The London Globalist Spring 2014

Are you beingWATCHED?

-Compromising security in cyberspace-Street security in Venezuela-Oil: saviour or curse for South Sudan

IN THIS ISSUE:

S E C U R I T Y Issue no.5 March 2014

The London Globalist

THE LONDON GLOBALIST MARCH 20142


LEADERS

Letter from PresidentKaty Young

Letter from EditorTiia Mustonen

POLITICS

America

Changing energy climateAaron Rosen

Venezuela’s political strifeAdriana Melchor

Europe

Basque Separatism declinesAlexander King

View: British legal systemRhiana Spring

Asia

Hong Kong in 2047Andrea Kan

Japanese militarismDerek Kang

Africa

South Sudan crisisAlmaz Gaere

SOCIETY

View: Tibet’s two realitiesRhiana Spring

Women in post-conflict reconstructionismMarine Vignat-Cerasa

Human trafficing in EuropeJanna Larma

TECHNOLOGY

Internet SecurityAleksandra Mirowicz

Internet privacy and securityBryan Cheung

ON THE COVER

DesignBobak SaadatPhotogrphy: Getty Image

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Content

Issue number 5 - Online www.thelondonglobalist@org - Editorial inquiries, advertising inquiries [email protected] No part of the magazine may be reproduced in any form without the prior express permission of the publisher COPYRIGHT 2014 The London Globalist

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The London GlobalistSECURITY BEYOND WAR


The London Globalist

Magazine Editor-in-ChiefTiia Mustonen

Sub EditorsSusan BarnesDerek Kang

Design EditorBobak Saadat

PublisherThe LSESU London Globalist

Sponsorship OfficerKristina Stoyanova

Contributors:Alexander KingAleksandra MirowiczAdriana MelchorAaron RosenAndrea KanBryan CheungDerek KangJanna LarmaMarine Vignat-CerasaRhiana Spring

President Katy Young

Online Editor-in-ChiefAlexandre Raymakers

Website OfficerErin Duffy

Events OfficerAnthony Adams

Marketing and RecruitmentJanna Larma

TreasurerRishabh Kathotia

Secretary Zoe Paxman

Contact us:[email protected]: @londonglobalistfacebook: The London Globalist

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Dear Readers,Following another successful year at The LSESU London Globalist Society, we are proud to present to you the fourth print edition of The London Globalist, LSE’s international affairs student magazine, based this year on the theme of Security. The publication is part of the growing Global21 movement, which be-gan at Yale University in 2005 and now encompasses twenty magazine chapters at universities around the world. We are honoured to be a part of the community and continue to strengthen our ties with these other student bodies.

With the academic year coming to a close, we reflect back on what has been a fantastic year of progress for the society. In February we held our first ever conference, titled ‘Journalism in Action’, hosting prestigious names from the industry such as Edward Lucas (Energy Editor for The Economist) and Barbara Serra (Al Jazeera’s lead anchor) to mention a few. We would like to take this opportunity to again thank all of them for their time and warm, supportive ap-proach towards all the budding journalists in the room. We must also thank the LSE Annual Fund, without whose kind sponsorship the event could not have happened. Feedback from student attendees of the conference was outstand-ing and we greatly hope it will become a tradition for The London Globalist in years to come.

Building on the launch of our glamorous new website last Spring we have re-cruited many more student bloggers and readers, expanding the presence of The London Globalist on campus. We are pleased that we can continue to provide students across London with a platform to engage in current discussions; apply their studies to the events unfolding around them; and have their work published (which for an LSE student the lure of CV-building is never too far away). The wonderful diversity of the LSE student body, and our writers from other London universities, results in us producing articles that comment on a vast array of countries and issues, making our publications ‘global’ in the truest sense of the word.

Finally, I could not write this contribution without including a massive thank you to this year’s executive committee, plus the sub-committee members who worked on the conference and magazine editing. I honestly feel privileged to have been elected to lead our committee of LSE students; undergraduate and postgraduate; UK and international; Economics to Anthropology. I greatly appreciate them suffering through our Friday afternoon meetings and hope they would agree with me that we have at least had a laugh along the way. It is with great joy, pride, a little astonishment and considerable relief that we all find ourselves at the end of the year. We now look towards electing the incom-ing committee, confident that The London Globalist will continue to go from strength to strength.

Thank you to all our readers for your ongoing support of our work.

PRESIDENT’S LETTERKATY YOUNG

THE LONDON GLOBALIST MARCH 2014 5

TIIA MUSTONEN

EDITOR’S LETTER

t was an early start to the day, albeit at nine. I was clutching my coffee in a true Londoner style on my way to university. During the half an hour journey I was captured on at least eight different CCTV cameras gulping my morning coffee during the rush hour madness. My bank account has a record of the place I bought my coffee from. My stu-dent card made a mark of me entering university. Without providing my personal details, I would not have been able to access essential online services. While barely awake I sign into my email(s), my Facebook account, some online newspapers, and the university database. The amount of information stored about my morning rituals by 10am, when I finally finish my cup of coffee, is frightening. This is how security and freedom feels like in 2014.

The time is ripe for an updated analysis of the changing security landscape in the world and cyberspace. Can we be, and feel, safe from danger and threat today? This issue reflects the different dimensions of security in the different corners of the world and beyond.

Being born and bred in one of the world’s safest countries, I have always taken security and liberty for granted. As soon as I learnt to walk, I was allowed to play on my own in the garden and soon after my parents let me join the other youngsters at the common playground. Like everyone else in Finland, I walked on my own to and from school, of course. I never questioned my safety on a spontaneous late-night stroll. My only fear was to encounter an elk or a bear in the forest. I was very

free, yet safe, compared to other children in the world.

For some people, keeping a gun in their car while driving explicitly brings the feeling of safety. Oth-ers, like myself, would be openly alarmed about security in the presence of a gun. What if it would go off? This issue explores, among other things, what security means for people living on the most dangerous streets in the world.

The inflating threat of cyber security is also covered in depth. With the 25th anniversary of the World Wide Web, the world is wrestling with hard-hitting issues around cyberspace security, leaks and surveillance. In the more developed “internet of things” world of the mid 21-century the whole sharing thing has exploded. Not only do we want to share some nice holiday pictures, but our present location and feelings too, preferably on many different online platforms. The newest appliances even allow you to share your heart rate and blood pressure online among your friends, if you desire. The risk of sharing and sharing the risk on internet has become a hot topic. The information you pro-vide can easily be used against you.

By exploring different dimensions of security, ranging from human trafficing to the changing energy climate , we hope to give a well-rounded picture of different security aspects. Are we com-promising freedom for security, or security for free-dom? Growing up, I realised you can’t have both. In the worst case you may have neither.

Security vs Freedom:

Liberty’s lost decade?

I“ “Like everyone else in Finland,

I walked on my own to and from school, of course.


Politics

bout two weeks ago, I found myself emptying my pockets and surrendering my cell phone to State Department se-curity at the U.S. Embassy in London. Though I wasn’t unaccustomed to the feeling of entering one of many fortress-like, diplomatic compounds that protect and promote the United States’ interests abroad due to my several internships. I felt the familiar sensations of nervous-ness paired with excitement as I waited to be brought up to Press Office. I’ve always found immersion into the corri-dors of American foreign policy akin to an urban adventure into the unknown. A few days later, after walking through the side streets of Westminster, I en-tered Europe House, the seat of the Eu-ropean Commission’s Representation to the United Kingdom.

These visits were not coinciden-

tal. Global capitals, policy circles and think-tanks all over the world are buzzing about the sudden emergence of America’s energy might. Last Octo-ber, a global data analysis by the Wall Street Journal astounded its readership by declaring that the United States is bypassing Russia as the world’s largest producer of gas. I decided to investi-gate and learn the United States and Eu-ropean Union’s official analysis.

Following the Wall Street Journal publication, almost as if on cue, the au-tonomous International Energy Agency was quoted by The Economist project-ing that America will steal the crown from the Saudis, and will sit upon their throne as the planet’s biggest oil pro-ducer by the end of the decade.

The reason lies deep within long known deposits of American shale gas

Global energy markets and geopolitics:

The world we know, one in which energy-rich autocracies peddle petroleum for political power, is transforming more rapidly than anticipated - what comes next? Aaron Rosen finds out.

AThe times, they are a-changin’

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GETTYIMAGES


and oil, enclosed inside a type of sedi-mentary rock from which energy had once been economically unfeasible to extract. Now, however, these natural resources are available thanks to ad-vances in technology. The process is called hydraulic fracturing, commonly known as “fracking.” It is an innovative practice where a high-pressure water-sand-chemical mixture is blasted, most-ly horizontally, into the rock, thereby releasing the energy deposits within. Fracking is impressively precise, ex-traordinarily flexible, and is granting a country that long considered itself en-ergy poor a new cachet of international influence.

By tapping into previously unattain-able supplies through unconventional resources, the United States, together with Canada and its immense deposits of Albertan oil sands, has the poten-tial to secure the ever-coveted status of North American energy independence. Reaching for this reality, Ottawa has been placing uncharacteristic pressure on Washington to approve the Key-stone Pipeline, which would transport Albertan oil down through America to the Texas Gulf Coast. I sat down with State Department diplomats and Euro-pean Commission officials to find out what this boom may mean in the inter-national arena.

