"We gave everyone in the town a chance to leave," said the Serb police major, responsible for sacking the village of Prekaz in Kosovo province (Chris Hedges, New York Times, 03/09/98). Doesn't this sound just too familiar? Didn't Ratko Mladic, commander of Serb forces that overrun Srebrenica in summer 1995, said something similar about "giving everyone in town of Srebrenica a chance to leave?"
So, if Bosnian Muslims and Kosovo Albanians volunteered to abandon their homes and possessions, rubber-stamping the Serbian policies of "ethnic cleansing," their lives would be generously spared.
"Solution lies in dialogue," said the boss of above-mentioned police major. Doesn't this sound all too familiar, too? Serbian interior ministry reports 200 terrorist attacks since 1991 on Kosovo. However, the UCK (KLA: Kosovo Liberation Army) is around only for somewhat more than a year - benefiting mostly from a spin-off of smuggled AK rifles and other weapons looted from Albanian military during the recent upheavals in Albania (650,000 rifles were looted), and the Serb's loss of the Drenica region to KLA is just a few months old. Actually, Kosovo Albanian leaders shunned from armed struggle hoping for and continuously asking for dialogue in the past ten years. One of the reasons why Ibrahim Rugova, the leader of largest political bloc among Kosovo Albanians, lost so much support among his people lately, is his stubborn adherence to dialogue. As it did in Bosnia, Serbian regime again declares it's willingness for a dialogue, while in reality blocks any initiative that could lead to one. Fehmi Agani, one of the leading Albanian cause spokesmen said for B92 that the sudden Serbian government call for a dialogue, after they massacred women and children, is unearnest.
As they claimed in Bosnia that Bosnian Muslims shelled Sarajevo themselves, I've just heard Yugoslav ambassador in Zagreb saying that Kosovo kids were killed by Kosovo terorist leaders not wanting them to escape and give their positions. Other events confirm the use of the same tactics that Serbia used in Bosnian and Croatian wars:
Serbs again refuse to let international humanitarian organizations (as reported by ICRC) through to help care about refugees and displaced persons,
they refuse international mediation (Albanian leader Azem Vlassi suggested European envoy Felipe Gonzales) in the dialogue and
they disallow peaceful protests as they turned away Prishtina women that attempted a march on Drenica carrying a loaf of bread each.
In fact, nobody in Serbian government and, which is more sad, in Serbian political opposition, ever seriously thought about opening a dialogue with Kosovo Albanians. After all, neither did Russians ever consider a dialogue with Chechens, nor had the French been willing to accept a dialogue with Algerians, while Brits just recently, and only under the U.S. pressure, sat at the same table with Shin Fein's Garry Adams. Serbia behave as any other colonial power, which made Albanians in Kosovo learn their lesson: dialogue is futile. Nobody would listen to their case until the world media started reporting on the existence of KLA.
European powers are poorly equipped to deal with this crisis: Russians do not want to see Kosovo in Albanian hands, because that would spark a precedent for the situation in Chechenya; England perhaps see the similarity between KLA and IRA; France didn't give up Algeria without a fight, so it should show some understanding for Serbia today. In fact, currently the Serbian minority in Kosovo is smaller than French minority was in Algeria before that war, that France defended in front of the world community as the "internal French question." Doesn't that sound awfully familiar, too?
European powers reluctance to act against the fellow colonialist power already created one very bloody debacle for the international community: Bosnia. It is, therefore, imperative now, in the case of Kosovo, to act immediately and preventively. Check here the latest from State Department, U.S Congress and Contact Group on that issue. Human Rights Watch suggested that International War Crimes Tribunal should start prosecuting crimes against humanity in Kosovo holding Belgrade authorities liable for them, and the Tribunal said that it might do just that. Helsinki Citizens Assembly called upon sending peace-keepers to the region when there is still some peace to be kept. Society for Threatened Peoples (Gesellschaft fuer Bedrohte Voelker) wrote a report on recent human rights abuses in Kosovo by Serbian police with an emphasis on arbitrary detentions, interogations and beatings of Albanians who have relatives living and working in Germany. Sanjaki Refugee Center, comprised of Muslims "ethnically cleansed" from Serbian region of Sandjak, warns about t
Friday, May 15, 2009
Saturday, April 25, 2009
Questions of proportionality
Other incidents have raised concerns for these reasons, together with a second legal concept - proportionality.
This demands that the military gain of a particular operation be proportional to the likely or actual civilian losses incurred in carrying it out.
As Fred Abrahams, a senior researcher at Human Rights Watch puts it: "Even if you have a legitimate target you can’t just drop 10-tonne bombs on it."
Gaza medic rushes injured child into hospital
Questions of proportionality rest on intention as much as the numbers of people killed and injured
Five sisters in the Balousha family were killed as they slept together as, apparently, a nearby Hamas-linked mosque was bombed in Jabaliya refugee camp on the second day of Operation Cast Lead.
HRW is calling for an investigation. "Was the mosque a legitimate target? We have our doubts… Did they use weaponry that would limit damage to civilians? We have our serious doubts," says Mr Abrahams.
In this case, Capt. Rutland said the IDF had no record of a target in that specific area at that time, and gave no further explanation for the girls’ deaths.
A further case is the bombing of a truck that Israel initially said was loaded with missiles.
