It’s been almost 20 years, UN! Let’s do something!

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So I wrote up a letter to the editor of my college newspaper, The Collegiate Times, about what’s going on in Libya. Since I don’t know if I’ll be published or not, here’s what I wrote for a read:

In light of news headlines and Twitter trends these past few months, I have to say that I am highly disappointed with American media’s coverage of the protests in Egypt, Tunisia and now in Libya.

Exactly what is going on in Libya? The country is on the brink of a revolution—Libyans have been taking to the streets this past week, protesting the regime of Muammar al-Gaddafi, a man who has held on to the presidency since 1969. Gaddafi is accused of several crimes against humanity, including the Abu Salim massacre of 1996 in Tripoli, which killed more than 1,200 prisoners. Civilians are being subject to bombing raids by the state army in an attempt to quell one of the bloodiest battles for freedom in the Arab world. Reports say over 1,000 civilians have been killed in these protests.

I was honestly expecting to hear more about this revolution on the TV and the internet (especially the CT). Instead, I am highly disappointed that the media gives greater priority to Justin Beiber and Rahm Emmanuel than such an important and groundbreaking series of protests.

Libya is experiencing the domino effect of Tunisia’s revolt against its own authoritarian government, which started on early January. Factors such as high unemployment, rising food prices and lack of voice in the government led many Tunisians to protest against their president, Zine El Abidine Ben Ali. Ben Ali was ousted on Jan. 14, 2011, and a coalition government is currently in power.

Egypt picked up where Tunisia left off, starting a weeklong series of protests against the regime of Hosni Mubarak—a man who has been the President for Egypt for the past 30 years. Mubarak has maintained a state of emergency in the country since election, citing internal violence and terrorism to ban protests and control all media and publications in the country. Mubarak stepped down on Feb. 11, but the country is still in the hands of the armed forces and Vice President Omar Suleiman, the chief of the Egypt’s General Intelligence Service.

Many countries in North Africa and the Middle East, such as Jordan, Syria and Yemen, are worried about becoming the next Egypt.  They all face similar conditions: rising food prices, unemployment, oppressive regimes, and an increasingly younger population. For example, the median age of Egypt’s population is 24, which means many young people are without jobs. Unemployment rates in Egypt have hovered around 10% for several years. Additionally, most of these countries have very high corruption rates—Transparency International ranks Libya as the 32^nd most corrupt country in the world. Such factors are generally combine to create a ticking time bomb: people across the Arab world are becoming more and more motivated by the ongoing demonstrations, and are taking to the streets to fight years of oppression.

And now, we have Libya—a country that has been suffering under their dictator, Muammar al-Gaddafi, for over 40 years. Under Gaddafi, Libya has become an authoritarian state with limited political and human freedoms. Gaddafi has engaged in international terrorism, most famously in the 1972 Black September killings, and has helped with the establishment of favorable corrupt regimes in Africa, such as the election of Robert Mugabe in Zimbabwe. Libya is the 3^rd largest oil-producing country in Africa, and Gaddafi’s family has embezzled many of the profits from the country’s booming oil industry. To say the least, he has a history of nepotism, corruption and power play. Yet, he seems just as determined as ever to hang on to his position. In his televised speech on Feb. 22, Gaddafi vowed to fight “to the last bullet”, and denied rumors that he had fled to Venezuela to escape the protests. As the situation escalates, Gaddafi seems to have no intention of stepping down like Mubarak did—and he is ready to kill Libyans that dare to voice their dissent against him.

As a concerned student, I feel that we need to get our priorities straight. As global citizens, it is our responsibility to know and care about what is going on around the world, and voice our concerns about humanitarian crises, as removed from them as we may be. The future of a country is definitely more important than celebrity news or gossip, which is unfortunately more talked about today. What is currently going on in Libya and North Africa will change the lives of millions, and ours in the near future. We need to be cognizant of that, and media needs to reflect this change. Such a shift of perspective is the first step towards an objective media model, such as the one established by Al Jazeera. With an objective news model, we would not rely on media analysts to form our opinions for us, and news networks would play the sole role that they should be playing: reporting news as it happens and keeping the public informed.