The U.S. Economic Affairs Section in London explained to me just how intri-cate a role energy plays in foreign and domestic policy. Internally, increased energy capacity at home fuels U.S. eco-nomic recovery, while simultaneously rendering America’s energy necessities less vulnerable to volatile disruptions a world away. Internationally, energy

scarcity is often inseparable from inter- and intra-state conflict. Increased en-ergy accessibility, therefore, is a global resource of immeasurable value, and it is in the United States’ interests to lib-eralize and expand the international gas market. When market forces are applied to sky-high prices in Europe and Asia, alongside a substantial expansion of supply, there tend to be a positive im-pact on energy affordability.

I was told that the U.S. supports an ‘all-of-the-above’ approach. This would see the America lead by exam-ple; intertwining energy politics with environmental policy, while reducing U.S. dependency on foreign sources. It would also diminish America’s contem-porary carbon footprint, while invest-ing in renewable energy technology for the future. Contrary to speculation as to whether an energy rich America would begin to disregard its global responsi-bilities choosing instead to withdraw into its wealth, I was told the United States will continue to take an active role in assisting with the management of the world’s many energy-related conflicts. U.S. disengagement from the Middle East, then, is unlikely; defend-ing Israel, denuclearizing Iran, com-bating terrorism, and supporting the Israeli-Palestinian peace process are to remain unequivocal American interests.

But what does applying market forces to energy pricing mean, and how might that increase affordability? The Oxford Princeton Programme, a world-class provider of energy-sector education, states that, due to this shale revolu-tion, gas prices in the U.S. have fallen to roughly $2 to $4 per unit. In Europe and Asia, those prices are as high as $9 to $10 and $13 to $18, respectively. Prices have fallen in America because they are liberalized, so they may rise and fall alongside the realities of sup-ply and demand. In the other aforemen-tioned markets, gas prices remain less impacted by market realities because they are indexed to oil, which has re-mained stubbornly priced at just over the $100 mark. This is due to a half a century old tradition of linking the price of gas to crude oil out of convenience, before any semblance of an independ-ent gas market had emerged.

Today, the practice is anything but convenient. In Europe, oil-indexing gas prices has created an energy climate in which gas supply companies tend to sign long-term, inflexible contracts with, for example, Russia’s Gazprom. European customers become locked into deals with gas suppliers known for their relative insulation from actual

The times, they are a-changin’

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$2-4

$9-10

$13-18

per unit gas price in US

per unit gas price in Europe

per unit gas price in Asia


commodity pricing fluctuations, as well as feared for their utilization of energy as political weaponry. Europe deserves better, and Brussels knows this.

As explained to me by European Commission sources, security of energy supply is of high importance at the EU level. Whether by developing renew-able technologies, or by encouraging the development of a Southern Cor-ridor to bring in gas from the Caspian and beyond, the European Union has its eyes fixed solidly upon supply diversi-fication. And, as was explained to me, recent realities in the U.S. energy sec-tor have transported the discussion of shale exploration across the Atlantic. In this context, the Commission has made it perfectly clear that, within the Euro-pean Union, each member state retains its right to opt for or against application of the extractive practice.

European nations may have multi-ple legitimate reasons for wanting to pursue alternative energy sources, but data from a July 2009 European Com-mission proposal depicts a particular overarching commonality: the vast ma-jority of eastern EU Member States rely on Russia for more than 50 percent of their imported gas; in the Baltic States and Finland, that number is virtually 100 percent. Quite coincidentally, or perhaps not at all, that Commission proposal was drafted just a few short months after a dispute between Kiev and Moscow led Russian gas supplier Gazprom to sever supply to Ukraine in the dead of a particularly frigid win-ter. The damage was not only felt in Ukraine but across the continent, as en-ergy supplies to much of Europe were also disrupted.

Unfortunately for Europeans, Ameri-ca’s shale revolution will not be easily replicated across the Atlantic. The story of the North Dakotan farmer striking it rich because his property sits on top of the mighty Bakken oil formation is not easily exported; U.S. citizens, by na-ture of America’s unusually strong in-terpretation of property rights, own the minerals beneath their homes. Notable variance in infrastructure and equip-ment availability between the U.S. and Europe exists as well; the sheer scope of American energy’s development-distribution network is second to none. And there are environmental concerns. While opposition to fracking does exist in the U.S. (the State of New York pro-hibits the practice), it’s become a partic-ularly popular lightning rod of criticism

within European environmental circles. Though natural gas is a fossil fuel, it’s worth noting that America’s use of shale has been a step in a “go green” direction – indeed, its increased use has practically ushered in the obsolescence of American coal, a far dirtier fuel.

It remains to be seen how much of America’s energy will be sold to for-eign markets, and how much will be kept at home, thereby incentivizing, according to the optimists, an Ameri-can manufacturing renaissance lured by attractively priced energy. it is also unclear as to how America will manage its energy profits. If Washington was looking for the best practices, perhaps

they could consult the Norwegians on how to set up a sovereign wealth fund. A semi-independent national energy fund, financed by the taxes paid into it from corporate energy, is a noble goal. If it was run efficiently, it could rein-vest a portion of today’s energy profits into the priorities of tomorrow, namely, education, entitlements, and R&D into market-ready renewables,. America could ensure its footing on the forefront of the post-fossil fuel revolution that’s to come.

However the months and years ahead progress, there are two stand-alone certainties to take away from this arti-cle: Firstly, America does not possess

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PETROLEUM ECONOMIST

The vast majority of eastern EU Member States rely on Rus-sia for more than 50 percent of their imported gas; in the Baltic States and Finland, that num-ber is virtually 100 percent.


Aaron Rosen grew up in the US and is completing a masters degree in Empires, Colonialism and Globalisa-tion at the LSE. He has a keen inter-est in transatlantic relationships, having worked and studied in the US and Europe. To comment on this article, please email [email protected]

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Unfortunately for Europeans, Ameri-ca’s shale revolution will not be easily

replicated across the Atlantic. The story of the North Dakotan farm-er striking it rich because his property

sits on top of the mighty Bakken oil formation is not easily exported.

a national energy corporation through which it may politicize the market. And secondly, though at times differences are exaggerated, Europe and America remain intrinsically intertwined through their core philosophical values, coop-erative security interests, and common economic ties.

Repositioning the geopolitical power of earth’s energy supply away from the corruption of Moscow is obviously good for America. In fact, it’s good for Europe, too.

AARON ROSEN


Citizen Security: Venezuela Immersed In Political StrifeVenezuelans are most afraid to walk the streets at night, according to an UN report. Adriana Melchor explores what security means in one of the world’s most violent countries.

duardo Martínez, 60, was a victim of “express” kidnapping one night in Ca-racas in 2012. He still remembers, as clearly as if it was yesterday, that fear-ful and heart-pounding journey home from work. He was driving alone on an empty road late at night when his car was suddenly forced to a halt by two vehicles that sandwiched his own - one of which was a red SUV. Shortly afterwards, four armed men exited the vehicles. From 11:48pm to 1:30am, Ed-uardo was held captive inside the SUV, and was forced to pay a sum of $2492. It was “four armed men in uniform plus their chauffeur...which is what made me realize they were policemen. It’s the government’s fault, that’s what I’m implying,” he explained during our in-terview. “I covered my eyes with a cap

because I didn’t want to see who they were.”

According to a recent UN report, Lat-in America had, on average, 17 kidnap-pings a day in 2011. The term “securi-ty” brings to mind notions of emotional and physical protection. In Venezuela, we see an exceptional deficiency of this type of social protection - an issue that rarely takes up more than a minute’s worth of airtime in international news broadcasts.

After browsing through The Guard-ian’s articles and blog posts regarding Hugo Chávez and his socialist legacy, I experienced a rather familiar sense of frustration. Western media often omits details of the adversity Venezuelan citi-zens have undergone since Chávez’s election in late 1998 and hardly ac-

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Who are the real offenders in this photo? LEO RAMIREZ/AFP/GETTYIMAGES

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knowledges that his regime failed, and continues to fail, to protect the people it represents.

My perception of the Partido Social-ista Unido de Venezuela’s (PSUV)’s intentions - that is, the intentions of Chávez’s incumbent socialist party - has mostly been constructed through living in Venezuela as a child and witnessing the misfortune of those within my com-munity. One of the notable failures of Chávez’s administration in my recol-lection was his radical restructuring of the national oil industry and the mass unemployment that ensued.20,000 em-ployees of the nationalized oil compa-ny, PDVSA , (Petróleos de Venezuela, S.A.), were made redundant overnight in 2002 alone. What is most disturbing is the tacit assumption that you prob-ably will be a victim of crime while walking on the streets of Venezuela.

The foundation of this assumption is rooted in the physical threat Venezue-lans face daily due to record-breaking crime in major cities. In 2012, five Ven-ezuelan cities - Caracas, Maracaibo, Ciudad Guayana, Valencia and Barqui-simeto – were featured in the rankings of the fifty most dangerous cities in the world. Currently, Caracas is positioned third on the same list, with 118.89 hom-icides per 100,000 residents. London’s homicide rate is 1.8.

Crime is rampant in Venezuela due to a key underlying problem: the gov-ernment, in office since February 1999, doesn’t enforce laws. With the govern-ment neglecting such enforcement, the community has begun to try tactics of their own. Independent from govern-ment intervention, some attempts to dis-courage crime have been fruitful, like for instance, the establishment of the Simon Bolivar Youth Orchestra, which aims to help disadvantaged youth de-viate from delinquency by developing their musical talent. Aside from such initiatives, little else has been accom-plished by the ruling socialist regime.