B’Tselem and the truck's owner – who said his son died along with seven other people – later said it was carrying oxygen canisters for welding. Israel maintains the warehouse the canisters were loaded from had been known to house weapons in the past.
How good was Israel's intelligence? How likely was it, for example, that at the moment of decision, the information might turn out to be wrong? And did the potential gains outweigh the possible losses?
Professor Sands says proportionality is "very, very difficult."
"What's proportionate in the eyes of one person may be disproportionate in the eyes of another," he says.
The difference in numbers in the Gaza war is stark - Palestinians say more than 500 Gazans have died in eight days, compared with 18 Israelis from rocket fire since 2001.
But experts say issues ranging from the parties' intentions, the reasons for going to war, the actions taken to protect - or indeed expose - civilians, and the conditions on the ground, all feed into a much more complicated legal equation.
Israel says lawyers are constantly consulted in its operations. It says it takes all possible steps to minimise civilian casualties.
Guided weapons are used; telephone warnings are often given before buildings are bombed; the IDF says missions have been aborted because civilians were seen at the target.
And it says its enemy is far from a standard army: "We're talking about an entire government whose entire raison d’etre is the defeat of Israel … and all of whose energies are directed at attacking Israeli civilians," says Capt. Rutland.
Witnesses and analysts confirm that Hamas fires rockets from within populated civilian areas, and all sides agree that the movement flagrantly violates international law by targeting civilians with its rockets.
But while B’Tselem's Ms Montell describes the rocket fire as a "blatant war crime", she adds: "I certainly would not expect my government to act according to the standard Hamas has set for itself - we demand a higher standard."
Gaza conflict: Who is a civilian?
Gaza conflict: Who is a civilian?
Hamas-run Interior Ministry
The Interior Ministry was hit in the first strike targeting a government building
By Heather Sharp
BBC News, Jerusalem
The bloodied children are clearly civilians; men killed as they launch rockets are undisputedly not. But what about the 40 or so young Hamas police recruits on parade who died in the first wave of Israel's bombing campaign in Gaza?
And weapons caches are clearly military sites – but what about the interior ministry, hit in a strike that killed two medical workers; or the money changer's office, destroyed last week injuring a boy living on the floor above?
As the death toll mounts in Gaza, the thorny question is arising of who and what can be considered a legitimate military target in a territory effectively governed by a group that many in the international community consider a terrorist organisation.
This is also the group that won the Palestinian legislative elections in January 2006 and a year later consolidated its control by force.
So while it was behind a campaign of suicide attacks in Israel and fires rockets indiscriminately over the border, it is also in charge of schools, hospitals, sewage works and power plants in Gaza.
International law
Israel says it is operating totally within humanitarian law, but human rights groups fear it is stretching the boundaries.
And as ground forces clash in the heavily-populated Gaza Strip, the questions will become more pressing.
International law’s rules on keeping civilian casualties to a minimum are based on the distinction between "combatants" and "non-combatants".
Our definition is that anyone who is involved with terrorism within Hamas is a valid target. This ranges from the strictly military institutions and includes the political institutions that provide the logistical funding and human resources for the terrorist arm
Benjamin Rutland
IDF spokesman
As Israel launched the first air strikes, outgoing Prime Minister Ehud Olmert said: "You - the citizens of Gaza - are not our enemies. Hamas, Jihad and the other terrorist organisations are your enemies, as they are our enemies."
But when an Israeli military spokesman also says things like "anything affiliated with Hamas is a legitimate target," things get complicated.
The International Committee of the Red Cross - guardian of the Geneva Conventions on which international humanitarian law is based - defines a combatant as a person "directly engaged in hostilities".
But Israeli Defence Forces spokesman Captain Benjamin Rutland told the BBC: "Our definition is that anyone who is involved with terrorism within Hamas is a valid target. This ranges from the strictly military institutions and includes the political institutions that provide the logistical funding and human resources for the terrorist arm."
Philippe Sands, Professor of International Law at University College London, says he is not aware of any Western democracy having taken so broad a definition.
"Once you extend the definition of combatant in the way that IDF is apparently doing, you begin to associate individuals who are only indirectly or peripherally involved… it becomes an open-ended definition, which undermines the very object and purpose of the rules that are intended to be applied."
Indeed, Hamas itself has been quoted as saying the fact that most Israelis serve in the military justifies attacks on civilian areas.
Hamas policemen
The first wave of bombings, which targeted police stations across Gaza, is a key case in question - particularly the strike that killed at least 40 trainees on parade.
Analysts say Hamas policemen are responsible for quashing dissent and rooting out spies, as well as tackling crime and directing traffic.
But the Israeli human rights group B'Tselem, which has raised the issue in a letter to Israel’s attorney general, says it appears those killed were being trained in first aid, human rights and maintaining public order.
The IDF says it has intelligence that members of the police force often "moonlight" with rocket squads, but has given no details about the specific sites or individuals targeted.
To claim that all of those offices are legitimate targets, just because they are affiliated with Hamas, is legally flawed and extremely problematic
B’Tselem director Jessica Montell
However, campaign group Human Rights Watch (HRW) argues that even if police members do double as Hamas fighters, they can only be legally attacked when actually participating in military activities.
Both B’Tselem and HRW are also concerned about the targeting of ostensibly civilian sites such as a university, mosques and government buildings.
