy role for Beijing at a time when the regime stands as an alternative to democratic models of development and exercises mounting influence with authoritarian regimes in Central Asia, Iran, Venezuela and beyond.

On his recent trip to China, German Prime Minister Gerhard Schröder's claimed that China is now a "different country," a misjudgment according to Der Spiegel, that reflects a triumph of commercial interests over human rights concerns. During Schröder's trip, business contracts worth €1.4 billion ($1.86 billion) were signed. Yet more than 200 dissidents arrested at the time of the Tiananmen massacre are still in prison.

Describing the likely lifting of the ban on arms sales as a “great European kowtow,” Jeffrey Gedmin of Berlin's Aspen Institute laments that “[o]nce upon a time, Europe's foreign policy was predicated on a preferential option for democracies in general and the US in particular.” While there is still a rearguard action to be fought to ensure the EU's proposed code of conduct on arms sales has teeth, reasserting the democratic imperatives of European foreign policy seems an equally urgent task.

Yemen to Host Democracy Assistance Dialogue
The Yemeni capital Sanaa will be the permanent headquarters for a democratic dialogue center which will have the task of boosting democracy in the Middle East and north Africa countries. The Democracy Dialogue Center will implement the objectives of the G8's Democracy Assistance Dialogue, specifically in launching "programs for governments, civil society organizations and partnership in developing democracy in the region," says Yemeni foreign minister Abu baker al-Qurabi.

The Democracy Assistance Dialogue will convene governments, civil society groups and other interests to enhance and expand programs that complement the region's own efforts on democratization and public participation. The DAD's first joint meeting of governments and civil society organizations will be held in 2005 and focus on three main issues: developing the relationship between civil society and political institutions; strengthening democratic election mechanisms and institutions; and enhancing women's political participation.

NEWS

Mugabe Restricts NGOs, Plans to Bar External Election Observers
Zimbabwe's parliament has passed a controversial bill restricting international non-governmental organizations engaging in governance or human rights work, and foreign funding to local groups engaged in similar work. President Robert Mugabe also announced in his state-of-the-nation address to Parliament that election observers will be allowed into Zimbabwe next year "strictly on invitation."

Morgan Tsvangirai, president of the opposition Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) condemned the move on his return from a three-week diplomatic tour to several African and European states. “[Mugabe] is now pursuing the repressive legislative route with amendments to AIPPA [Access to Information and Protection of Privacy Act] and now the NGO Bill. He is intent on closing down all the democratic space.”

Commentators described the move as characteristic of Mugabe's “totalitarian project.” Brian Kagoro, a lawyer and human rights activist, said the government was “aiming at clearing the space for their own pliant organizations” so that “when people say there is no associational life in Zimbabwe they will simply point to the ones they have created,” including such ersatz NGOs as the Gaddafi Sisters Foundation and the Zimbabwe Federation of Trade Unions, created to challenge the independent Zimbabwe Congress of Trade Unions (ZCTU).

These recent moves came as a visiting delegation of British lawyers criticized Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe for subverting the former colony's legal system in order to stay in power. "Many of the judiciary have been driven from office or corrupted, and much of the legal system of Zimbabwe has been subverted by the Zanu-PF government, in an effort to frustrate the proper working of democracy and to hold on to power," said Stephen Irwin, chairman of the Bar of England and Wales. "It seems clear they would not have held on to power otherwise."

No Latin American Democracy, Chavez Claims (and Tries to Ensure)
There are no real democracies in Latin America, Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez declared in closing a congress of intellectuals and artists in Caracas. "The United Nations Development Program (UNDP) has detected the existence of super-powers that are above constitutions and governments,” Chavez said, observing that since “the media and the big private corporations exercise real dictatorships ... there are no democracies around here for that reason." His government would initiate and resource an international 'network of networks' to build the anti-globalization progressive movement.

As if to prove his own point, Chavez has pushed through a series of measures which undermine Venezuela's democratic institutions and practices, including a highly restrictive press law, changes to the penal code that even prohibit the country's characteristic pot-banging protests. And this week, judicial independence fell by the wayside when the Chavista-dominated Venezuelan Congress packed the country's Supreme Court with 12 new justices.

“Five years ago, President Chávez's supporters helped to enshrine the principle of judicial independence in a new democratic constitution,” said José Miguel Vivanco, Americas director for Human Rights Watch. “Now, by packing the country's highest court, they are betraying that principle and degrading Venezuelan democracy.” "President Chávez and his supporters should be taking steps to strengthen the judiciary," said Vivanco. "Instead, they are rigging the system to favor their own interests."

The State of Arab Liberalism
The December 2004 issue of the Middle East Review of International Affairs includes a discussion on the State of Arab Liberalism, featuring MERIA editor Barry Rubin, Brookings scholar Tamara Cofman Wittes and  Laith Kubba of the National Endowment for Democracy. This latest issue also includes articles on Iraq's Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani and the Democratization of post-Saddam Iraq; Islam as an Instrument of Radical Political Change; and the Political Economy of Turkish Military Modernization. Further details here.

OPPORTUNITIES

Program Officer, Latin America & Caribbean Region
International Republican Institute
The Program Officer (PO) is responsible for assisting the region's Director and Deputy Director in designing and implementing a strategy for IRI programs for assigned countries in Latin America and the Caribbean. S/he develops long-range & annual plans for the country program, identifies potential partner organizations, develops training strategies and oversees projects. For full details, go here or contact: IRI, HR Department, 1225 Eye Street, N.W., Suite 700, Washington, DC 20005. FAX # 202-408-9461.

EVENTS

January 11, 2005, 9:30-5:00, Inter-American Development Bank, Washington, DC
Ethics and Development, The Inter-American Initiative on Social Capital, Ethics and Development and the Division of State and Civil Society, Inter-American Development Bank
Speakers include Amartya Sen, Nobel Laureate, Enrique V. Iglesias, President of the IDB, Kjell Magne Bondevik, Prime Minister of Norway, Amitai Etzioni, First Professor, George Washington University. RSVP: (202) 623-3385. For more information, go here.

January 27-28, Santiago, Chile
NGO Preparatory Meeting for Community of Democracies Ministerial Meeting.
The NGO Preparatory Meeting for the Community of Democracies Ministerial Meeting will take place on January 27-28 in Santiago, Chile. To prepare for the meeting, representatives of the nongovernmental communities held regional workshops during which participants developed recommendations on government actions that would strengthen democracy in their region and throughout the world. Several participants in the World Movement's Africa Democracy Forum (ADF), took an active role in the Africa Regional Workshop that took place on November 22-23 in Johannesburg, South Africa. The January meeting will convene participants in the nongovernmental process to review proposals that resulted from the regional workshops to develop final recommendations to governments, and to define the advocacy strategy leading up to the Ministerial Meeting that will take place on May 4-6, 2005 in Santiago. For further details, go here.

March 8-11, 2005, Club de Madrid and the Varsavsky Foundation, Barcelona Spain
International Summit on Democracy, Terrorism and Security, “Democracy for a Safer World."
The conference, sponsored by the Club de Madrid and the Varsavsky Foundation, is supported by the Government of Spain, the Regional Government of Madrid and the City of Madrid. More than 50 former and current Heads of State and Government, decision and policy makers, world experts, and citizens will participate in this forum. For more information, go here.