Archive | juin, 2013

L’Afghanistan est-il un narco-Etat ?

26 Jun

narco-etat

Le blog Etudes géostratégiques est très heureux d’annoncer la seconde publication d’un récent diplômé du Master II d’Histoire militaire (ancien moniteur et diplômé de Sciences Po Aix), Benjamin Bord d’après son mémoire de Master II. Alors que le retrait des troupes occidentales d’Afghanistan s’accélère, cet ouvrage revient sur une problématique trop souvent masquée par l’image d’un pays en guerre, celle de la drogue. Car en 2013, le territoire afghan reste encore et toujours le premier producteur mondial d’opium.
            Conséquence directe de toutes ces décennies de guerre civile, de violence et d’instabilité politique, l’argent de la drogue est également un des facteurs permettant d’expliquer la résistance des insurgés à laquelle ont été confrontées les troupes de la coalition.
            L’omniprésence du fléau de la drogue qui concerne maintenant tous les pans de la société afghane invite à s’interroger quant à l’attitude de l’Etat. Dans quelle mesure l’Etat central de Kaboul est-il concerné par la problématique de la drogue ? En est-il un acteur direct ou au contraire, une simple victime ? C’est à toutes ces questions que se propose de répondre cette analyse qui manie les dimensions historique, géopolitique, économique, sociologique et sanitaire.
            Ainsi, cette étude se donne notamment pour vocation d’éclairer le lecteur sur une question dont les prolongements dépassent largement le cadre des frontières nationales. Aujourd’hui, par ses conséquences, la drogue afghane est bel et bien un enjeu de sécurité régionale et même de sécurité internationale.
 
 
 
 

Les maquis hmong dans la guerre d’Indochine

25 Jun

Le 27 octobre 2011, à Dinan, le colonel Jambon s’est suicidé devant le monument aux morts des guerres d’Indochine. Par ce geste, cette « dernière cartouche », il entendait défendre ses anciens compagnons d’armes en Indochine, les Hmong.
            Depuis la fin de la guerre du Vietnam, ceux-ci vivent en effet traqués sur leurs terres par les troupes communistes qui ne leur pardonnent pas d’avoir pris les armes contre elles. Leur seule issue est l’exil, les camps de réfugiés à la frontière thaïlandaise, les villages de Guyane ou les villes américaines. Pourquoi les Hmong ont-ils choisi de combattre les communistes ? Pourquoi les caciques de Hanoi ou de Vientiane ont-ils décidé d’éliminer cette peuplade montagnarde ? Comment ces planteurs-cueilleurs de la cordillère annamitique ont-ils pu représenter une telle menace pour ces régimes ? C’est à ces questions que cherche à répondre cette étude.
            En 1945 les japonais frappent en Indochine. Tout symbole de l’autorité française sur ce territoire, civils et militaires, sont arrêtés, déportés, souvent exécutés. En Haute région, ceux qui sont parvenus à fuir, trouvent refuge parmi les populations locales qui bravent le danger des représailles nippones pour cacher, nourrir et guider les militaires français vers la frontière chinoise.
Lorsque la région s’embrase à nouveau en 1950, alors que les troupes vietminh appuyées et soutenues par la toute nouvelle république populaire de Chine déferlent dans le Nord de l’Indochine, quelques officiers se souviennent de l’aide apportée par ces quelques villages. Les lignes communistes se sont considérablement distendues, leur territoire est mal contrôlé et les populations nouvellement conquises sont moins imprégnées de la propagande vietminh. Dans ce contexte, la formation de maquis anti-communistes intéresse au plus haut point l’armée française.
Parmi les habitants de cette région, les Hmong forment un vivier très favorable à l’action de contre-insurrection. Ils connaissent bien le terrain, savent se déplacer et combattre furtivement, sont épris de liberté et supportent mal une influence étrangère à leur culture. Dès lors, tous les ingrédients sont réunis pour les regrouper au sein de maquis face aux troupes communistes. Une structure est mise en place au sein de l’armée française, le Groupement de commandos mixtes aéroportés, afin d’encadrer et d’organiser les futurs points de résistance.
 