Protocol 1 of the Geneva Conventions - quoted by Israel, although not signed by it - says that for a site to be a legitimate military target it must "make an effective contribution to military action" and its destruction or neutralisation must also offer "a definite military advantage".
Israel says it has bombed mosques because they are used to store weapons, releasing video of the air strikes which it says shows secondary explosions as its proof.
But it gives no evidence for its claims that laboratories at the Islamic University, which it bombed heavily, were used for weapons research, or for its claims that at least three money changers targeted were involved in “the transfer of funds for terrorist activities”.
This is because Israel rarely releases intelligence material for fear of endangering the lives of its sources, Capt. Rutland says.
However, on its targeting of the education, interior and foreign ministries and the parliament building, Israel simply argues they are part of the Hamas infrastructure – and there is no difference between its political and military wings.
"To claim that all of those offices are legitimate targets, just because they are affiliated with Hamas, is legally flawed and extremely problematic," says B’Tselem director Jessica Montell.
Q&A: Gaza conflict
Three weeks after it began its offensive in the Gaza Strip, Israel announced a unilateral ceasefire, followed hours later by Hamas announcing a one-week ceasefire. The BBC News website looks at the background to the conflict and what the ceasefire means.
Why has Israel declared a ceasefire and what are its terms?
The ceasefire was unilaterally declared by Israel, 22 days after its offensive began. Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert told the nation Hamas had been "badly beaten" and that Israel's goals "have been more than fully achieved". The goals had been to stop rocket fire into southern Israel and, in the words of Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni, "to change realities on the ground".
Israel has been under intense diplomatic pressure to end its action and a day before the ceasefire received assurances from the United States that it would take concrete steps to halt the flow of arms and explosives into the Gaza Strip.
Israel said its soldiers would remain inside Gaza for the time being and reserve the right to strike back if militants continued to launch attacks.
How did Hamas react?
Hamas rejected Israel's ceasefire in advance, saying it would fight on. Hamas spokesman Fawzi Barhoum said Israel must withdraw its troops and end its 19-month blockade of the strip.
Hours after the ceasefire began, at 0200 (0000 GMT) on 18 January, Hamas militants shot at Israeli troops in northern Gaza, drawing return fire, and fired rockets into southern Israel, triggering an Israeli air strike in response, the Israeli military said.
But then the group announced its own immediate one-week ceasefire, demanding that Israel withdraw its forces from the Gaza Strip.
Hamas' deputy chief in Syria, Moussa Abou Marzouk, also reiterated long-standing demands for all the crossings to be re-opened for the entry of humanitarian aid, food and other necessities.
Why did the Israelis launch their 27 December offensive?
The Israelis say they attacked in order to stop the firing of rockets into Israel. Israel wants all firing to stop and measures to be taken to prevent Hamas from re-arming. It is trying to destroy or reduce Hamas as a fighting force and to capture its stocks of weapons to help achieve this.
The Israeli attack began on 27 December 2008, not long after Hamas had announced that it would not renew a ceasefire that had started in June 2008.
Why did Hamas not renew the ceasefire?
The six-month ceasefire, brokered by the Egyptians, was often broken in practice. Its terms were never written, but were widely understood to include Hamas ending all rocket fire from Gaza and weapons smuggling from Egypt, while Israel stopped military activity against militants in the strip and carried out a phased lifting of its blockade of Gaza. Negotiations on the captured Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit were also supposed to begin.
Rocket fire was greatly reduced, though not completely stopped, for the first few months of the truce. The volume of goods allowed into Gaza also increased for some of the time, but remained well below pre-embargo levels.
Events began to come to a climax after the Israelis carried out their first incursion into southern Gaza during the truce, killing six militants, on 4 November 2008. Israel said its troops entered to destroy a tunnel which could be used to abduct its soldiers. This led to the further firing of Hamas missiles into Israel and in turn to a much tighter Israel blockade.
Hamas said Israel had broken the truce by failing to lift the blockade; Israel said Hamas had used the period to smuggle more rockets into Gaza, was planting explosive devices on the border fence and had not stopped the rocket fire completely.
Hamas demanded that the blockade be ended or it would not renew the ceasefire.
Why does Hamas fire missiles into Israel?
Hamas is an acronym for the Islamic Resistance Movement. It regards the whole of historic Palestine as Islamic land and therefore views the state of Israel as an occupier, though it has offered a 10-year "truce" if Israel withdraws to the lines held before the war of 1967.
It therefore generally justifies any actions against Israel, which has included suicide bombings and rocket attacks, as legitimate resistance.
Specifically in Gaza, it argued that Israel's blockade justified a counter-attack by any means possible.
What casualties have the Hamas rockets caused?
Since 2001, when the rockets were first fired, more than 8,600 have hit southern Israel, nearly 6,000 of them since Israel withdrew from Gaza in August 2005. The rockets have killed 28 people and injured hundreds more. In the Israeli town of Sderot near Gaza, 90% of residents have had a missile exploding in their street or an adjacent one.
The range of the missiles is increasing. The Qassam rocket (named after a Palestinian leader in the 1930s) has a range of about 10km (6 miles) but more advanced missiles, including versions of the old Soviet Grad or Katyusha, possibly smuggled in, have recently hit the Israeli city of Beersheba, 40km (25 miles) from Gaza and brought 800,000 Israelis into range.
Palestinian medical sources say that more than 1,000 people have been killed in Gaza during Israel's military that started on 27 December 2008.
