Here is a collection of quick spur-of-the-moment notes, thoughts and updates that need to be said, but don’t have enough substance to qualify as proper posts (although some may evolve into posts at a later stage):

12 November 2009

Stratfor still MIA on the DRC

I haven’t updated this section in a long time and it is with sad amusement that I reflect on the final entry (below) I made in March. At the time, Stratfor had completely missed the tumultuous events taking place in the DRC since the end of 2008. It is my sad duty to report that they have continued to ignore the situation ever since. It is now going on one full year since the self-professed “world’s leading online publisher of geopolitical intelligence”  last wrote an analysis piece about the DRC (there was a fleeting reference to the DRC in a short analysis article on Uganda’s LRA on 5 November). Such as an incredible lapse (failure to see the world in its entirity) is a sad reflection on how widespread and ingrained imbalances are about the ‘importance’ of certain issues in the world. Oddly enough, Stratfor does produce plenty of analysis  about Zimbabwe, whose primary ‘geopolitical’ value for the West is the nuisance value of President Mugabe. Stratfor continues to let ‘geopolitics’ take a backseat to the popular issues of the day…   

23 March 2009

Stratfor and Madagascar

I am still waiting for Stratfor to come up with an analysis of any kind of the recent tumultuous events in the Great Lakes region, directly affecting the DRC, Rwanda, Uganda and South Sudan (see this article). Regardless of all the geostrategic implications for the region and all the Western businesses associated with the minerals in the region (not to mention the fate of China’s huge deal with the DRC), not a single analysis article has come out since November last year. Interestingly, Stratfor seemed to take a keen interest in the recent events in Madagascar, putting out four analysis articles between 14 and 19 March. Madagascar has significant amounts of oil sands, and the events do have geostrategic significance, but so many concentrated articles on Madagascar (with nothing on the arguably more significant events in the Great Lakes region) suggest that Stratfor is following media interest, rather than objectively seeing world events based on their geostrategic value… To its credit, however, Stratfor’s recent series on Nigeria was a good one. They just need to wake up on the Great Lakes region!     

25 February 2009

An idea for a Stealth Conflict Fourm post

On 22 February, a French teenage girl was killed (many others were injured) by a bomb blast in Egpyt (see here). On the same day, 11 peacekeepers from Burundi  were killed (many others were injured) by a suicide car bomb in Somalia (see here). As both events happened on the same day, a look at the news coverage of the two events could make for a useful comparison – how much news coverage (in a newspaper or on the internet) each event received, and an analysis of the coverage. Stealth Conflicts Forum will welcome a post on this topic. Feel free to write and submit.

19 February 2009

Another copy of Stealth Conflicts available for review

There is another copy of the book now available for review from the Strategic Studies Quarterly. Here is the site: http://www.au.af.mil/au/ssq/books_review_3.pdf. As with the review copy available from Political Studies Review (see below), those who successfully complete the review get to keep the book at no charge. A good opportunity to get hold of this expensive (but certainly worth reading!) book. See here also: http://www.au.af.mil/au/ssq/review_guidelines.asp.

A cartoon

Here is a cartoon by Mark Fiore that I just stumbled on. It seems to be from 2003. Interesting…

http://www.markfiore.com/animation/interrupt.html

15 February 2009 

Stealth Conflicts Forum now open

An open version of the Stealth Conflicts blog, Stealth Conflicts Forum, has just been set up. Those with an interest in the problem of conflicts that are ignored and marginalized (by policymakers, the media, the public and academia) are welcome to become contributors and write posts for the blog. Visit this new blog for more information on how to make submissions.

12 Feb 2009

“Civil war” in the DRC?

I had a look at the Lonely Planet book on Africa, and found in the chapter on the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) a section on the recent history of the country calling the period from 1996 a “civil war”. Sections of the press also like to characterize the DRC’s conflict as such. Is anyone else tired of the conflict being labeled a “civil war”? How can a conflict that has seen some 50,000 foreign troops from eight foreign countries fighting each other (together with local government and rebel forces), be called a “civil war”?! Does this characterization indicate simple ignorance, or is it that calling it that makes it seem less important for “international security”?

28 Jan 2009

Copy of Stealth Conflicts available for review

For anyone interested, it seems that there is a copy of the book Stealth Conflicts: How the World’s Worst Violence Is Ignored that is available for review at the journal, Political Studies Review.

25 Jan 2009

A journalistic gem by Voice of America

This article (Nkunda Arrest: Analyst Says Blame Game Over), with the help of an ‘analyst’, tells us that ”the accusation that Rwanda was sponsoring the violence has been proved wrong”, because Nkunda was arrested by a joint Congolese-Rwandan force. The problem was simply “ethnic composition and distribution” (because Nkunda is equally Congolese and Rwandan).

Well thank you for clearing all that up, VOA! We can now all forget about that UN Report with all the evidence of links between Rwanda and the CNDP (and between the DRC government and the FDLR), including the CNDP rebels using razors to cut the Rwandan flags off their new uniforms. While we are at it, let’s forget about the crate posted to the CNDP rebels from Boston, USA that broke in transit revealing all those uniforms…

The article closes with a concern that the new leader of the rebel group was “still out there”. This completely misses the point – the new leader has obviously made a deal (which is why the Rwandan troops headed straight for the CNDP base upon entry), and this is the least of the concerns about what is to come. What we should be asking is what is really behind this alliance, and why MONUC and humanitarian agencies are being refused entry to the staging ground for joint military operations by these new-found friends…