            A partir de 1952, plusieurs maquis sont mis en place faisant intervenir dans la plupart des cas une forte proportion de Hmong. Les quatre maquis les plus importants sont Chocolat et Cardamone au Tonkin et Malo-Servan au Laos. Pour la majorité, les premiers temps sont couronnés de succès. Les troupes vietminh ou Pathet Lao sont bousculées, des villes sont conquises, les prisonniers sont nombreux. A plusieurs reprises, les maquis s’illustrent dans des opérations de soutien ou de recueil. Citons par exemple le raid du maquis Cardamone afin de détruire le pont de Lao Kay ou encore l’aide apportée par le maquis Colibri lors de l’évacuation du camp retranché de Na San. Les voies de communication vietminh sont perturbées, des troupes sont mobilisées contre les maquis. Cette situation est rapidement insupportable pour le commandement sino-vietminh qui mène plusieurs opérations de grande ampleur pour résorber la menace de la contre-insurrection. Chocolat et Colibri sont ainsi annihilés par l’action conjointe des forces vietminh et de plusieurs unités chinoises.
            Les maquis, organisation secrète, ne survivent pas à la défaite de Dien Bien Phu et à la signature des accords de Genève, en juillet 1954. Toutefois, face à l’escalade du conflit au Vietnam et ses répercussions au Laos, l’armée américaine, par le biais de la CIA, va faire renaître les maquis du Nord-Laos. Pendant 14 ans, les Hmong et leur général, Vang Pao, vont peu à peu prendre une place croissante dans l’effort de guerre laotien, jusqu’à en supporter la majeure partie. Les zones de peuplement des Hmong, que traverse la piste Ho Chi Minh, sont frappées par des bombardements très importants. En 1975, lorsque les troupes communistes déferlent sur le Laos, les combattants hmong sont exsangues, on trouve dans leurs rangs de nombreux enfants. Abandonnés par la hiérarchie militaire et par la CIA, les Hmong se trouvent seuls, traqués par leur ennemi qui entend détruire toute forme d’opposition. Ils sont désarmés, parqués tandis que les notables sont internés ou exécutés.
 
            Peu à peu les Hmong prennent le chemin de l’exil notamment vers les Etats-Unis, la Guyane ou la Thaïlande. Ceux qui ne peuvent pas fuir, se réfugient dans les coins les plus reculés des forêts laotiennes, démunis, sans accès aux soins et chassés par les troupes communistes qui n’hésitant pas employer des armes chimiques afin de mieux les détruire. Face à cette situation et malgré les rapports alarmistes de nombreuses ONG ou les reportages accablants de journalistes, les pays occidentaux gardent un silence assourdissant que le colonel Jambon entendait dénoncer.
 
Louis Malézieux-Dehon, étudiant en 4e année à Sciences Po Aix
(d’après son mémoire Les maquis hmong dans la guerre d’Indochine (1945-1954) sous la direction de Walter Bruyère-Ostells)

Afghanistan : l’impossible conférence sur la sécurité

13 Jun

Vous pouvez retrouver le dernier article du Professeur Jean-Charles Jauffret sur Diploweb en cliquant ici http://www.diploweb.com/Afghanistan-l-impossible.html

Towards a post-ISAF Partnership Policy for NATO in Central Asia (Part 2)

1 Jun
Towards a post-ISAF era, a new Partnership Policy for NATO with Kabul ?
A long-lasting NATO partnership with Afghanistan
According to NATO publications, the ISAF withdrawal from Afghanistan is being achieved in an organized fashion following the notion of developing a “lasting partnership.” The Lisbon summit, held in November 2010, was aimed at redefining the main goals and initiatives of NATO to include new organizational risks to be taken into consideration. Since 2010, NATO has placed emphasis on external operations in the different main threat sectors, which it considers to be combating terrorism, proliferation of weapons of mass destruction, cyber warfare, and energy sources. With these missions in mind NATO wishes to carry on its involvement in Afghanistan, where it could foster ”enhanced cooperation” in the fields of national security and defense reform. The ISAF will progressively let the Afghan National Army (ANA), created in 2002, to shoulder more responsibility. NATO remains optimistic about the effectiveness of the NATO Training Mission in Afghanistan (NTM-A), a training mission for the Afghan National Security Forces and the people in charge of the different districts. This long-term partnership is a necessary element for NATO, which continues to believe that its commitment in Afghanistan must persist despite the troop withdrawals (as the Allies approved at the NATO Chicago Summit in May 2012). However, NATO still has a need to explain in detail its “post-2014 mission plan”. In fact NATO is putting in place a new mission, which is not well defined; all the while the troop withdrawal is making steady headway. At this moment the “long-lasting partnership” concept appears quite fuzzy in reality and hidden behind the objectives assigned by the NATO technocrats. The most prominent question is does this partnership consist of a military presence, financial assistance, or remote assistance through already existing peace-building organizations in place in Afghanistan, such as the Afghanistan Human Rights and Democracy Organization or the Cooperation for Peace and Unity? It is also important to note the uncertainty of the troop levels maintained on the ground after 2014. The options put forward by General John R. Allen, the top U.S. Commander in Afghanistan, consisted of a range from 6,000 to 20,000 U.S. troops. This bracket was subsequently revised downwards by the White House requiring a contingent between 3,000 and 9,000 troops. The expectations are that the troop phase out will speed up since January 8, 2013 as a White House spokesperson announced the withdraw of half of the remaining 66,000 troops by April 2014, the same month that the Afghan presidential elections will take place. Even though decisions have been made there remains ambiguity concerning the incremental withdrawal and the number of troops needed to remain on the ground after completion. Indeed, While the latest version of the ISAF withdraw plan was made public in January, 2013 doubt remains on how clearly the program was defined and if it is not being driven by the war debt incurred by the United States. In this particular case, such a retreat could prevent a safe democratic transition from happening in Afghanistan. For NATO this would be the first failure for the potential “long-lasting partnership.” The troop withdraws spurred disbelief among the Afghan government, which is supported by the ISAF. A spokesperson to the Afghan President, Hamid Karzaï, asked NATO to explain and justify its twelve-year intervention in the Islamic Republic. If they did not really want to make certain the transition process is completed, what did the NATO members expect to accomplish with their military presence in Afghanistan? Now, they seem to leave quite precipitately rather than completing their objectives.