What have been the effects of the Israeli blockade?
They have been severe. Little but humanitarian basics have been allowed into Gaza since Hamas seized power in 2007. Before the Israeli operation began, health, water, sewage and power infrastructure were seriously ailing because of a lack of spare parts. The blockade includes limits on fuel, which have on several occasions forced the power plant that supplies Gaza City to shut down.
A total ban on exports has left the already fragile economy devastated. Unemployment has soared. The United Nations Relief and Works agency (Unrwa) provides basic food aid to about 750,000 people in Gaza, but in the weeks preceding the Israeli operation these were suspended because the UN ran out of food because Israel closed the crossings into Gaza citing security reasons.
Goods ranging from food to missiles have, however, been brought in through smuggling tunnels from Egypt.
What is the history of this small strip of land?
Gaza was part of Palestine when it was administered by Britain in a mandate granted by the League of Nations after World War I. In fighting after Israel declared its independence in large areas of Palestine in 1948, the Egyptians captured the Gaza Strip. Palestinian refugees from the coastal cities to the north took refuge there. They or their descendants still live in UN camps in Gaza. Israel captured it in the war of 1967 and eventually moved about 8,000 settlers there, but all Israeli settlers and soldiers left in 2005.
Gaza has a population of 1.4 million of whom about some three-quarters are registered with the United Nations as refugees. It is 40km (25 miles) long and between six and 12km (4 and 8 miles) wide.
How did Hamas come to control Gaza?
After the Israeli evacuation in August 2005, the Palestinian Authority took control of Gaza. The PA was made up mainly of secular-minded Palestinian nationalists from the Fatah party, which, unlike Hamas, thinks that a final agreement with Israel for a two-state solution - Israel and Palestine - can be made.
In January 2006, Hamas won elections to the Palestinian legislature and formed a government in Gaza and the Palestinian territories on the West Bank. A unity government between Hamas and Fatah was then formed in March 2007 but the Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas, a Fatah leader directly elected in an earlier vote, subsequently dissolved the government.
In June 2007, Hamas, claiming that Fatah forces were trying to launch a coup, took control of Gaza by force, but not the West Bank territories.
Hamas was boycotted by the international community, which demands that it renounce violence and recognise Israel.
Why has Israel declared a ceasefire and what are its terms?
The ceasefire was unilaterally declared by Israel, 22 days after its offensive began. Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert told the nation Hamas had been "badly beaten" and that Israel's goals "have been more than fully achieved". The goals had been to stop rocket fire into southern Israel and, in the words of Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni, "to change realities on the ground".
Israel has been under intense diplomatic pressure to end its action and a day before the ceasefire received assurances from the United States that it would take concrete steps to halt the flow of arms and explosives into the Gaza Strip.
Israel said its soldiers would remain inside Gaza for the time being and reserve the right to strike back if militants continued to launch attacks.
How did Hamas react?
Hamas rejected Israel's ceasefire in advance, saying it would fight on. Hamas spokesman Fawzi Barhoum said Israel must withdraw its troops and end its 19-month blockade of the strip.
Hours after the ceasefire began, at 0200 (0000 GMT) on 18 January, Hamas militants shot at Israeli troops in northern Gaza, drawing return fire, and fired rockets into southern Israel, triggering an Israeli air strike in response, the Israeli military said.
But then the group announced its own immediate one-week ceasefire, demanding that Israel withdraw its forces from the Gaza Strip.
Hamas' deputy chief in Syria, Moussa Abou Marzouk, also reiterated long-standing demands for all the crossings to be re-opened for the entry of humanitarian aid, food and other necessities.
Why did the Israelis launch their 27 December offensive?
The Israelis say they attacked in order to stop the firing of rockets into Israel. Israel wants all firing to stop and measures to be taken to prevent Hamas from re-arming. It is trying to destroy or reduce Hamas as a fighting force and to capture its stocks of weapons to help achieve this.
The Israeli attack began on 27 December 2008, not long after Hamas had announced that it would not renew a ceasefire that had started in June 2008.
Why did Hamas not renew the ceasefire?
The six-month ceasefire, brokered by the Egyptians, was often broken in practice. Its terms were never written, but were widely understood to include Hamas ending all rocket fire from Gaza and weapons smuggling from Egypt, while Israel stopped military activity against militants in the strip and carried out a phased lifting of its blockade of Gaza. Negotiations on the captured Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit were also supposed to begin.
Rocket fire was greatly reduced, though not completely stopped, for the first few months of the truce. The volume of goods allowed into Gaza also increased for some of the time, but remained well below pre-embargo levels.
Events began to come to a climax after the Israelis carried out their first incursion into southern Gaza during the truce, killing six militants, on 4 November 2008. Israel said its troops entered to destroy a tunnel which could be used to abduct its soldiers. This led to the further firing of Hamas missiles into Israel and in turn to a much tighter Israel blockade.
Hamas said Israel had broken the truce by failing to lift the blockade; Israel said Hamas had used the period to smuggle more rockets into Gaza, was planting explosive devices on the border fence and had not stopped the rocket fire completely.
Hamas demanded that the blockade be ended or it would not renew the ceasefire.
Why does Hamas fire missiles into Israel?