“This revolution is armed,” assert-ed Chávez in his lengthy television broadcasts, “It is right to steal if you are hungry.” It is no wonder, then, that criminality has tripled since he came into power. This is largely due to three reasons. In terms of education, few gov-ernment schemes are in place to prevent children in deprived areas from turning to violence when in need of resources. Venezuela’s judicial system is one of the country’s most corrupt institu-tions with top officials and lower-level judges hand-picked by the government. Justice has a monetary value and crimi-nals can buy their way to an innocent

verdict. Lastly, law enforcement itself is corrupt in that the police, because they are poorly paid and usually live in “barrios,” commit crimes to supplement their income.

The effects of insecurity in Venezuela are profound within families and com-munities. Extensive economic damage followed the political crisis in the coun-try. Shortages of food, water and elec-tricity occur frequently. Even the most banal commodities, like cornflour, are often scarce. Pure necessities of every-day life have become immensely valu-able.

Those I keep in contact with usually speak of financial strains due to unem-ployment, but also attempting to over-come depression and stress. What is truly concerning, however, is how they cope with such an overpowering sense of foreboding. Venezuelans, regardless of their political inclination, cannot an-ticipate what will affect them next, and the immediate consequence of this im-pediment is they plan for catastrophe. Opening joint bank accounts between friends, for example, so they can have readily-available ransom funds in the event of kidnapping, has become com-monplace.

Eduardo Martínez had luckily, opened a joint bank account with a few friends. This bank account turned out to be his rescuer during the night of the kidnap-ping. Having checked him for weap-ons, Eduardo’s kidnapper’s instructed,: “Here, call someone.” As the criminals prefer not to negotiate with women, he resorted to calling his friend Antonio – who he had to place on speakerphone - to provide the money. “By the end it got to a point where we were exchanging jokes, but that took a lot of effort...what happened to me was atypical. Normally, they take people, the victims get nerv-ous and violence ensues. You just need to let them do their job.”

Venezuela is not the egalitarian haven Chávez and his successor Nicolás Ma-duro promised it would be. Insecurity is persuading Venezuelans to lose faith in their country. As Eduardo mentioned nearing the end of our interview, “The average Venezuelan hopes to leave sometime soon,” as I did ten years ago.

“Opening joint bank accounts between friends, for example, so they can have readily-available ransom funds in the event of kidnapping, has become com-monplace.”

LEO RAMIREZ/AFP/GETTYIMAGES

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What happens within the beautiful valley of Caracas is uncommonly frightening.

Adriana Melchor grew up in Ven-ezuela and is a first year BSc Social Policy and Government student. She has first-hand experience with many of the problems facing Venezuelans. To comment on this article, please email [email protected]

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n 10 January 2011, in a video sent to the BBC, Euskadi Ta Askatasuna, ETA, declared that its ceasefire, which had been in place since 5 September 2010, was to become permanent. The group had not been responsible for an attack since the 9 April when it was involved in a shootout in central France. So far, the group has remained faithful to its pledge whereas on six previous occa-sions, it has failed to last for more than a year. This raises questions about how the current ceasefire has managed to en-dure for over three years.

One factor contributing to the main-tenance of the ceasefire is the fact that a large number of high-ranking ETA members are currently incarcerated. This has, for now at least, suppressed the previously violent character of the ETA. The current leadership, moderate compared to its predecessors, has shift-ed its focus onto smaller, more immedi-ate issues. One key focus of the current leadership is securing a better deal for those members of the group who re-main imprisoned. This involves, in part, the transfer of prisoners to locations nearer to their families. This suggests that the group is primarily interested in sentimentality, most prominently, the wellbeing of its imprisoned members, rather than focusing on its long term aim of achieving Basque independ-ence. Recently, the ETA has made some

Three years have passed since the militant Basque separatist or-ganization last claimed responsibility for a terrorist attack. This had led some to believe that the ETA no longer poses a threat to Spanish national security. Alexander King explores what course the Basque separatist movement is likely to take in the future?

Basque Separatism: A threat of terrorism?

progress in achieving these aims; Josu Uribetxeberría Bolinaga, convicted for kidnapping and imprisoning a Spanish prison officer in 1996, was released in 2012 due to terminal illness, and Inés del Río Prada, responsible for killing 24 people, was released earlier this year as a result of a peculiarity in Spanish law.

As a result of these releases, there has been public uproar within Spain. One facet of this was a series of high-profile marches in the capital, Madrid. Consequently, there has been internal tension within the governing Partido Popular (PP) over the issue. Overall, the PP has taken a hardline stance on issues of separatism. The party is cer-tainly unlikely to completely cave in to the demands of the ETA leadership any time soon. Critics of the government’s approach towards the ETA, one of the most vocal being former PP prime min-ister José María Aznar, accuse current Spanish prime minister Mariano Rajoy of betraying the party. The hardline stance is still enough for these critics, and the issue is being mismanaged. Yet this accusation, when put into perspec-tive, is rather harsh, considering that both Bolinaga and Prada’s cases were the result of Spanish and EU law, rather than Rajoy’s own approach to the ETA.

Recent election results reveal that there is growing support for groups, which advocate seeking Basque inde-

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pendence through non-violent means. EH Bildu, the electoral wing of the new-ly formed, peaceful organisation Sortu, came second in last year’s Basque elec-tions. Batasuna, often seen as the ETA’s electoral front, announced its dissolu-tion earlier this year. Moreover, many ex-Batasuna members have pledged their support to EH Bildu, indicating not only that the people have rejected an armed struggle, but also that many members of the ETA itself are choosing to abandon its violence. Therefore, it is unlikely that an armed uprising will break the ceasefire.

Collectively, these pieces of evidence indicate that separatism is still a press-ing issue within the region, but support

for extremism is rapidly declining. The violent threat once posed to Spain

by the ETA has certainly subsided for now, as the group is weak and its lead-ers have peaceful immediate aims. It is highly likely that the group is caught up in an irreversible decline meaning that the ETA has no realistic place within the future of Spain. The organisation lacks the strength and support to pose either a contemporary threat to Spanish national security or to threaten to revive itself and return to the force, which it once was. As for future prospects, the momentum seems to be swinging fur-ther and further towards the non-violent exponents of the Basque separatist movements.

Recent election results reveal that there is grow-ing support for groups, which advocate seeking Basque independ-ence through non-violent means.

Alexander King is an undergraduate Politics and Philosophy student at LSE with family links to Spain. To comment on this article, please email [email protected]

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AP


y love for studying and working with law during the last five years was sorely put to the test when I received a disturbing letter last Monday. I have been convicted in my absence for a crime I did not commit!

I was told I was going to receive a bill and instead, over two years later, I am informed I have been convicted in my absence.

For the last one and a half years, I have been working abroad in charities and law firms fighting for human rights. Before I moved from the UK however, I accidently got onto the wrong train. Little did I know what impact this would later have in my life.

The incident happened on my way to the train station in Birmingham. I was being hassled by an unknown man who wanted me to give him money and made a grab for my handbag. The man followed me as I ran off towards the station. I was very shaken by the incident and was relieved to get on my train to Oxford. I didn’t realise my ticket was only valid for the train an hour later until the conductor in-formed me that I would have to pay again. No amount of explanation of the situation helped despite the train being half empty and the ticket price being equal to that which I had already paid. I had not tried to cheat the company and was upset that the mitigating circumstances were not met with any degree of sympathy. Instead, I was treated like a criminal despite the company not losing money due to my actions. I was informed that I would receive a bill, as I did not have the money to pay at that time.

The incident was in December 2011. I did not receive a letter or bill from Cross Country Trains and informed them by e-mail one month later of my new address overseas. Two years went by and I presumed the matter to be closed, as I had received no notice from them.

In February 2014, after I moved back to the UK, I was shocked to receive a letter from the High Court Enforce-ment Officers threatening to come and take my possessions and sell them in a public auction if I did not pay a fine of £600. It took me two hours ringing six different numbers to

discover this bailiff’s order was related to the ticket incident of 2011!! Cross Country Trains had taken me to court for not paying £20. Not only did they take this matter to court, but also the court had actually convicted me without my knowing there was even a court case against me. I now have a conviction and court record.

Receiving a threatening letter from the Bailiffs Office is a scary experience. I felt powerless and unjustly treated. I went to a London Magistrate’s Court on 6th February to make a Statutory Declaration that I was unaware of this case. Due to the London underground strike, I arrived one hour late and had to wait three hours before finally getting called into Court number nine. I was seated in a glass cabi-net, like Eichmann – the mass murderer in the Nazi Re-gime. The judges believed my situation and quashed the

immediate case, which means the whole process starts over again in a court in Oxford in April.

I am so disappointed. As a law student, I believed that the rights of individuals in the UK are protected, but now I see that people can be convicted without any notification that there is a case is being brought against them.

I have lost some faith in the English legal system. How can it allow the conviction of people in their absence with-out making sure that the party involved knows about the case being brought against them? Why is it not a require-ment to send payment-warnings by registered post before an individual is taken to court? Are there no protections in place for citizens in cases like this? Can big corporations really just do this and the courts actually help them? Are we really this powerless? At least I know now how it is to be the subject of arbitrariness, although I never expected to experience this in the UK. I realise how it is to be on the other side, to be wrongly accused and sitting like a criminal in a courtroom.