We might not be physically invincible, but at least we try to fix the problems that you created.

To understand Egypt, it’s important to understand the history and political background of the country. Officially the Arab Republic of Egypt, the country is located in north-east Africa. Egypt has historically been vital to commerce between Europe, Africa and Asia, due to its proximity to the Suez canal and transcontinental trade routes. Napoleon’s invasion of Egypt in 1798 rekindled Europe’s interest in Egypt, and by the 1850s, Alexandria and the gulf of the Suez region were connected via railroad. Fearing international and French influence as well as the vulnerability in the Suez, the British opposed the construction of the Suez Canal from construction to opening in 1869, but ironically enough, profited most from its opening, since it made the Indian Ocean and the Far East much more accessible than railroad. With the economic boost of the Suez trade, Britain quickly bought shares in the Suez Canal Company, becoming a major shareholder in Egyptian politics and government along with France. With the signing of the Entente Cordiale in 1904, Britain secured its control over Egypt, while France was given free reign over Algeria, Tunisia and Morocco.

By World War I, Britain relinquished some of its control over Egypt, but only some.

By the time World War I came around, Britain, one of the Entente powers, declared Egypt to be a protectorate, and closed the canal to everyone but allied countries. Even though Egypt was not at the frontline of the war, it did experience a disturbed peace: educated Egyptians began questioning the authority of the British over Egypt. Seeing the example of the Ottoman empire, Egyptian nationalists protested to be handed over control of their own country. The British decided their best chance was to hand over the country to pro-British Egyptian leaders, and they finally gave Egypt ‘independence’ in 1922. But it wasn’t full freedom: Britain still retained control over the security of imperial communications, defense, the protection of foreign interests and of minorities, and Sudan. And this is where Egyptian nationalism traces its roots to.

With President Woodrow Wilson’s emphasis on self-rule for all nations, Egyptians had decided in 1919 to organize al-Wafd, a delegation, to send to the Paris Peace Conference and negotiate colonization settlements. This group was jailed and sent to Malta, sparking riots and protests all over Egypt. The riots settled only after Alfred Milner announced to publicly cooperate with the leaders of the Wafd, specifically Saad Zaghlul, the most influential leader of the Wafd. But after Zaghlul negotiated the ‘independence’, he was imprisoned by the British and sent to the Seychelles, causing protests in Egypt all over again. Egypt was to be a constitutional monarchy, and the Wafd won by a landslide during the first elections in 1924, appointing Zaghlul as the Prime Minister. But when Egyptian extremists assassinated British Sir Lee Stack, the Zaghlul government was given an ultimatum by the British: apologize, punish the assassin, pay indemnities, and give unlimited control of Sudan and other foreign interests in Egypt to Britain. Zaghlul was forced to accept all but the last two conditions, and resigned from Prime Ministership in shame, much to the chagrin of Egyptian citizens.

The Muslim Brotherhood remains the National Democratic Party's biggest opponent to this day.

This feeling of humiliation was further propelled by the events leading up to World War II. As is often cited, the world suffered a lot from the Great Depression, and a lot of political parties emerged in response to political and economic turmoil. The roots of the Muslim Brotherhood, a fundamentalist organization established by Hassan al-Banna, lie here too. The young fascist Green Shirts (Young Egypt party) also emerged, and they favored beginning a new country along with Sudan. Monarchist sentiments were represented in the political arena under the leadership of Ismail Sidqi, who, as prime minister, abolished the constitution of 1930 and wrote a new one. In 1936, Britain and Egypt formalized their relationship in the Anglo-Egyptian Treaty, allowing Britain to maintain a military presence in the Suez Canal and control Sudan–a compromise that was resented by many.

The Wafd government started falling apart by early 1940s, due to the public perception that they were allying with the British too much. Along with that, most British colonies and protectorates around the world were declaring independence, including India, Jordan, Myanmar, Sri Lanka and Pakistan. Then Prime Minister Mahmud Nuqreshi tried renegotiating the Anglo-Egyptian Treaty in this spirit, but Britain refused, sparking riots all over the country.

Nasser, Egypt's most charming leader, rose to power in a military coup.