Hamas is an acronym for the Islamic Resistance Movement. It regards the whole of historic Palestine as Islamic land and therefore views the state of Israel as an occupier, though it has offered a 10-year "truce" if Israel withdraws to the lines held before the war of 1967.
It therefore generally justifies any actions against Israel, which has included suicide bombings and rocket attacks, as legitimate resistance.
Specifically in Gaza, it argued that Israel's blockade justified a counter-attack by any means possible.
What casualties have the Hamas rockets caused?
Since 2001, when the rockets were first fired, more than 8,600 have hit southern Israel, nearly 6,000 of them since Israel withdrew from Gaza in August 2005. The rockets have killed 28 people and injured hundreds more. In the Israeli town of Sderot near Gaza, 90% of residents have had a missile exploding in their street or an adjacent one.
The range of the missiles is increasing. The Qassam rocket (named after a Palestinian leader in the 1930s) has a range of about 10km (6 miles) but more advanced missiles, including versions of the old Soviet Grad or Katyusha, possibly smuggled in, have recently hit the Israeli city of Beersheba, 40km (25 miles) from Gaza and brought 800,000 Israelis into range.
Palestinian medical sources say that more than 1,000 people have been killed in Gaza during Israel's military that started on 27 December 2008.
What have been the effects of the Israeli blockade?
They have been severe. Little but humanitarian basics have been allowed into Gaza since Hamas seized power in 2007. Before the Israeli operation began, health, water, sewage and power infrastructure were seriously ailing because of a lack of spare parts. The blockade includes limits on fuel, which have on several occasions forced the power plant that supplies Gaza City to shut down.
A total ban on exports has left the already fragile economy devastated. Unemployment has soared. The United Nations Relief and Works agency (Unrwa) provides basic food aid to about 750,000 people in Gaza, but in the weeks preceding the Israeli operation these were suspended because the UN ran out of food because Israel closed the crossings into Gaza citing security reasons.
Goods ranging from food to missiles have, however, been brought in through smuggling tunnels from Egypt.
What is the history of this small strip of land?
Gaza was part of Palestine when it was administered by Britain in a mandate granted by the League of Nations after World War I. In fighting after Israel declared its independence in large areas of Palestine in 1948, the Egyptians captured the Gaza Strip. Palestinian refugees from the coastal cities to the north took refuge there. They or their descendants still live in UN camps in Gaza. Israel captured it in the war of 1967 and eventually moved about 8,000 settlers there, but all Israeli settlers and soldiers left in 2005.
Gaza has a population of 1.4 million of whom about some three-quarters are registered with the United Nations as refugees. It is 40km (25 miles) long and between six and 12km (4 and 8 miles) wide.
How did Hamas come to control Gaza?
After the Israeli evacuation in August 2005, the Palestinian Authority took control of Gaza. The PA was made up mainly of secular-minded Palestinian nationalists from the Fatah party, which, unlike Hamas, thinks that a final agreement with Israel for a two-state solution - Israel and Palestine - can be made.
In January 2006, Hamas won elections to the Palestinian legislature and formed a government in Gaza and the Palestinian territories on the West Bank. A unity government between Hamas and Fatah was then formed in March 2007 but the Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas, a Fatah leader directly elected in an earlier vote, subsequently dissolved the government.
In June 2007, Hamas, claiming that Fatah forces were trying to launch a coup, took control of Gaza by force, but not the West Bank territories.
Hamas was boycotted by the international community, which demands that it renounce violence and recognise Israel.
Tuesday, April 21, 2009
power sharing
Power sharing is anonymously diversified concept that entails granting territorial autonomy, adopting a proper representation of groups in administrative appointment, implementing a policy of consensus and decision making by the executive, establishing a proportional electoral system, developing of non-ethic federal structure and encouraging cross-ethic coalitions. given the above tentacles of power sharing in reference to the power sharing that was drafted and adopted in Kenya after post-election violence in bid to reconcile the two previously rivalry camps and in pursuit for social cohesion, it is undeniably that there was enormous stretch of ambiguities in definition of tenets of power sharing considering the already existing wind of re-negations .Kenya’s structure of power sharing is depicted to have assimilated a policy of consensus and decision making by the executive and to a small extent unconscious negligible drops of other elements. The idea of signing the national cord without understanding its consequences has resulted to the current political gridlock manifested in the manner in which the coalition is attempting to feign, fake and forge a spirit of national trust which is outwardly demonstrated by heated arguments and personal attacks, it seems power sharing is interim way of dealing with crisis through the use of diplomatic techniques, power sharing creates two centres of power which are empowered by rubber stamp ruling out the idea that one party may overrun the other creating a state of quo which is very unpleasant for the survival of the citizens, good governance and existence of democracy. Just like the authoritarian regimes power sharing tends to justify its existence by duping the common man existence through gross malpractice such as corruption and its related vices. Notwithstanding reassertion of sociological behaviours and attitudes in the society of amplifying some elites in expense of the mass, power sharing in Kenya can be seen as dead but not buried given the view that even in some of the most politically disciplined countries such as Switzerland power sharing have remained passive and a breathing space for the leaders contemplating to blow their trumpet before they redefine and restructure the very turbulent power sharing which swayed them into power. If examined critically power sharing is a method of resolving and managing conflict to restore sanity and stability.dominique mundiah
Friday, April 17, 2009
Kenya's humanitarian crisis grows
The UN says half a million Kenyans urgently need help
At least 180,000 people have been displaced by unrest as the humanitarian crisis grows after last week's disputed election in Kenya, say UN officials.