Convicted without charged Does the English legal system protect us or expose us to arbitrariness?

M

Viewpoint

“I was told I was going to re-ceive a bill and instead, over two years later, I am informed I have been convicted in my absence.”

Rhiana Spring is a LLM student of International Law at the LSE. To comment on this article, please email [email protected]

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n 1 July 1997,the sovereignty of Hong Kong was transferred from the United Kingdom back to the People’s Repub-lic of China (PRC). The fate of the for-mer Crown Colony was left to the “One Country, Two Systems” principle, the result of a long and drawn-out set of negotiations between the two parties. According to Chapter 1, Article 5 of the Hong Kong Basic Law, the PRC’s “socialist system and policies shall not be practiced” and the “previous capital-ist system and way of life shall remain unchanged.”

It was determined Hong Kong would have this degree of high autonomy for 50 years. However, there is sense of uncertainty whether after 50 years ( in 2047) the Special Administrative Re-gion (SAR) will still enjoy the same amount – or seen to some as lack of – independence. Prior to 1997, an esti-mated 250,000 – 1,000,000 citizens left the city in fear of a Communist takeo-ver by the PRC. Looking back, almost 17 years after the handover, were these anxieties inflated? As 2047 approaches,

would it be reasonable to bring the anxi-eties up again? On a superficial level, the semi-independence promised to Hong Kong has indeed been granted. However, a closer examination of some of the political matters involved reveals connections between the two govern-ments. If Hong Kong politics is already analogous to that of the PRC, the “Two Systems” feature becomes a façade, and its expiration in 2047 will not result in any drastic changes.

The PRC is built on a hierarchical electoral system. Only members of local People’s Congresses are elected based on the popular vote; higher-ranking government officials are determined by either the respective local People’s Congress or the National Congress. Similarly, in Hong Kong only a small minority of the population, a group handpicked by Beijing, can elect the SAR’s leader. Not all members of the Legislative Council are directly elected through universal suffrage, either. Half are chosen through popular vote while the other half are chosen by designated

A Conflict between Beijing’s Promises and Policies

The Insecurity of Hong Kong Politics:

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ANDREA KAN


entities of a functional constituency. In both systems, the ruling elite plays a key role in determining the outcome of the electoral processes.

One of the most publicised features of the “One Country, Two Systems” principle is universal suffrage. Article 45 and 68 of the HK Basic Law state the eventual goal for the Chief Execu-tive and Legislative Council members respectively is to be chosen through universal suffrage. However, contro-versy surrounds these articles. In 2004, Beijing ruled there would be no univer-sal suffrage in Hong Kong before 2012. Beijing also reneged on an earlier prom-ise that allowed the SAR the right to determine its own voting timetable. In 2007, the National People’s Congress (NPC) Standing Committee Resolution stated that the Chief Executive vote in 2017 would be determined by popular election, although there has been doubt whether this will actually be realized. Just recently, the Chairman of the Le-gal Committee of the NPC warned that Beijing “would not accept a Chief Ex-ecutive candidate who adopted a con-frontational attitude towards the central government.”

Any sign of universal suffrage with no string attached is merely an illusion. The “One Country” aspect of the afore-mentioned principle emphasizes that in Beijing’s eyes the SAR is nothing more than another area of recovered Chinese territory – completely and indisputably under the authority of the Central Gov-ernment. According to Basic Law expert Albert Chen, the fact that Hong Kong is by default under the authority of the PRC points to the fact that Beijing will not – and cannot – risk the appointment of a popularly elected candidate that it cannot trust or accept. In 2017 and be-

yond, the PRC will likely grant the citi-zens of Hong Kong the opportunity to elect their own Chief Executive for the main purpose of quelling increasingly fervent public unrest. Intervention is ex-pected; how fair the elections appear to be really only depends on how discreet Beijing is about its involvement.

Although the PRC has a strict policy against freedom of speech and civilian demonstrations, it is not to say that all forms of dissent are banned. Anti-Jap-anese riots in 2005 and 2012 were not well contained by the police, and even claimed to have been encouraged by Beijing. Essentially, it is only when the ruling Chinese Communist Party feels its power is threatened – often when demonstrations are to do with domestic political matters – that a harsh approach is necessitated and protests are stopped sometimes before they even begin.

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In 2017 and beyond, the PRC will likely grant the citizens of Hong Kong the opportunity to elect their own Chief Ex-ecutive for the main purpose of quelling increasingly fervent public unrest.

FLICKR CREATIVE COMMONS


Despite the limited political rights, the SAR was ranked highly by Freedom House in terms of the level of civil lib-erties. Protests are recurrent in the city, and the administration is surprisingly tolerant of them, especially considering that almost all are of anti-government nature. For example, the upcoming Occupy Central protest, a non-violent civil disobedience movement to push for democratic elections in 2017, has been in the works for over a year at the time of writing. But there has also been staunch opposition to the movement, yet the Hong Kong government cannot con-stitutionally put an end to it. Ironically, the Occupy Hong Kong movement was forced out of its base, HSBC Headquar-ters, after almost a year, whereas the Occupy Wall Street movement in the “Land of the Free”was forced out of Zuccotti Park in a short two months.

However, while Beijing chooses what it will and will not listen to from its citi-zens, the Hong Kong Government is also selective in responding to its citizens. Essentially, the Hong Kong people have a voice, but they are not often heard, especially when criticising the PRC’s policies. Beijing has turned a blind eye to protest ranging from protests against the appointment of pro-Beijing Chief Executive CY Leung to those for Hong Kong’s return to the United Kingdom. Their weekly presence and repetitive slogans make it easy for the adminis-tration to ignore them. However, some might point to the success of the mas-sive demonstrations in 2003 which were against the introduction of an anti-sub-version law (Article 23). This care is an exception, not a trend.

Once the “One Country, Two Sys-tems” principle expires, there are con-cerns that Beijing will no longer attempt to be stealthy with their influence in SAR. Instead, Beijing will implement their dreaded socialist policies. Some political experts even term 2047 as the “true” handover of Hong Kong. How-ever, if politics in the city is already heavily tainted by Beijing it cannot get substantially worse. it could be said that Hong Kong, in certain ways, is already in a post-2047 state.

During Sino-British negotiations in the 1980’s, Deng famously commented that the 50-year expiration date was not an issue of concern because China was on the path of modernization and by 2047 China will be on par with Hong Kong. There is no doubt the PRC has experienced huge amounts of economic growth and development in the last two decades. However, the same cannot be said of political development in China.

Beijing recently released the “60-Point Decision”, a document out-lining some of the reforms the govern-ment plans on undertaking. It is domi-nated by economic reforms, though there are several other points made on advancing political rights and limiting persecution. The introduction of a new leadership in 2012 welcomed a highly publicised fight against corruption.

However, there are doubts as to whether these plans of action will yield actual results in China. Beijing’s interests are deeply entrenched so it is unlikely there will be extensive, long-term changes in China. As the recent formation of a national security body that directly re-ports back to the president indicates, any pursuit of reform by the Chinese government directly strengthens its po-litical power. Despite some of its much publicized development efforts, China isn’t genuinely committed to long term political change. Furthermore, during Xi Jinping’s first year in office, the PRC president has already taken steps to con-solidate individual power and push back democratization. If Beijing continues this insincerity in initiating reforms, po-litical development may not be a likely sight in the near future for Hong Kong.

It is perhaps too early to speculate what might happen 34 years from now. A few of decades ago, China was an im-poverished, war-ravaged country under revolutionary totalitarian rule. Now, it is a boorish global power with the finan-cial growth supporting its dominance and allowing the continuation of op-pression. The future of Hong Kong is dependent on China’s growth. Ties be-tween the SAR and the Motherland will only become tighter as the perceived deadline nears. At this vantage point, it seems unlikely Hong Kong will be able to detach itself from Beijing’s powerful grip. However, when 2047 does come, Hong Kong could be a power itself. We can only hope the expiration of the “One Country, Two Systems” policy will at the very least start a discussion on how to reach a more independent state.

Andrea Kan is a first year Law stu-dent at LSE. She is born and raised in Hong Kong and plans on residing there after completing her degree. To comment on this article, please email [email protected]

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If Beijing contin-ues this insincer-ity in initiating reforms, political development may not be a likely sight in the near future for Hong Kong.


n December 17, 2013, Japanese Prime Min-ister Shinzo Abe in-troduced a new five-year national security strategy aimed to ex-

pand Japan’s military capabilities and reach into the East China Sea. Referred to as “proactive pacifism,” this new de-fence policy calls for a significant in-crease in Japanese defence spending as well as the establishment of an amphibi-ous assault force. In the wake of China’s controversial declaration of an Air De-fence Identification Zone (ADIZ) only weeks before, this major policy shift has caused regional tensions to quickly es-calate. .