During this time, pan-Arabism became a major political authority. In 1947, with the emergence of Israel, the League of Arab States came together to try to destroy Israel, but the Israeli army vanquished them. The first Arab-Israeli War in 1948, even though it was a failure, brought about the emergence of a new and publicly beloved leader in Egypt – Gamal Abdul Nasser. A proclaimed war hero, his strong rhetoric about pan-Arabic unity got him a lot of supporters initially, but he was more of a showman than an implementer–later rather than sooner, Egypt realized he was all talk, and by then it was much too late. Nasser took hold of the Egyptian state in a coup d’etat sponsored by his own Free Officers’ Movement, and his passionate anti-colonial spirit won him a lot of public support. By 1953, the FOM sponsored Revolutionary Command Council outlawed all other parties, and proclaimed the country as the Arab Republic of Egypt–a title that holds to this day.

To his credit, Nasser tried. But his attempts to oust Britain from controlling the Suez Canal were not met favorably when the people found out Britain could take back control if Egypt was in crisis. He also led the Non-Alignment movement - a coalition of countries that didn’t side with either democratic or communist countries during the Cold War. But as the various Arab-Israeli direct attacks continued (War of 1967, War of Attrition 1968 – 1970, etc.), little progress was made otherwise. When Nasser died of a heart attack in 1970, he was succeeded in 1970 by Anwar al-Sadat, who negotiated a temporary end to the war in favor of a future surprise attack against Israel.

Anwar Sadat's peacemaking skills earned him respect, but also led to his assassination.

Despite Egyptian loss in the Yom Kippur War of 1973, Sadat was seen as a good leader, especially due to the the victories early on in the conflict. In Egypt, he was called the Hero of the Crossing, but he was a controversial leader still– he negotiated with Israel for the return of the Sinai Peninsula to Egypt and received a Nobel Peace Prize for it, but that very same action got Egypt kicked out of the Arab League. Politically, Sadat also undid the one-party socialist state Nasser had established, by mandating there be three parties representing the left, middle and right. Political parties were allowed to operate again, leading to minimal political freedom (or a lot, compared to previous years). But Sadat’s peace streak was short lived–after signing the Camp David Peace Accords of 1978, which established a framework for peace between Egypt and Israel, Sadat was assassinated by a military unit opposed to these negotiations.

Hosni Mubarak, Egypt's president for the past 30 years.

Sadat was succeeded by Hosni Mubarak in 1981, ex-VP and chair of the National Democratic Party in Egypt. He remains in power even today, but under suspicious circumstances — he has been uncontested in referenda (elections) in 1987, 1993 and 1999 and 2005, but presidential as well as parliamentary elections are typically characterized by low voter turnouts, fraud allegations and fudging of numbers. The NDP was a member of Socialist International, and was recently expelled in light of the protests in the Arab world. Mubarak also never removed the state of emergency that Egypt was declared to be under after Sadat’s death, citing violence and terrorism as reasons to keep the law in place. This law gives Mubarak the power to suspend human rights, imprison anyone for any period of time and ban demonstrations.  Essentially, Mubarak has been running the country much like a dictator would. And people have had enough of it.

Oppressive government, unemployment, inflation... need more reason?

This is why the people of Egypt are protesting now. They have spent the past 29 years in a ‘state of emergency’, unable to express their views against an essentially single-party government. Their vote hasn’t mattered in years. Egypt is only ranked as “partially free” by the Map of Press Freedoms, mostly due to the fact that any news that is published/spread against the government meets state lawsuits, fines and prison time. Bribery and corruption is common, and the country ranks 101 on the international Human Development Index. Unemployment stands at about 10%, and the rate of inflation is soaring up at about 12% per year. Not to mention that about Egypt’s median age is 24–so a LOT of young people are frustrated with their government.