Some have been housed in makeshift camps while others have sought refuge in police stations or churches, fleeing violence that has claimed 350 lives.
In badly-affected western Kenya nearly all the refugees are hungry, and several children have died of exposure.
A top UN official in Nairobi says about 500,000 Kenyans need urgent help.
The latest developments came as anti-government protests fizzled out and the president said he might accept opposition demands for a fresh election, but only if ordered by a court.
Tuesday, March 3, 2009
Renegade soldiers kill Guinea-Bissau president
Renegade soldiers kill Guinea-Bissau president
Assassination comes hours after bomb blast kills West African leader's rival
Soldiers assassinate Guinea-Bissau's leader
March 2: A group of renegade soldiers assassinate the president of Guinea-Bissau. Msnbc.com's Becca Field reports.
msnbc.com
BISSAU, Guinea-Bissau - Renegade soldiers assassinated the president of Guinea-Bissau in his palace Monday, hours after a bomb blast killed his rival, but the military said that no coup was in progress in the fragile West African nation.
The military statement broadcast on state radio attributed President Joao Bernardo Vieira's death to an "isolated" group of unidentified soldiers whom the military said it was now hunting down.
Luis Sanca, security adviser to Prime Minister Carlos Gomes Jr., confirmed the president had died but gave no details.
The military said the armed forces would respect the constitutional order, which calls for parliament chief Raimundo Pereira to succeed the president in the event of his death.
It also dismissed claims that the armed forces headquarters was implicated in Vieira's killing as a retaliation for the assassination late Sunday of armed forces chief of staff Gen. Batiste Tagme na Waie at his headquarters in Bissau.
The two men were considered staunch political rivals and both had survived assassination attempts in recent months.
Poverty, coups and cocaine
The former Portuguese colony has suffered multiple coups and attempted coups since 1980, when Vieira himself first took power in one. The United Nations says Guinea-Bissau, an impoverished nation on the Atlantic coast of Africa, has become a key transit point for cocaine smuggled from Latin America to Europe.
Bissau was remarkably calm on Monday despite the president's death, and traffic flowed normally in some parts of town.
Just hours after Waie's death late Sunday, volleys of automatic gunfire were heard for at least two hours before dawn in Bissau and residents said soldiers had converged on Vieira's palace.
The Portuguese news agency LUSA reported that troops attacked with rockets and rifles. The president's press chief, Barnabe Gomes, escaped from the house after being struck by a bullet in his right shoulder, LUSA said.
It was the second attack on Vieira in recent months. In November, Vieira's residence was attacked by renegade soldiers with automatic weapons. At least one guard was killed in the failed coup attempt that was repulsed by loyalist security forces.
Waie also survived an apparent assassination attempt when unidentified attackers opened fire on his car in January.
Waie killed by blast
It was not immediately clear what caused the blast that killed Waie. Defense Minister Artur Silva and other top officials contacted by The Associated Press declined to comment.
On Sunday in Bissau, troops closed roads around the armed forces building and prevented reporters from approaching. The British Broadcasting Corp. reported that the blast had destroyed part of the building.
Soldiers also shut down the city's five private radio stations, said Zikue Swaeibi, a journalist at one of them, Radio Bombolom. State radio was on the air, but it played only traditional music and there were no news broadcasts.
The three soldiers wounded in the blast were taken to the main public hospital. An AP reporter who visited the hospital saw that two of the soldiers were covered in blood and a third suffered severe burns.
In Lisbon, the Portuguese Foreign Ministry lamented Vieira's death and said it was "fundamental that all political and military authorities in the country respect the constitutional order."
Portugal said it would call an emergency meeting of the Community of Portuguese-Speaking Countries, an eight-member organization based in Lisbon.
Crisis-hit Serbia seeks 2 bln more dollars from IMF
Crisis-hit Serbia seeks 2 bln more dollars from IMF:
BELGRADE (AFP) –
Having been hit harder than expected by the worldwide financial crisis, Serbia plans to seek a two-billion-dollar (1.5-billion-euro) additional arrangement with the IMF, media said Saturday.
Growth for 2009 is now expected to be between 0.5 and 1.0 percent, significantly lower than the initially forecasted three percent, Jurij Bajec, economic adviser for Prime Minister Mirko Cvetkovic, told the state-run Tanjug news agency.
"It was necessary to make a new agreement with IMF on an additional two billion dollars as a precondition to revise the budget in April," Bajec was quoted as saying, describing previous economic forecasts as "too optimistic."
The budget deficit is now expected to be three percent of gross domestic product, instead of the 1.5 percent agreed with IMF, he said, adding that inflation -- targeted at eight percent -- would likely be higher as well.
The International Monetary Fund's executive board approved a 530-million-dollar loan last month to help Serbia cope with the downturn.
According to Bajec, Serbia will ask the IMF to extend the initial arrangement to a total amount of 2.5 billion dollars, to be used mostly to cover foreign currency reserves and stabilise the national currency.
The dinar has lost 4.0 percent of its value since the beginning of the year, despite central bank efforts to stem the slide.
Serbia is also negotiating for 510 million dollars in assistance from the European Union as well as 300 million dollars from the World Bank, Bajec said.