Already ranked as the world’s fifth largest military spender with a defence

budget of over $59 billion USD in 2012, Japan is expected to increase budget by an additional $11.7 billion dollars over the next five years. Japan’s verita-ble shopping list of arms and materiel includes a wide array of “anti-missile destroyers, submarines, 52 amphibi-ous vehicles, surveillance drones, US fighter planes and 17 Boeing Osprey air-craft.” This represents a sharp contrast to the last decade of Japanese defence spending in which the budget fell by 3.56 percent. The 2012 defence budget ranked as one of Japan’s lowest in the last 15 years. Although the magnitude of this new budgetary reversal has sur-prised many domestic and international observers, it was foreshadowed by a smaller budgetary increase of $1.16 bil-lion USD in January 2013 “in response

to an ever-more assertive China.” Despite the considerable number of

military assets and funds at the disposal of the Japanese Self-Defence Force (JSDF), Japan does not officially have a military. According to Article 9 of the Japanese Constitution, the country has “forever renounce[ed] war as a sover-eign right of the nation and the threat or use of force as means of settling in-ternational disputes. To accomplish the aim of the preceding paragraph, land, sea, and air forces, as well as other war potential, will never be maintained.” As Article 9 conflicts with Prime Minister Abe’s militarist agenda, he has repeat-edly voiced his intent to amend this pacifistic clause. In his 2014 New Year’s address, he announced a constitutional revision would occur before the 2020

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Tokyo Olympics. In the meantime with Article 9 still in

place, the establishment of an amphibi-ous assault force remains a major source of constitutional debate mainly due to their singularly offensive purpose. Modelled extensively after the United States Marine Corps, these Amphibious Preparatory Units or APUs are highly specialised detachments designed to seize control of islands and more fully represents Japan’s first step in expand-ing its force projection capabilities. By incorporating these offensive units into the currently defense-oriented military, Prime Minister Abe’s policy of “Proac-tive Pacifism” is also changing domes-tic attitudes turning them more favour-ably towards a more involved role in East Asia as well as remilitarisation as

a whole. Additionally, the establishment of APUs serves as a prominent chal-lenge to China in regards to their heated disputes over the Senkaku/Diaoyu Is-lands.

Regarded by many to be the “most serious [situation] for Sino-Japanese re-lations… in terms of the risk of milita-rised conflict,” the dispute over the sov-ereignty of the Senkaku/Diaoyu islands has become a rallying point for both countries to further increase defence spending and development. Situated near key shipping lanes and suspected to be the site of vast oil reserves, the Senkaku/Diaoyu Islands has become a highly contentious topic with both countries continually sparring with one another and simultaneously using one another as bogeymen to rouse national-ist sentiment.

With the continued growth of China’s economic and military power in con-junction with an increasingly right wing government under Prime Minister Shin-zo Abe at Japan’s helm, “proactive paci-fism” promises to herald the return of Japanese militarism. Growing defence expenditures, constitutional revisions, and the transformation of the JSDF from a defensive to an offensive entity have only heightened tensions in a region whose history is wracked by warfare. Although the possibility of war in East Asia may be an overstatement, it is clear that Japan is gearing up just in case.

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Derek Kang is an undergraduate student at the LSE. To comment on this article, please email [email protected]

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largest military spending in the World

defence budget in 2012

expected defence budget in 5 years time

Growing defence expenditures, constitutional revisions, and the

transformation of the JSDF from a defensive to an offensive entity have only heightened tensions in a region

whose history is wracked by warfare.


“Water, water, every-where, not any drop to drink” goes the fa-mous line in Samuel Coleridge’s The Rime of the Ancient Mari-ner. Being surround-ed by water but lack-ing ways to access it

is the Sudanese nightmare. It is also at the heart of the political crisis that saw the world’s newest country plummet into a state of warfare. A country plagued by over 40 years of war, South Sudan could finally celebrate its independ-ence from Sudan on the 9th July 2011. In 2012, I went to an Independence Day celebration and the newly titled South Sudanese people were brimming with pride in their country. It was so hot that soldiers, confined to their heavy, black boots, thick khaki uniform and red be-rets were fainting in the heat. Regard-less of the heat, Salva Kiir’s speech was received with a chorus of cheers and exuberant shouts of “South Sudan Oyee!” (Hooray South Sudan!). Three years later Independence, this moment of happiness has been overshadowed by the lurid reports of torture and killings, fuelled by ethnic tensions. In South

Sudan, there are deep-rooted ethnic tensions that even the solidarity from independence couldn’t erradicate. The new country’s turmoil was widespread in mainstream media. In an interview with the BBC United Nations Assistant Secretary-General for Human Rights, Ivan Šimonović, described a distressing scene: “The situation in Bentiu and Bor is a clear illustration of what this ethnic conflict means. They are ghost towns. Bor is empty and Bentiu does not exist anymore. It has been wiped out. It has not only been looted, it has been burnt. You can find citizens only in camps for displaced persons.”

The Country Director for one of the many NGOs operating in South Su-dan highlighted the issue of perceived tribal allegiances in the South Sudanese government and army, when he stated: “There is a widely held view that the Dinka tribe, from which the current president emanates, has dominated power and resources to the detriment of other groups…many feel that they are not getting their share.”. Indeed, there is a point to be made that Salva Kiir’s so-called “Dinkocracy” has caused a lot of frustration and discontent within the SPLM (the main political party), par-

South Sudan: Government of the oil, by the oil, for the oil?In light of the recent political crisis, Almaz Gaere investigates whether the abundance of oil is more of a curse than a blessing for the world’s newest independent country. Photography Almaz Gaere.

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ticularly, the power struggle between President Slava Kiir and former Vice President Riek Machar. This relation-ship can be viewed as a key source of conflict because each possess the ability to mobilise primarily ethnically based militias.

The alleged coup by Riek Machar on the 15th December 2013 triggered inter-ethnic fighting between Dinka and Nuer based in the capital, Juba. The vio-lence has since spread to many parts of the country, particularly Jonglei, Upper Nile and Unity States. Mainstream me-dia erupted with reports of ethnic vio-lence, flooding TV screens with the all-too familiar images of wounded, crying women and fearful children, men car-rying guns and messages of anger and hate. These reports and images depicted scenes of chaos: deeply rooted ethnic conflict that was always just beneath the surface, waiting to threaten the stabil-ity of South Sudan. Only presenting a Dinka versus Nuer characterisation of the crisis in the media fails to acknowl-edge the grievances of those fighting for justice and the dissident politicians ar-rested by the government.

Matthew Le Riche offers a different view. In an article about the political crisis in South Sudan, he argues: “It is important to understand that the major-ity of attacks were not initially because of ethnicity or a hatred of others due to their ethnicity”. He points out that most of the opposition figures detained by the government are Dinka. Most impor-tantly, he notes: “the more this dynamic of attack and retribution progresses, and the more it is framed as ‘ethnic fight-ing’ by all involved, including journal-ists and international organizations, the more it moves towards tribal or ethnical-ly defined war”. According to Le Riche, it is dangerous to frame the conflict as explicitly ethnically-fuelled violence. To do so is to overlook the complexity of the region’s history and politics.

Interestingly, an article by David Smith (The Guardian) highlights the role of the US in instigating the political crisis. “Now critics see it as an example of blundering American imperialism, a state-building exercise as doomed as those in Afghanistan and Iraq.” Smith is arguing that as prime sponsors for the referendum of succession, the US was irresponsible for focusing on quick technical fixes that overlooked the im-portance of good governance and the ethnic tensions in South Sudan. It is important to also consider the role of external actors. But can we reduce the political crisis to simply a result of overbearing American foreign policy?

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Oil revenues accounts for over 70 percent of the GDP and 98 percent

of the government revenues.


An understanding of the conflict as the result of Western imperialism removes any form of accountability from those responsible for the atrocities. Still, we cannot simply see the conflict as a re-sult of ethnic tensions spiralling out of control. Rather, we need to understand the conflict as the outcome of a popula-tion subject to the rule of a state without effective governance structures and un-dermined by a political power struggle fuelled by elite competition for control of resources.

Amongst the arguments for the role of American imperialism and comparisons of the crisis to the Rwandan genocide presented in the Smith’s article there was an underlying theme: that of “deep-root-ed ethnic tensions waiting to explode in an ugly conflict at any moment”. But was it ethnic tensions at the heart of this conflict? Or was it something else? Something also buried beneath the sur-face, but it was something considerably darker, slipper and greasier.

Since its independence on the 9th July 2011 interested parties (largely the USA and China) have been optimistic about the future of South Sudan with its abundance of oil and natural resources. However, the benefits of the extraordi-nary high oil revenues have not affected the majority of the population More than half still live below the interna-tional poverty line. With literacy rates hovering around 24 percent and life ex-pectancy at birth only extending as far as 54 years, according to World Bank’s

2013 statistics, it is evident that oil rev-enues are not being invested in improv-ing health and social care for South Sudanese. Rather, the local population remains trapped in absolute poverty, as local oil revenues are invested in mili-tary spending to protect an increasingly paranoid and authoritarian state.

Indeed, with oil revenues accounting for over 70 percent of GDP and 98 per-cent of government revenue it is unsur-prising that political life in South Sudan is characterised by a precarious balance between an impoverished, dissatisfied population and the super-wealthy elite who govern the country. It becomes ap-parent, as Paul Collier suggests in his book Bottom Billion, that for a newly-fledged country such as South Sudan, an abundance of oil is certainly more a curse than a blessing.