Russia, China, Iran and Pakistan regard the U.S. presence in the region more as a power struggle than a genuine willingness to help the Afghan people. This explains why these countries, during the Istanbul Conference on Afghanistan in November, 2011, opposed implicitly the continued military presence of NATO forces in Afghanistan. As previously mentioned, these positions can be associated with their respective economic, energy and cultural interests in the region following the withdraw of NATO These positions emphasize the need for collective bargaining and concessions in the post-2014 era, between the United States and the regional powers. These powers also joined hands to establish a Central Asian bloc since the 1990’s. As a result there are numerous regional organizations, such as the SCO (Shanghai Cooperation Organisation) and the CSTO, need to take part in the project helping the Afghan transition after ISAF departure. The SCO membership is comprised of Russia, China and the “Stans” (former USSR satellite states in Central Asia) and four observer states, Iran, Pakistan, India and Afghanistan. The organization works toward the goal of regional stabilization, yet is marked by internal disagreements when trying to adopt a unilateral position regarding the NATO troop withdrawals. This strife comes from existing ties that Pakistan and the other Stans have with the United States leading to disagreements with the Chinese and Russian policies. The SCO aspires to appear on the international stage as a legitimate player and not as a simple anti-NATO organization. This lobby is also represented under the auspices of the CIS (Commonwealth of Independent States), which is already planning for the end of the ISAF presence, demonstrated by the agreements that were signed in December 2012 governing the management of different situations such as “external border” control. As previously discussed this provides a clear example that the Afghan transition process is at the core of the preoccupations for economic, energy and security development in the region. The CIS, just as the CSO, points out a strong Russian influence in the balance of the Central Asia. The CIS voted for the creation of common monetary area between members and look to the future to fulfill the founding basis of the Minsk Agreement to establish a single control of nuclear weapons in the region and to organize the military forces under a centralized command.) The position of Russia should be at the heart of NATO’s work on how to structure the “lasting partnership.” Reference to this can be found in the most recent NATO Report on Afghanistan, alluding to collaboration with its partners their neighboring countries. The withdraw of troops have ratcheted up the need of NATO to work in close co-operation with these international partners to ensure that it reaches the goals targeted by the international community. In Afghanistan, the role of Russia would be thus to maintain the Afghan helicopter fleet and to ensure the training of Afghan army helicopter maintenance staff. The Russian presence in Central Asia seems to be recognized internationally since NATO declared: “The NATO-Russia transit arrangements proved critical to the development of the northern supply route to Afghanistan.” The security issue is of the uppermost importance in the CSTO’s mind (Collective Security Treaty Organization) since the Central Asian players have taken the position that their borders should never be in danger of being threatened as a result of withdrawing the NATO troops. Thus, CSTO members already envisioned sending representatives to Afghanistan to ensure that the peace process prevails in the post-2014 period. The projected plans highlight the need for synergy between the regional and international organizations. This process is already moving in the right direction, as the Eurasian organizations are not ambivalent towards compromise. For instance, the Economic Cooperation Organization (ECO) is a member state of the United Nations General Assembly and it is tied with both the European Union and the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN). Of note both the OSCE and the CSTO already worked together on a counter-narcotics mission from 2011 to 2012 and could see similar work after 2014. Even if each regional or international organization have their own specific plans for the future of Afghanistan and surrounding regions after 2014, they share a common theme: providing safety in Afghanistan, so as to secure Central Asia and to shield the member countries of the OSCE (Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe).
Delegating some parts of the projected regional partners is seen as a suitable solution, rather than applying the hypothetical long-lasting partnership to Afghanistan. We should ensure that lessons learned are given due regard so as to avoid future failures such as those seen in Afghanistan, exemplifying the need for the regional partners like the ECO or the CSTO to be better connected with the European and other international organizations. This collaboration should be aimed to safeguard economic and political stability in Central Asia following the outcome of Afghanistan and at the same time ensure that the country does not give up to the regional powers and their associated greed.