Crisis in Africa
some issues in Africa remains peculiar and unique in their various capacity and as they proceed towards to what is cited as ’ African way of dealing with severe threats’ they assume pseudo shapes characterized by strong statements from the leaders who define African priorities and ideals according to the duration of time spent in power,terrorising citizens with factious based tyranny systems of governance is the secret behind such unconstitutional tendencies of clinging into power for economic empowerment. Democracy in Africa is more of an ideal concept than reality considering the fact that natives are tethered with chains of absolute poverty coupled with the highest callous of treatment.
Election call in Serbia crisis
Election call in Serbia crisis
By Matthew Price
Belgrade
Serbia's two largest opposition parties have called for early elections amid a deepening political crisis.
They released a joint statement demanding the elections, which are not due for another year.
As the political crisis bites, there are daily attacks on politicians on all sides.
Djindjic's assassination has sent politics spiralling deeper into crisis
Major scandals tear every day at the heart of government.
Politics was never particularly pleasant under the former Prime Minister Zoran Djindjic.
But since his assassination in March the atmosphere has worsened.
Now, the joint statement says the situation is so "grave that only early parliamentary elections" can help.
Prime Minister Zoran Zivkovic has dismissed the call. But it is sure to add to pressure on his administration.
The latest polls suggest that most people feel there should be early elections. But with public trust in politicians at its lowest ever, few know who they would vote for.
Unity plea
As if to underline the political problems facing Belgrade the prime minister has sent a letter to all the parties in his ruling coalition urging them to continue their work together.
Mr Zivkovic knows that if some of the parties leave the coalition he may well be forced into early elections.
The two opposition parties now callomg for elections were once part of the ruling coalition which overthrew the former President Slobodan Milosevic in 2001.
They represent different ends of the political spectrum.
But they are so angry about the current state of Serbian politics, they seem prepared to bury former differences, and work together, at least for now.
Wednesday, February 18, 2009
Questions for Consideration
It is often assumed that knowing history is "knowing the facts." But historical understanding is more accurately depicted as a series of inquiries and hypotheses about the past. Asking questions and looking for answers are essential components of the historian's craft. What follows are a number of questions to help you reflect on the crisis at Fort Sumter. Although the information in this program never changes, you may find that as you ask new questions or reconsider old ones, your ideas about what happened change and broaden. Pursuing the program's bibliographic references will also enlarge your understanding of this event.
1. According to some accounts of the Sumter crisis, President Lincoln should bear the major responsibility for the outbreak of war because his actions were needlessly provocative. Although the Confederacy might have fired the first shot, the real aggressor is not necessarily the person who first resorts to violence. To what extent do you agree with this assessment of Lincoln's policy?
2. Would you have recommended that Lincoln adopt a more conciliatory course towards the seceding states, and, specifically, what would you have advised him to do?
3. If Lincoln had adopted a more conciliatory course, do you think the outcome would have been any different? Would it have averted war? For example, if Lincoln had abandoned Sumter, what do you think would have happened?
4. Would you have supported Secretary of State Seward's advice to let Sumter go but make a symbolic stand at Pickens? What were the benefits and liabilities of Seward's idea?
5. Do you think that Lincoln was actually too moderate and conciliatory, and that he misjudged the Confederacy's resolve and intent? If you were an adviser, would you have recommended that the President adopt a firmer and more forceful stand on Fort Sumter and other federal possessions at the very outset of his administration?
6. If Fort Sumter had little military value to either side, did Jefferson Davis and his cabinet miscalculate the best interests of the Confederacy by firing on Sumter before the relief expedition arrived? Was this simply an act of "rash emotionalism," as some have contended? Would it have mattered if the fort remained in Union hands for the time being?
7. Suppose Lincoln recognized the likelihood of conflict when he ordered the relief mission to sail. Does this decision make him more, less, or equally responsible than Davis for the war that followed?
8. What was Lincoln's justification for risking conflict when he sent the Sumter expedition? Are some things worth the risk of war? If so, do you think holding Fort Sumter should be considered one of them?
9. To what degree do you think Lincoln's decision to send the relief expedition was dictated by a sense that there was simply no better alternative, and that the "best" decision was actually only the "least bad" alternative?
10. In his Second Inaugural Address, Lincoln offered his own observations about the outbreak of war. "Four years ago," he recalled, "all thoughts were anxiously directed to an impending civil-war. All dreaded it-- all sought to avert it . . . Both parties deprecated war; but one of them would make war rather than let the nation survive; and the other would accept war rather than let it perish. And the war came."
Do you think that Lincoln was accurately describing the positions of both the Union and the Confederacy? Does his statement imply a fatalistic recognition that war was inevitable?
1. According to some accounts of the Sumter crisis, President Lincoln should bear the major responsibility for the outbreak of war because his actions were needlessly provocative. Although the Confederacy might have fired the first shot, the real aggressor is not necessarily the person who first resorts to violence. To what extent do you agree with this assessment of Lincoln's policy?
2. Would you have recommended that Lincoln adopt a more conciliatory course towards the seceding states, and, specifically, what would you have advised him to do?
3. If Lincoln had adopted a more conciliatory course, do you think the outcome would have been any different? Would it have averted war? For example, if Lincoln had abandoned Sumter, what do you think would have happened?
4. Would you have supported Secretary of State Seward's advice to let Sumter go but make a symbolic stand at Pickens? What were the benefits and liabilities of Seward's idea?