The Egyptian government has taken these protests with a grain of salt. Cairo has been designated as a ‘war zone’, and the area of Tahrir Square, where most of the major protests are going down, is the epicenter of the violence. A curfew has been imposed, but isn’t being followed by the protesters, who are demanding that Mubarak resign NOW. Mubarak is very conscious that if he resigns immediately, VP Omar Suleiman and the Egyptian military will control the state, and that may or may not be better than his own autocratic rule over the country. The government is much more nervous than military at this point–Vodafone announced that the government used its service to send pro-Mubarak messages to subscribers. Journalists and reporters are also being detained; press freedoms are being clamped down on more than usual. But Mubarak also blames the Muslim Brotherhood directly for the protests, and not his own government, which is infuriating protesters even more. They are demanding a national unity government–a type of coalition of all the parties that will function together and actually represent the people and their opinions. Friday, Feb. 4, 2011, is being called the ‘day of departure’, a culmination to the entire week of protests in the country.

Why does any of this make a difference to US, you might wonder. Well, unlike Glenn Beck, I don’t believe the revolution is going to be exported to the US anytime soon, but it does have implications on our everyday life.

• Oil prices: being as dependent as we are on oil, the protests in Egypt are hiking up the price we pay. Although this is somewhat insignificant right now, the duration of these protests will dictate how much we pay at the pump for the next few months.
• International Relations: Egypt is the fourth largest receiver of US foreign aid, as well as millions of dollars in the form of military aid. We have been supporting them militarily since 1979, with an average of $815 million in military assistance. In return, Egypt has supported various CIA interrogations of terror suspects from around the world, and has also supported the war effort in Iraq since the Bush years. A change in the regime might change how the US’s rapport with Egypt, in terms of supporting our efforts internationally. If the people do elect a coalition government, many of the programs that we currently favor and need to run with Egypt’s support might not be implemented.
• Revolution is Infectious: Sure, it might not come as far as the US, but many other dictatorial regimes, especially in the Arab World, can learn from the Egypt uprising. After all, Egypt took Tunisia as its role model. Especially with the prevalent usage of Facebook and Twitter, messages, ideas and revolutions spread incredibly fast. What would this spell for countries like Syria, Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Algeria?

So yeah. There’s my analysis of Egypt’s situation. We’ll know, hopefully within a few days, what the people of Egypt decide for their country. For more up-to-date coverage of this uprising, check out Al Jazeera’s live stream of events, or Ahram Online’s coverage.

Any thoughts?

I’m not a fatalist, but this does make me think. To some degree, we all function in a predetermined universe: our actions and responses are predetermined by our own emotional responses to them the first time we encountered them. That one synapse determines all our future responses to such situations.

But “free will” as an idea is not just neurological, it’s also social. Considering that there are no limitations, we are almost always free to do what we want, but there are ALWAYS social, political, economic or psychological restraints.

… it’s an interesting question.

While listening to Philip Borges’ talk on TED.com last night, one of the things he said really stuck with me. He talked about one of the tribes he photographed, who had been forced to move three times in 10 years because of aerial fumigation in their area. This forced me to think why we were resorting to such primitive measures in Latin America, of course with ridiculous mental images of Agent Orange and other chemicals back in the Vietnam days. So I decided to find out more about this phenomenon.

Latin America, as it is well-known, is the hub for most of the world’s cocaine, heroin and other illegal drugs. Colombia alone is the source of over 90 percent of the cocaine entering the United States. Countries like Mexico, Colombia, Peru and Bolivia are the main allies of the US, implementing its drug policies to stop the influx of these drugs into US soil. The numbers are shocking: over 750 tonnes of cocaine are shipped annually from the Andes worldwide in this multi-million dollar industry, and these amounts of production are consistently increasing.

The US has been the #1 partner in Plan Colombia, a decade-long plan to rid the country of drug operations.

The US government, in its war on drugs, has taken it upon itself to target these drugs at the source. Plan Colombia, which is generally regarded as a continuation of President Nixon’s War on Drugs program, began in 2000 under the Clinton administration, when he allocated $1.3 billion to reduce drug trafficking in the region. In 2001, the Andean Counterdrug Initiative was formed, and that program allocated about $4.5 billion to the effort. Even today, we plan on allocating $315,000 to the ACP and $203 million to Colombia to battle narcotics trafficking. Since 2000, we’ve spent about $7.3 billion in this program, and US aid to Latin America has been on the rise ever since this Plan was implemented.

1960s: nightmare relived?