An interview with Jason Hickel, a South Sudan specialist at the London School of Economics and Political Sci-ence brought these more broad socio-economic aspects of the conflict to light. In particular, when asked about the role of ethnic tensions in the conflict Hickel stressed: “Whenever the mainstream media says that it has to do with ethnic conflict pure and simple, that’s actually wrong. It really has to do with oil. Eth-nicity is only a fault line along which

22

Cape Town, South Africa30 June – 11 July 2014

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10 percent of govern-ment revenues is spent on infrastruc-ture, a mere 7 percent on education and as much as 38 percent on military and security services.


these oil-related tensions have devel-oped”. He particularly highlighted the role of the “rentier state” in exacerbating the tensions between the citizens and the government. In the case of South Sudan, this specifically refers to the fact that 98 percent of government revenue comes from “rents” from natural resources, in this case oil, and not from taxes. This creates a situation where there is no so-cial contract between the government and its citizens, freeing the government to use the oil revenues as it pleases. In South Sudan, this has resulted in as little as 10 percent of government rev-enues spent on infrastructure, a mere 7 percent on education and as much as 38 percent on military and security ser-vices. The economic climate when this political crisis occurred should also be considered in the analysis of factors that brought about the widespread violence.

This is not to deny the role of ethnic tensions, which certainly played a role in the violence. Neither is this to deny the role of the personal conflict between the two leaders Salva Kiir and Riek

Machar which can be viewed as a fun-damental tension than encouraged con-flict to develop along ethnic lines. This violent political crisis cannot simply be attributed to irrational ethnic violence since there is such a precarious socio-economic status within the young coun-try. Hickel, regarding the representation of the conflict in South Sudan as cha-otic, argued that to portray the conflict as ‘chaos’ was to assume there is some-thing irrational about the conflict. He responded, “to call it chaos to me is to abandon the job of understanding what is going on…you’d never call political conflict in Britain chaos because we as-sume there are rational reasons behind conflict in our political system.”

This conflict exploded into wide-spread violence. What can be surmised from the crisis, however, is that until the needs of the South Sudanese are di-rectly addressed by the government, the people will continue to live in a world depicted by Coleridge where resources are abundant and tangible, but are al-ways out of their reach.

Almaz Gaere is a second year Social Anthropology student at LSE. He is half South Sudanese and has close connections to the country. To com-ment on this article, please email [email protected]

23

Cape Town, South Africa30 June – 11 July 2014

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Full course and programme information available at lse.ac.uk/LSE-UCTJulySchool

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The LSE-UCT July School provides an exciting opportunity for students and professionals from around the world to study social sciences issues relevant to Africa today in one of Africa’s most important and vibrant cities.

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Pure calmness around the holy Mount Kailash at 5300m.

© Rhiana Spring


Society

In fiction it is commonly portrayed as utopian – an earthly paradise faraway. Yet, the reali-ties of this mystical place nicknamed the Roof of the World are far apart. Rhiana Spring ex-plores the realities on the Tibetian Plateau.

Viewpoint

Tibet is a place of contradictions. There is the image of a peaceful land where monks in colourful garb live in silence and simplicity. It is a vacation destination with a landscape that seems untouched by modernity. It is a place to go when searching for solace. It is a cherished land by the people who reign from there, Tibetans.

But, according to the Chinese, this quiet land is, in fact, part of China and is not a quiet land, but a disputed region engulfed in turmoil, denied patriotism and violence.

Lhasa lived up to this exact mistaken view; it was exactly what I expected, but at the same time, nothing like I ex-pected. The streets were full of modern Chinese shops selling Western clothing with Chinese soldiers stationed at every corner. Paranoid officials, went so far as to confiscate my Tibetan dictionary on the premise it contained “untrue infor-mation” (i.e. a map of ‘Tibet’). X-ray

security checkpoints around the main square purposefully searched for light-ers to prevent monks from setting them-selves on fire, because disturbingly the officials were worried it would cause bad publicity.

Regardless of the sense of confine-ment, you could feel the spirituality em-anating from this sacred city. Every day, hundreds of Tibetans pass through the scans en route to ritually walk around the Jokhang temple in deep prayer, throwing incenses into centuries-old stone furnaces, seemingly unbothered by anything around them. The Tibetan culture is strong and thriving - in spite of the oppressive security and hordes of tourists. Tibet exists in both extremes.

In talking to the general Chinese population, it is widely understood Ti-bet has always belonged to China and the Tibetans are ungrateful for all the development and liberation China has provided in the past. The People’s Re-

public of China claims Tibet has been part of its nation since the thirteenth century. The invasion in 1949 occurred only after the loss of control in 1911. China, in their mind, liberated the Ti-betans from the autocratic leadership of the Dalai Lama. Although Westerners laugh at such an accusation of His Holi-ness the Dalai Lama, does this statement actually hold some truth? According to the Chinese, the Dalai Lama sat on his golden throne whilst Tibetans lived in medieval conditions and extreme pov-erty. He governed the country through religious dogma, which indoctrinated the people in Buddhism. Furthermore, by isolating the country from the inter-national community, the Dalai Lama de-nied Tibetans knowledge of alternative ways of life. Conversely, China’s “inva-sion” has introduced more modern liv-ing standards, advanced infrastructures and set-up thousands of new schools. Overall, China has invested billions of dollars into the region.

China has made investments, but what affects have these investments had within Tibet? It is true that there are new roads connecting the provinces – though they are mainly used by the crowds of Chinese tourists. Tibetans are not granted passports, preventing them from leaving the country or even travel-ling within Tibet without permission. A modern railway now links Beijing with Lhasa, which encourages large scale Chinese migration, but threatens to make Tibetans a minority in their own country. Even the enormous economic growth occurring in Tibet has failed to benefit Tibetans with more than 70 per cent of Tibetans living below the poverty line, according to the Central Tibetan Administration. The Chinese may have rebuilt monasteries, but only after having demolished thousands of religious structures during the Cultural Revolution in the 1960s and with them, the testaments of an ancient and sacred culture. Classes in the new schools are only taught in Chinese, denying Tibet-ans the right to their own language. Stu-dents are taught that Tibet was peace-fully liberated by China. The reality is unlawful arrests and lengthy detentions. Aggressive violence has become a part of Tibetans’ daily lives. According to the Official Agency of His Holiness the Dalai Lama and Tibetan Administration to the Americas, 1.2 million Tibetans have been killed since the 1949 inva-sion, amounting to around 20 per cent

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His Holiness the Fourteenth Dalai Lama

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of its entire population today.This is more casualties than in the Rwandan genocide.

Still, travelling from Lhasa to Mount Kailash, I was struck by the inherent peacefulness of the Tibetan people, who I found were constantly in prayers for Buddha, for themselves, and even for the people who have harmed them. It is against their very culture to hurt others. This is how Tibetan people want to live. But because of the Chinese rule we also witnessed monks setting themselves on fire, dying a slow and painful death in a desperate act of defiance from the inter-national community, from us. Tibetans are not calling for violence. They only want their self-determination back.

If, as China claims, the Dalai Lama was an autocratic ruler, why do the Ti-betan refugees worship him and con-tinue to recognise him as their leader? Why would thousands of Tibetans liv-ing within Tibet take huge risks secretly crossing the border to see the exiled Da-lai Lama if he had oppressed them?

Around the world, there are persis-tent demonstrations to free Tibet and it is hard to come across a Westerner who does not speak in favour of the so called Land of Snow. It strikes me why our democratically elected governments fail or simply ignore to take action in Tibet. Is it the fear that China will isolate itself from the international platform as it has done in the past? Is it the greed to secure the best trade agreements with China before other countries can? Or is it sim-

ply a lack of personal gain that prevents Western governments from intervening in Tibet?

International politics is regulated by international law and legally, Tibet has one of the strongest claims for inde-pendence. State sovereignty, though, re-mains a delicate topic, which is precise-ly the problem. China claims Tibet to be a matter of internal affairs and none of international community’s concern. Is it though? The use of force is strictly prohibited within international law with the only exceptions under UN Security Council authorisation, which China did not seek, or the right to self-defence. Simply put, the isolated country of Tibet does not pose a threat to international peace or security and certainly not to its neighbour, China. Regardless, China’s invasion was illegal, but never chal-lenged, and due to this invasion, any Ti-betan claims to sovereignty or internal affairs was quashed.

If, as argued, Tibet has always been part of China, does this change the out-come? International law is largely op-posed to State separation. Nonetheless, there is one option, a savings clause for a group of people whose rights are being gravely violated (Resolution 2625). If a certain group of people share, for ex-ample, a common cultural identity and a territorial connection and their funda-mental rights are being violated, they then have the option to legally choose their political status and become a sov-ereign State. China’s presence and ac-

tions in Tibet are, amongst other things, in violation of the UN Charter, the Uni-versal Declaration of Human Rights, the Fourth Geneva Convention, the Inter-national Covenant on Civil and Politi-cal Rights and the International Cove-nant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights. On the basis of the human rights abuses and international law, there is an argument for Tibet’s sovereignty. Politi-cal leaders just need to take action.

A failure to act will result in the ir-reversible loss of a unique and ancient culture. The loss of more lives of the most peaceful people I have ever come across who practice compassion in eve-ry aspect of their lives is unacceptable in the modern international community. Foreign occupations can happen, and have in our not so distant history. The deliberate and brutal eradication of an ancient culture however, can simply no longer be ignored or tolerated. As it stands, Tibetan culture is in danger of being erased. Is this a risk we are will-ing to take? If your answer is ‘no’, now is the time to acknowledge we have the responsibility as an international com-munity to act and stand defiant, as the Tibetan monks do, against oppression.

Are these the consequences of peaceful resistance?

