Amid growing concern over the fate and conditions of inmates engaged in a lengthy hunger strike at the U.S. detention facility at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, U.S. Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld Tuesday said he would not permit UN investigators to interview detainees there.
The Bonn Agreement, signed on December 5, 2001, provided the road map for the transformation of the Afghan state, culminating in the September 18, 2005 legislative elections. The landmark polls, which proceeded largely peacefully, have elected an Afghan Parliament for the first time in more than three decades. 1 Although the Bonn political process has made great strides toward facilitating Afghanistan ‘s transition to democracy, the costs and challenges associated with the reform agenda are immense and continue to spiral. With a narrow revenue base, Afghanistan will remain dependent on support from the international community for many years to come, not just to cover the capital costs associated with reconstruction and poverty reduction but also to underwrite core operating expenditures. Once funding for Coalition military operations is factored in, the cost of maintaining relative peace and stability in Afghanistan could exceed the $16-18 billion per year currently being spent—a prohibitively high figure in light of creeping donor fatigue. With the security situation in the country still volatile, regional posturing intensifying, and the United States signaling that troop withdrawals are imminent, Afghanistan’s transition remains fragile and uncertain. Senior Washington officials already quietly acknowledge that the reform process has failed to maintain the critical momentum that the Afghan government’s landmark report, Securing Afghanistan’s Future: Accomplishments and the Strategic Path Forward, appeared to generate when it was launched at the spring 2004 Berlin Donors Conference.
It is doubtful that the Bush administration will be very successful advancing America’s image in the Islamic world as long as its representatives have such trouble telling the truth.
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Key Points
During the 30-year war against the Ethiopian military dictatorship, the EPLF and TPLF guerrilla movements worked closely together and achieved victory in 1991 as the firmest of friends.
Despite claims to the contrary, Ethiopia and Eritrea have been fighting not over a border but over rival hegemonic claims in the Horn of Africa and over “national pride” and “territorial integrity.”
Its neighbors see Eritrea as having deliberately chosen an aggressive foreign policy as a central element in its nation building strategy; Eritrea fears the threat of Ethiopian regional dominance.
Even by the shocking standards of recent African conflicts, the May 1998-June 2000 war in the Horn of Africa is truly appalling. As many as 100,000 people have been killed in the intermittent, but savage fighting; up to one million people have been driven into exile or internal displacement; hundreds of millions of dollars have been diverted from development into arms procurement.
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