So how can you tackle coca crops in large areas of land with minimal effort? The US’s answer to this is spraying them with toxins. Yep, simple Vietnam-style spraying down of the land and everything in it. The number of hectares fumigated in Colombia climbed from 60,700 in 1999 to 172,000 in 2006, and current projections call for 80,000 hectares to be sprayed (largely in Putumayo), which means about 65 percent of the area currently under cultivation. This large-scale fumigation is done from US planes, and covers a LOT of area: not only areas supposedly covered by coca plants, but also licit crops such as cacao, rubber, oil palm and castor oil trees, sugarcane and cassava. Farmers are often forced to abandon their lands after the constant spraying, reducing food security for many indigenous tribes.

Don't be fooled by all the green: glyphosate IS toxic.

The chemicals used in these fumigants are nothing short of toxic. The formula used in aerial fumigation includes glyphosate, which is also marketed by Monsanto under the commercial name Roundup, and other defoliants. One of the chemicals used to fumigate in Colombia is Fusarium EN-4, a descendent of a defoliant used by the US in Vietnam that, even after 30 years, is still leaving babies severely deformed and handicapped.

Here are some excerpts for glyphosate fact sheets:

There may also be cause for concern where glyphosate is used extensively in programmes to eradicate drug producing plants such as coca, opium poppies and marijuana. Glyphosate is sprayed indiscriminately over vast areas and will inevitably kill non-target vegetation some of which may be endangered.

Its broad spectrum of herbicidal activity has led to the destruction of habitats and food sources for some birds and amphibians leading to population reductions

Fish and aquatic invertebrates are more sensitive to gyphosate and its formulations… Some soil invertebrates including springtails, mites and isopods are also adversely affected by glyphosate. Of the nine herbicides tested for their toxicity to soil microorganisms, glyphosate was found to be the second most toxic to a range of bacteria, fungi, actinomycetes and yeasts.

The formulation of glyphosate with the surfactant polyoxyethylene amine (POEA), which is widely used, is significantly more toxic.

Since glyphosate is being marketed as a safe and environmentally friendly product and its use is so extensive, there is a danger that damage to non-target plants including endangered species will increase. Habitat damage and destruction will occur more frequently and more instances of weed resistance will appear.

Plants exposed to glyphosate display stunted growth, loss of green coloration, leaf wrinkling or malformation, and tissue death. Death of the plant may take from 4 to 20 days to occur.

Toxic aerial fumigtation.

Glyphosate manufactured by US companies is also combined with surfactants created by Colombian companies likeCosmoagro, which isn’t subject to the same safety standards as US. The synergistic effects of these chemicals have shown results that this concoction of chemicals affects embryonic development, which is a VERY serious problem, especially when farmers are trying to grow plants. Not to mention, nearly 100,000 gallons of Glyphosate has been sprayed over Putumayo alone, from heights of over 100 ft (recommended height is 10 ft). To reiterate Anne Leonard, “toxins in, toxins out”.

The US government’s argument would be somewhat valid if the program was successful, yet, there is no evidence that it is! Coca operations have only pushed further inward, damaging forests even more with cocaine production. Cocaine output has increased, in fact, in the past decade that the program has been implemented. The US has sprayed over 2 million acres of legal and illegal plants, yet the cocaine trade is robust. The program has been very unsuccessful in the past decade, yet, there are no talks of discontinuing it in the future.

Such deforestation is not only bad for the environment, it ruins peoples' livelihoods.

The damage caused by this aerial fumigation is not only environmental, it is also social. Farmers often lose their entire crops due to these fumigation measures. Especially since the chemicals are administered by air, no one can really control where these chemicals spread to. For example, many farmers in lower Putomayo have complained that fumigation affects fields in upper Putomayo: tomato, beans, bananas and medicinal crops have all been decimated. Since most farms in Colombia are not owned by corporations, most farmers are subsistence farmers: they grow enough for themselves and a little extra to sell for money. Aerial fumigation steals their ability to provide for themselves, and can ravage communities entirely. Especially for a people as dependent on crops for their food as rural Colombians, this is as good as stealing their livelihoods. This problem is in addition to the problems that Afro-Colombian indigenous people in the region already face: racism, disadvantaged access to state programs, food insecurity due to the internal armed conflict, internal displacement and vulnerability to human rights violations by gangs. Fumigation and the herbicides sprayed affects not only Colombia, but also neighboring countries like Ecuador, whose crops are feeling the burn too, as well as Venezuela, the new-found refuge for cocaine lords.