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Rhiana Spring is a LLM student of International Law at the LSE. She has travelled to Tibet. To comment on this article, please email [email protected]

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espite the current Sri Lankan govern-ment’s official rhetoric of national rec-onciliation, women in North and East Sri Lanka are still dramatically at risk since the government defeated the Lib-eration Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) in 2009. The end of the armed conflict has been tinged with a nationalistic and religious biopolitic narrative. Accord-ing to the military forces, victory sig-nified the elimination of the adversarial other, such as the LTTE, but also the Tamil civilians. However, the post-con-flict area was highly militarized add-ing to the influential role of the heav-ily male dominated Buddhist clergy on the Rajapaksha brothers’ politics makes Tamil women particularly insecure and marginalized. In such a climate of im-punity, women continue to be the daily victims of severe human rights abuses and especially suffer from sexual vio-lence. Yet, any effort of reconciliation

is hopeless without ending the govern-ment’s violations and letting women participate in the peace process at some point in the future.

In the devastating Sri Lankan conflict 80.000 to 100.000 people died between 1982 and 2009. According to the UN, Sri Lanka has the second highest num-ber of enforced disappearances in the world. Consequently, there are an esti-mated 89000 widows in North and East Sri Lanka and many other husbands who have vanished are being held in de-tention without charge, according to the MRG report. A Tamil woman declared to the Trincomalee focus group:

“In 1988, I was six years old, my father was a village leader in Peruwali. He went to Trincomalee one day and never returned. My mother is still wait-ing. In 2007, my husband went to fish in an area controlled by the Navy and to this day I don’t know where he is. I

D

War affected women in post-conflict reconstruction: a marginalized issue on the security agenda?Breaking the silence of women marginalization and sexual violence in North and East Sri Lanka. Marine Vignat-Cerasa reports.

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HUMAN RIGHTS WATCH


Farah Mihlar, a Sri Lanka expert for the Minority Rights Group International (MRG) has offered an interview to the London Globalist to shed light on the current chal-lenges women are facing in post-conflict North and East Sri Lanka.

Can you tell us more about current sexual violence perpetrated by the military forces against women in the post-conflict area?

FM: Yes. There are some women who are formally raped and some others who are increasingly the object of commercial sex such as prostitution or who are doing “sexual favour” to army officers in exchange of a ser-vice provided. At this point, the level of consent is not very clear but it usually ends up in rape anyway. Con-versely, some women are voluntarily in a relationship with an army officer but who are also in a predicament. I had a case where a young girl got pregnant from an army officer who then left in the South so she conse-quently had to hide herself because her family would not accept that she is pregnant with the military. Women activist we work with found a sort of shelter for women facing this situation.

However, women are way more scared to talk about sexual violence than any other form of violence per-petrated against them. They fear of being stigmatized regarding to their Hindu culture. Especially since most of women are already looked down by this culture because they are widows, so they do not want to bear a supplementary stigma with rape.

Their situation is even more difficult in the climate of impunity. If some women do report cases of rape they ignore how they will be treated in the police station, whether the police will act on it or not. Women live so close to the military people that they are exposed to constant threat, the perpetrator is next door.

Organizations like MRG are calling for a mechanism to be set up that looks at what happened during the con-flict but which also monitor present violations of human rights such as sexual violence.

How does MRG concretely help women in the post-conflict region regarding its high militarization?

FM: It mainly consists in providing support to these women. There are already a few women organizations in the conflict area that are doing amazing work. They have recorded cases and supported women who have experience of violations and violence. NGOS like us would like to support them, regarding to their limited capacities financially and in terms of expertise.

Concretely, we have conducted gender training and training sessions on minority rights and human rights so that people working in this area know what is inter-nationally available to them, what they can fight for and demand. Then we have supported them to conduct campaigns and do some very local lobbying activity. But this is a very complex situation because they hit the

highly militarization and a government that is in denial and actually frames any kind of exposure in terms of terrorism.

The ideal project would be to empower women, to support them to campaign but also to network so they can be a stronger unit. We wish to design some work regionally as well where they link up with women rights defenders in North East India for example, who do simi-lar work as well as Nepal which is also in a post-conflict situation.

Can women truly be actors of change and seek their empowerment and justice in such a climate of impu-nity?

FM: War affected women in the post-conflict area are doing an incredible work. They are driven by the desire for truth and justice and their will to know where their children or husband are make them keeping the energy to go further. They go in court to support the vic-tims and continue to conduct protests for the one whose families have disappeared. They stand in the corner of a street with a photograph and wait for hours just to find some information.

How efficient is the international community role in counteracting human rights violations and bringing peace in the region?

FM: The UN’s biggest failure was unfortunately during the end of the war. The UN pulled out of the conflict leaving the area without any international presence and therefore the government had no ways to be accountable to the international community. In that short period, estimate ranges from 30 000 to 70 000 people were killed and there was a lot of sexual vio-lence among women and male combatants and civil-ians, that is known but not yet recorded. I should also mention that in this last stages, despite the overwhelm-ing evidences that 200 000 people were locked in this small place of land and were continuously targeted by attack from the Sri Lanka government, the UN Security Council never took any actions against Sri Lanka: they had two meetings but did not pass anything formally.

Interview

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have gone everywhere in search of him and there is no sign of him. I have no idea if he is alive or dead. In 2012, they said they will offer a death certificate. They asked me to change the police entry saying he is dead. I was offered 100,000 rupees by a government offi-cial to say he is dead. They came about three or four times and asked me, say-ing they will resolve it.”

Now, 40000 households in the North-ern Province alone are female headed. Women are compelled to be the primary income earners for their family dou-bling the pressures women face. Their opportunities are very limited due to the highly patriarchal and militarized environment. Their marginalization is further reinforced by the oppressive ef-fects of recurrent sexual violence. In February 2013, Human Rights Watch documented 75 cases of rape and sexual violence committed by the Sri Lankan military forces against Tamil civilians between the years of 2006 and 2013.

Sadly, Sexual violence is used as a weapon of war to oppress, force com-pliance, and deliberately humiliate, de-moralize and weaken the victims. His-torically, women have predominantly suffered from wartime sexual violence insofar as armed conflicts exacerbate structural gender inequalities, violence and discrimination. Women are the pri-mary targets of sexual violence because they are often perceived as bearers of cultural identity. Their gender and their body are used as figurative and literal sites of fighting. Security analysts and political leaders have dismissed these tragic attacks as a “private crime” so therefore they are marginalized on the security agenda. However, the security narrative shift from traditional military

concerns to individuals and communi-ties has given more visibility to wartime sexual violence.

On 19th February 2013, the Libyan government adopted a decree recogniz-ing women who were raped during the 8 months of uprisings in 2011 as war victims . But what about measures to counteract and punish sexual violence in post-conflict reconstruction contexts?

The current Human Security agenda may have the capacity to raise the pro-file of post-wartime sexual violence and address the unique needs of war affect-ed women. On 31st October 2000, the UN Security Council adopted the land-mark resolution 1325 which recognizes that, in addition to the common trauma of war affected populations, women are “targets of specific forms of violence and abuse, including sexual violence and exploitation”. Fundamentally based on mainstream gender perspective, the resolution reaffirms the equal role of women in the prevention and resolution of conflicts, peace-building, peacekeep-ing. It also emphasizes the importance of equal participation in all efforts for the maintenance and promotion of peace. Yet, this cannot be achieved without the preliminary empowerment of women. However, there is no mecha-nism of accountability implemented to ensure its application so women remain highly marginalized and oppressed in post-conflict reconstruction contexts in Sri Lanka. The victims, however, are brave women who will not be held back.

There has been some progress in this situation. In March 2012 and in March 2013, the HR Council successfully passed two resolutions calling for in-ternational investigation in the conflict last stages. There will be a third one in March 2014. The US backed the reso-lutions but it has been difficult because the Sri Lankan government claims an international investigation would be an imperialist attack against a developing country. However, the Sri Lankan gov-ernment has no viable justifications for the neo-colonialist argument since there is evidence that humanitarian laws have been violated and continue to be vio-lated within a country that remains in turmoil regardless of the end of military conflict.

Marine Vignat-Cerasa is a MSc Global Politics and Global Civil Society student at LSE. To comment on this article, please email [email protected]

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AP

Sexual violence is used as a weapon of war to oppress, force compliance, and deliberately humili-ate, demoralize and weaken the victims.



12 Years a Slave, is the Oscar award winning film about 19th century slav-ery in the United States, which depicts to the masses the cruelty of the trade of humans. Although the film is a his-torical account, this cruelty is not far removed from an omnipresent reality of modern day slavery. Globalization has blurred international borders and par-ticularly the expansion of the European Union has triumphed in creating the free movement of labour, but in the shadows lurks its resulting issues. One of them is modern day slavery, which takes many forms; the grimmest, human trafficking.

The European Union is not typically the first region that comes to mind at the thought of human trafficking, but this is-sue, de facto, effects every state on the globe, by facilitating transit or the des-tination for this terrible crime. Human trafficking is the second largest black market source of income surpassed only by drugs and jeopardizes the security of countless human lives.

Elena was the target of this gross violation of human rights when she answered to a Moldovan newspaper advertisement for au pair work in Lon-

don. She entrusted her passport with her trafficker and upon arrival in Soho, London Elena was told she owed a debt of £20 000 which she had to pay off by working as a prostitute. Her contacts to the outside world were cut off and she was too afraid to tell her story to the men she was prostituted to, as her traffickers threatened to hurt her and her family back home. Elena escaped by jumping out of a second floor apart-ment window, where her capturers had locked her.