The ISAF exit strategy could lead to major hazards.
The future of Afghanistan is still uncertain, as we should take into account that the country is classified as a “failed State” by both “The Brookings Institution” and “Foreign Policy” indexes, despite the ISAF intervention. Afghanistan is ranked as the 6th most failed state in the world. A “failed state” as defined by French International Relations specialist Serge Sur is “a state apparatus that can no longer fulfill its basic functions, especially to provide physical security to its residents.”
Afghanistan, like most failed states, is no longer a state grounded on the rule of Law and has lost the majority of its legitimate power. According to Max Weber, the State can be defined by the double monopoly of physical violence and legitimate symbolism, both functions the existing Afghan government cannot perform. Therefore, this state no longer retains the right to resort to violence since the insurgents reappeared with the announcement of NATO troop withdrawal. There is legitimate fear of a new civil war between the new Afghan government and the Taliban, after 2014. According to the Afghan constitution President Hamid Karzaï will not be able to run again for office in April 2014 because he has served two consecutive terms. NATO should take into account the political vulnerability of the state, not based on the willingness of its people, but rather the loose creation of a country that is in many realities buffer. As initially planned during training missions, internal disputes between the various ethnic groups, particularly concerning Pashtunistan, could prevent the State from guaranteeing its people safety. As a result in the current environment a truly structured and non-corrupt public service is noticeably absent in Afghanistan. The concentrated male power only continues to weaken the already weak state. In addition, with the lack of readiness of the state one can question the readiness of the Afghan forces to take on the responsibility to combat the widespread corruption, organized crime and overall prevailing insecurity. According to the recent Pentagon Report on Afghanistan (Report on Progress Toward Security and Stability in Afghanistan) dating from December 2012, corruption is predicted to have the greatest overall impact on the government, yet all the while Pakistan still appears to support the insurgency against NATO and only one of the ANSF’s twenty-three brigades is in an operational readiness condition to apply the skills taught during the different training missions. With such assertions, it seems likely that the Taliban will continue to seek refuge in Pakistan, close to the Afghan border (like Haqqani Network, Tehrik-i-Taliban or Al-Qaeda) in the forms of grouping of combatants and training camps. The CIS also considers that Afghanistan will become “the gathering point of the terrorist activities in Central Asia.”
This region is overall characterized by an informal economy much due to narcotics trafficking. Little question remains that if the country is abandoned to its own fate; it will fulfill the role of a global hub for the drug trade. The Islamic Republic of Afghanistan has been driven by this shadow economy since the 1990’s (at the end of this decade, opium poppy cultivation already represented 10% of the Afghan gross domestic product). The drug-trafficking clearly influenced the allocation of top posts in the Afghan government. Ultimately the most serious hazard for the state itself would be to become a so-called narco-state, which is to mean a state in which the drug money is used to fund public policies.
While the fate of Afghanistan is subject to numerous hazards in the post-ISAF era, each player intends to develop its own policy to prevent such huge drifts or political interference with Afghan sovereignty. Unfortunately the Afghan people’s voice has no place in the debate despite the twelve-year war to “stabilize” their country. However, hope exist that solutions can be found by the Afghans themselves, who will be responsible for the proficient use of the financial aid using the training they have been supplied with. Researchers advocate the necessity to consult the Afghan people with regards to what they expect to improve after 2014. Therefore, utopias and incoherence could re-emerge, exacerbating daily-life difficulties, but the Western powers must not impose what they believe is the better path for a country to which they are not a part of.
Claudia Lostanlen
Etudiante en 2e année à Sciences Po Aix
Pour accéder au texte des deux parties réunies avec les notes de bas de page, cliquez iciTowards a post-ISAF Partnership Policy for NATO in Central Asia - Claudia LOSTANLEN -1-2
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