While this is a complex problem, it is one that we have brought upon ourselves as a country AND as a people. In our everyday busy lives, we barely find time to think about someone in Ecuador losing their land, or a tribe being wiped off because they have no place to live. But these problems are not beyond our ability: we created them, we can find solutions. Here’s what I would like to see happen.

• 

  Instead of attacking the bad, promote the good: The ONDCP has its approach all wrong, in my opinion. Yeah, it’s great to partner up with countries to eradicate drug cartels, but as long as people have an incentive to make and sell cocaine, they’ll find a way to do it. Attacking drug cartels and crime lords isn’t the answer: if one goes, there’s always a replacement. Instead of continuing on this endless chase, we would be much better off by creating agricultural agreements that promote the non-narcotic crops produced in Colombia: coffee, bananas, etc. By making sure we aren’t flooding the market with gluts of subsidized bananas and wheat, we can actually make sure trade with Colombian farmers is fair, and that they get paid equally on the global standard. Campesinos don’t resort to coca because they want to grow the crop, it’s because that’s the only crop that pays them good money. Reports recently out of Peru indicate that farmers in certain areas of the country receive $2.74 per kg for coca, but only $1.05 for coffee, $0.11 for cassava and $0.77 for cacao. So if we were all to trade more fairly on the global scale and give all farmers the money they deserve, we won’t have to spend billions of dollars trying to eradicate drug rings.

• Cut demand: We’re overseas implementing billion-dollar programs, but the demand for drugs at home hasn’t decreased one bit. And according to the law of supply and demand, if people demand something, it makes the product valuable, and people will go to any lengths to establish a market for it, especially substances as addictive as cocaine and heroin. Let’s try to implement programs at home that creates drug-free atmospheres, and reduces the demand for these fatal drugs– that’s the first step to cutting off this trade.
• Use international agreements for good: As I said above, trade policies could be much fairer than they are now. Let’s use our trade agreements to secure this. We have a whole group of trade agreements that aren’t being honored anymore. With enough support, we can try our best to make the Colombian campesino‘s life a little better. It’ll do the US a lot of good too: more money to invest in internal betterment projects.
• Publicize information and assist research: many chemicals currently being used have been tested under secret conditions on unknown subjects (rarely humans, since that’s illegal), and almost never for synergistic effects. What we need is research in these fields, so we can cut down on the number of toxins we’re throwing into Colombia’s (and many other countries’) environment and reduce our damage on their land.
• Get rid of these chemicals! Now that you know that they aren’t useful, successful OR necessary, inform others about their dangers. This part is tricky, because companies like Monsanto rely on direct pressure on the government to promote usage of their products in such large-scale campaigns. But with enough public support, representatives, who are supposed to represent our opinions, must listen. Also, refrain from buying Monsanto products (they have a whole array of those for you to avoid) in your homes or gardens.  With all the money that goes to them, they’re only developing more and more toxic chemicals!
• Sign a petition  to stop the aerial fumigation of Colombian farms!

• 

  Create opportunities for good: Instead of military programs, let’s make a switch to implement social and economic improvement programs in Colombia and other narco-countries instead. This will help our image as aggressors/busy-bodies, and will also result in overall good for the country. At the end of the day, this is what Colombia is in desperate need of–not military funding or strategic training to eliminate coca plants. Most of the farmers just want to go back to being paid fairly for growing sustenance crops and leading normal lives without their environment collapsing. I’m sure we can guarantee them that.

It is in all of our best interest to understand and appreciate the fragile nature of the ecosystem in these areas, especially Latin America, and not cause any further damage by our own actions. A drug-free future doesn’t mean a forest-free one. Let’s try to preserve what’s left of the forests and refocus our efforts on what really needs to be accomplished here.

Thanks for reading!