Elena’s story, disclosed by the Eu-ropean Commission, is one of many

whom have fallen victim to trafficking rings, whilst trying to escape poverty.

A worrying trend revealed in a report published by Eurostat in April 2013 for the European Commission on human trafficking in Europe, shows that the number of victims between 2008 and 2010 increased by 18 per cent. This should sound warning bells to the Eu-ropean Union to tighten its surveillance of the criminal gangs who participate in the global trade of human beings by creating rogue-recruiting companies with false employment opportunities, as well as to increase education for citi-

12 Years a SlaveA European PerspectiveHuman trafficking victims in Europe increased by 18% between 2008 and 2010. Janna Larma delves into the facts behind modern day slavery in Europe.

Elena was told she owed a debt of £20 000 which she had to

pay off by working as a prosti-tute. Her contacts to the outside

world were cut off.

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An estimated 2.4 million people are trafficked globally, 800, 000 across international borders.

Forms of exploitation globally:58% Sexual exploitation36% Forced labour6% Other0.2% Organ removal

EU is mainly a destination for victims, with 140 000 victims at any given time.

Victims in Europe, region of origin: Over 50% Balkans and the former Soviet Union13% South America7% Central Europe4% Africa3% East Asia

Recruitment of victims often happens through a trusted source, an acquaintance, friend or relative promising a paid job abroad.

Italy had the highest number of human trafficking victims in the European Union, Spain is second (2010).

(Global Report on Trafficking in Persons, United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, 2012)

Sadly, as long as income inequality between states exists, there will always be those people looking for a better life and those people willing to take advan-tage and capitalize on those dreams. The EU has taken promising steps in recent years by creating common standards for prosecuting traffickers with a follow up report scheduled for later 2014. Nev-ertheless this security issue of human trafficking is a collective responsibility, which transcends the state and concerns each individual.

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Janna Larma is a MSc in Social Psy-chology student at LSE. To comment on this article please email [email protected]

zens on what human trafficking is. When citizen’s security is compro-

mised, particularly within country borders, the state has failed in its fun-damental duty. Will the EU have the re-solve and resources to consign this secu-rity issue to history? Unfortunately little mainstream coverage is given to human trafficking in Europe and for example Hollywood films like Taken, can often misrepresent how the trade actually functions. This is a transnational prob-lem, which requires transnational ac-tion. To end this tragedy, demand needs to be terminated, full stop. This begins by knowing the facts.

Elena escaped by jumping out of a second floor apart-ment window, where her capturers had locked her.

“ALAMY

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&Technology

n October 2010, the UK National Se-curity Strategy identified cyber crime as a Tier One threat to the country. It took over two years to see this concern acted upon. According to security engi-neering specialists, the restructuring of law enforcement, which was launched in spring 2013, was essential in the face of increasing E-crime volumes. These go hand in hand with yearly increases in Internet use. In 2013, more than four in five people in UK had access to the e-services. Internet, like every other medium, has its distinctive rules of the game. Participation comes with certain risks. It seems that some of the dangers are better recognized than others. Ac-cording to the Home Affairs Commit-tee's report from July 2012, ‘there is a very poor grasp of the persistently high threat of large volume, low level crime

The recent establishment of a new elite National Cyber Crime Unit (NCCU) within the National Crime Agency (NCA) has been a major step reflect-ing the growing importance of cyber security on the UK political agenda. Aleksandra Mirowicz investigates whether putting a greater accent on policing is the answer to the increasingly prevalent issue of cybercrime.

online’. These may bring truly immeas-urable financial, personal and social costs.

In 2012, under Operation HOUTHA, the police managed to respond within hours to the hacking attack on the Brit-ish Pregnancy Advisory Service data-base. The hacker, 'PabloEscobarSec', was threatening to publish the entire list of BPAS clients, whom he found guilty of being 'involved in murder-ing unborn children’. Regardless of the success in preventing the hacking, Professor Peter Sommer, a specialist in digital forensics, says that the only way to ensure that data does not leak is by not collecting it. However, it is very unlikely that the amount of data col-lected will be decreasing. Disclosure of personal information may be even a prerequisite to accessing many Inter-

The risk of sharing

Isharing the risks

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&his year will be the year of ‘Internet of Things’ technology where household ap-pliances can com-municate with each other. The imminent

Bryan Cheung reports on the privacy and security implications of the emerging ‘Inter-net of Things’ technology.

net services. With every website log in, we voluntarily provide our IP - a name, an address and a route, which indicate what to seek, where to do so and how to get there. There is also a full panoply of data required in the commercial con-text of Internet use where it is collected in order to run day to day operations. The data may be a valuable asset purely because of its private nature, as in the case of doxing. Doxing uses publicly available or hacked information about individuals to later expose it online for malicious purposes. Mostly, it has a po-tential to feed fraud.

E-crime prevention campaigns con-tinue to make Internet users significant-ly more aware of the risks as seen in the very successful “The Devil’s in Your Details' movement led by Action Fraud. This awareness campaign singlehand-edly reached over 4 million individuals and protected people against £3.27m loss due to fraud. A Eurobarometer sur-vey published in November 2013 gives clear evidence of peoples' growing mis-trust in the digital market. One third of the Internet users choose not to use it because of potential misuse of their personal data. However, people’s atti-tudes change dramatically in the con-text of Social Networking sites. It has been scientifically proven that follow-ing the websites logic and sharing pri-vate information is socially rewarded. Unfortunately, this delight can quickly turn into e-crime victimization. Nearly half the users of various social networks have undergone such a trauma accord-ing to the Norton 2012 Cyber Crime Report.

As a technologically dependent so-ciety, there is a very limited extent to which we can imagine the absence of on-line activity as the way to truly guar-antee freedom from the new forms of risk. Perhaps, instead of putting all our trust and money in better policing, we should start begin to question the gen-eral ethics of the Internet industry?

rise of this phenomenon through de-vices like smart watches, 'wearbles' (wearable devices that track metrics such as fitness) and Home Automation is very promising . There is no doubt that these devices will have a significant impact on society in the coming years. As they become more affordable, they will be more prevalent and therefore be engrained in daily life. Yet, consumers should tread carefully. As Wired maga-zine commented in a piece regarding security implications for the ‘Internet of Things,’ the development stages of the Internet were also fraught with security dangers, and it will be similar scenario in the early days for this new category.

But what exactly is the ‘Internet of Things’? It is the term used when a the device or object that you interact with everyday is connected to the Internet, or an online centralised profile, where all the information collected by the various sensors is collated together into a read-able dashboard the user can view.

The easiest way to illustrate this con-cept is a comparison with a current, and

existing implementation – the use of technologies such as NFC (Near Field Communications) and RFID (Radio-Frequency Identification) by businesses within their stores. Businesses use these technologies in various ways, such as an anti-theft mechanism (attaching these devices to objects such as clothes, which are only detached when the item is sold), or to track the movement of customers (sensors that monitor the location of the customer’s phones or

when a customer picks up a certain ob-ject and moves around the shop before purchasing it). The latter example illus-trates how a tremendous amount of data can be created and stored, which can be useful for the business, such as item placement, in response to data about customer movement. Similarly, the rise of the ‘Internet of Things’ will lead to

T

Aleksandra Mirowicz is an MSc in Social Policy and Planning student at LSE. She has a special interest in issues relating to privacy diclosurre-cee in the social media. To comment on this article, please email [email protected]

Compromising security in cyberspace

Using the disparate pieces of data collected daily by these devices, the various habits and lifestyles of in-dividuals can be construed.

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an unprecedented amount of data be-ing passively created through sensors tracking every day activities and choic-es, which will have privacy and security implications.

The upcoming consumerisation of the ‘Internet of Things’ will focus on two categories, namely the wearable cat-egory and home automation. Wearable devices will allow consumers to track their lives in such depth, and with such ease. Imagine wearing a Smart Watch, which counts how many steps you’ve taken that day, how many hours you slept, where you have been through-out the day. The possibilities with this new category of technology are exten-sive; walk within a certain distance of a grocery shop and have your grocery list appear on your Smart Watch. Wear a Google Glass and as you explore tour-ist attractions have brief snippets of in-formation appear in your line of sight. Have your house lights, heat and even kettle switch on, once your car enters a certain range of your home.

Despite the many apparent advan-tages of the ‘Internet of Things’, there is an issue with both the sheer volume of data collected passively (location data, habits, fitness levels, etc.) and active collection (someone filming an-other person surreptitiously using a pair of glasses outfitted with a camera, for example) by wearable devices. Google

has already attempted to address these concerns by forbidding app developers from releasing apps which use facial recognition features.

For the former issue, a data breach by hackers would be catastrophic. Using the disparate pieces of data collected daily by these devices, the various hab-its and lifestyles of individuals can be construed. Hackers could use these net-worked devices against their own own-ers, silently tracking when a user tends to be out of the house and sell the in-formation to burglars. Wearable devices that monitor blood glucose levels and other various physical metrics could be tampered with for nefarious purposes, possibly leading to harm due to artifi-cially under/over-reported levels.

If the ‘Internet of Things’ phenom-enon wants to gain widespread traction in society, manufacturers will need to offer a compelling argument for the use of devices, but more importantly reas-sure customers that their privacy inter-ests are being looked after.

Bryan Cheung is a first year Law student at LSE with a special interest in technology trends. To comment on this article, please email [email protected]

Have your house lights, heat and even kettle switch on, once your car enters a certain range of your home.

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The London Globalist Spring 2014