Categories
Global Voices

Russia: Returning to a State Monopoly on Violence?

Artwork by Surian Soosay on Flickr (CC BY 2.0)

The past few decades have seen a troubling increase in the use of private military and security companies (PMSCs) as a substitute for government forces. Sometimes this “privatization” happens with the express consent of the state and is concentrated in “low-intensity armed conflict and post-conflict situations”, for example the United States’ decision to use Blackwater for security operations in Iraq. In other cases consent is tacit or even irrelevant.

When the state is incapable of protecting its own citizens, it loses its monopoly on violence. The resulting power vacuum is filled by organizations willing to provide the service. Traditionally, organized crime is one such entity, but private security agencies now rise to the occasion just as often. After the collapse of the Soviet Union, for example, the Russian mafia and PMSCs stepped in to supplement substandard domestic law enforcement. A report from a UN Working Group on the Use of Mercenaries singles out Russian PMSCs precisely for their intertwined relationships with both criminal and law-enforcement structures.

Continue reading “Russia: Returning to a State Monopoly on Violence?”
Categories
Global Voices

Mexico, USA: Who Will Pay the Price for Wal-Mart’s Corruption?

President Calderon with Walmart CEO
President Calderon (right) met with Walmart CEO Michael T. Duke in Cartagena, Colombia in April 2012 and his office issued a statement and this photo.

There have been better times to be associated with Wal-Mart. In 2011, for example, it was named in the top 10 most transparent corporations in Mexico [ES]. Yet one of the world’s largest corporations is taking a hit after evidence surfaced that their Mexican subsidiary paid US$24 million in bribes to Mexican officials between 2002 and 2005. According to an investigation by the New York Times, Wal-Mart has kept this information quiet since 2005, when a former employee in Mexico blew the whistle. Taking every opportunity to call out bad practices at the company, Wal-Mart reform advocacy and employee groups jumped on the scandal, calling on Wal-Mart’s CEO to resign in an online petition started by Organization United for Respect at Wal-Mart (Our Wal-Mart) on Change.org.

Continue reading “Mexico, USA: Who Will Pay the Price for Wal-Mart’s Corruption?”

Zambia Donates Five Million Liters of Fuel to Malawi

Zambian President Sata meets Malawian President Mutharika
Zambian President Sata meets Malawian President Mutharika in South Africa. Picture courtesy of ZodiakOnline

Years of diplomatic incidents between Malawi and Zambia culminated recently in Zambia’s donation of five million liters of fuel to Malawi. The gift was ostensibly for the funeral of the country’s late President Bingu wa Mutharika, who died on 5 April 2012, after a heart attack. The political wrangling that has led up to this gesture, however, has a complicated backstory.

In 2007, Michael Sata – then the Zambian opposition leader – travelled to Malawi for a private visit, but was deported on arrival at Chileka Airport and driven 400 kilometers back to Zambia. Four years later, Sata was elected Zambia’s president.

At the time of his deportation from Malawi, Sata reportedly joked that Bingu had given him a fully fueled Lexus GX with a private chauffer (i.e., the immigration officer) for the journey, which was far more than Levy Mwanawasa, then the President of Zambia and Sata’s political opponent, had ever done.

Continue reading “Zambia Donates Five Million Liters of Fuel to Malawi”

Occupy Descends On Chicago

Chicago Nato Protester
Chicago Nato Protester. Photo: Michael Kappel/flickr.

Very little of the American public saw the grand summitry on display at the NATO Summit in Chicago; rather, much of the public perception came from a CNN news reel showing Chicago police surrounding a few protestors and beating them repeatedly with batons. Despite the implicit violence shown in the repeating images, the protests were largely peaceful, if perhaps ineffective in advancing Occupy’s cause.

The protestors had originally planned to gather in Chicago to demonstrate against both the G8 meeting and the NATO Summit, scheduled consecutively. After the G8 was moved to Camp David for security reasons, the hackitivst collective Anonymous called for 50,000 people to descend upon the Windy City, to defy and overwhelm the “police state” while advocating for anti-capitalist beliefs.

Continue reading “Occupy Descends On Chicago”

The GBCHealth Conference: Public-Private Partnerships for Stronger Global Health?

U.S. Army medical researchers take part in World Malaria Day 2010, Kisumu, Kenya, April 25, 2010
U.S. Army medical researchers take part in World Malaria Day 2010, Kisumu, Kenya, April 25, 2010. Photo: U.S. Army Africa/flickr.

At the GBCHealth Conference in New York last week, business, civil society, government, and other key stakeholders gathered to discuss the role of business in global health. Topics discussed included HIV/AIDS thirty years into the epidemic, health programs in the workplace, and women’s health. The GBCHealth Conference is a major forum for global health experts, funders, implementers, and policy makers.

One important outcome of the conference was the announcement of the MDG Health Alliance, which is led by leaders in the private sector, UN and public sector, and academia and focuses on Millennium Development Goals 4, 5, and 6 (reduce child mortality, improve maternal health, combat HIV/AIDS, malaria, and other diseases). Early initiatives will focus on treating childhood diarrhea, which is a major killer of children in the developing world, the elimination of mother-to-child transmission of HIV, and digital content for community health worker training programs. The alliance will develop and strengthen public-private partnerships for global health efforts. Jeffrey C. Walker, who will focus on health care workers for the alliance and is a former private equity CEO, called for targeted, cost-efficient solutions,saying, “We don’t have all the answers, but we might be able to help convene the people who do…Don’t think of this as corporate responsibility. Think of this as strategy.  Approach it as helping yourself as you help others.”

Continue reading “The GBCHealth Conference: Public-Private Partnerships for Stronger Global Health?”