5. Do you think that Lincoln was actually too moderate and conciliatory, and that he misjudged the Confederacy's resolve and intent? If you were an adviser, would you have recommended that the President adopt a firmer and more forceful stand on Fort Sumter and other federal possessions at the very outset of his administration?
6. If Fort Sumter had little military value to either side, did Jefferson Davis and his cabinet miscalculate the best interests of the Confederacy by firing on Sumter before the relief expedition arrived? Was this simply an act of "rash emotionalism," as some have contended? Would it have mattered if the fort remained in Union hands for the time being?
7. Suppose Lincoln recognized the likelihood of conflict when he ordered the relief mission to sail. Does this decision make him more, less, or equally responsible than Davis for the war that followed?
8. What was Lincoln's justification for risking conflict when he sent the Sumter expedition? Are some things worth the risk of war? If so, do you think holding Fort Sumter should be considered one of them?
9. To what degree do you think Lincoln's decision to send the relief expedition was dictated by a sense that there was simply no better alternative, and that the "best" decision was actually only the "least bad" alternative?
10. In his Second Inaugural Address, Lincoln offered his own observations about the outbreak of war. "Four years ago," he recalled, "all thoughts were anxiously directed to an impending civil-war. All dreaded it-- all sought to avert it . . . Both parties deprecated war; but one of them would make war rather than let the nation survive; and the other would accept war rather than let it perish. And the war came."
Do you think that Lincoln was accurately describing the positions of both the Union and the Confederacy? Does his statement imply a fatalistic recognition that war was inevitable?
The Fox Expedition's Feasibility
Since relief, in the form of provisioning and, perhaps, reinforcement was essential to hold Sumter, it is necessary to consider the feasibility of Fox's plan. Would Fox have been able to transport provisions or troops to the fort, either without provoking conflict or in the face of resistance? And if the plan could work, was the loss of the Powhatan, which was attached in stead to the Pickens expedition, a fatal blow to its chances?
Fox himself thought his plan was "perfectly practicable," and that the Confederacy, realizing its feasibility, attacked Sumter before it could be strengthened. "I believe every officer of the army or navy present were entirely satisfied of the feasibility of . . . my plans," he declared afterwards. "In fact, their [Confederate] fire was precipitated because they . . . were assured by their best naval authority that it was perfectly practicable." Had all gone according to plan, "a reenforcement would have been easy," Fox reported after the battle of Sumter.
Fox blamed the expedition's failure on Secretary of State Seward. He claimed that Seward's "treachery" deprived him of the Powhatan, with its essential boats and crew, making the transfer of supplies and troops impossible. "Had the Powhatan arrived on the 12th," Fox wrote, "we should have had the men and provisions into Fort Sumter, as I had everything ready, boats, muffled oars, small packages of provisions, in fact everything but the 300 sailors promised to me by the [Navy] dept."
But others disagreed with Fox. Both Major Anderson and Secretary of the Navy Welles believed that Confederate forces were numerous and forewarned, making reprovisioning and reinforcement impossible. Anderson argued that the plan "could not have been successfully executed on account of the many guns which could have been brought to bear by the batteries, while Welles agreed that the effort "probably would not have succeeded" because the rebels were prepared and warned of the intended expedition.
Lincoln thought the Sumter expedition sufficiently practicable to send forward, but as he acknowledged to Fox afterwards, the "plan was not, in fact, brought to a test." In accounting for the mission's failure, Lincoln pointed to bad weather, the non-appearance of the tugboats, and his own responsibility for unintentionally depriving Fox of the Powhatan.
Bibliography: Fox, Confidential Correspondence, 1: 43-44; ORN, pp. 244-45.
Fox himself thought his plan was "perfectly practicable," and that the Confederacy, realizing its feasibility, attacked Sumter before it could be strengthened. "I believe every officer of the army or navy present were entirely satisfied of the feasibility of . . . my plans," he declared afterwards. "In fact, their [Confederate] fire was precipitated because they . . . were assured by their best naval authority that it was perfectly practicable." Had all gone according to plan, "a reenforcement would have been easy," Fox reported after the battle of Sumter.
Fox blamed the expedition's failure on Secretary of State Seward. He claimed that Seward's "treachery" deprived him of the Powhatan, with its essential boats and crew, making the transfer of supplies and troops impossible. "Had the Powhatan arrived on the 12th," Fox wrote, "we should have had the men and provisions into Fort Sumter, as I had everything ready, boats, muffled oars, small packages of provisions, in fact everything but the 300 sailors promised to me by the [Navy] dept."
But others disagreed with Fox. Both Major Anderson and Secretary of the Navy Welles believed that Confederate forces were numerous and forewarned, making reprovisioning and reinforcement impossible. Anderson argued that the plan "could not have been successfully executed on account of the many guns which could have been brought to bear by the batteries, while Welles agreed that the effort "probably would not have succeeded" because the rebels were prepared and warned of the intended expedition.
Lincoln thought the Sumter expedition sufficiently practicable to send forward, but as he acknowledged to Fox afterwards, the "plan was not, in fact, brought to a test." In accounting for the mission's failure, Lincoln pointed to bad weather, the non-appearance of the tugboats, and his own responsibility for unintentionally depriving Fox of the Powhatan.
Bibliography: Fox, Confidential Correspondence, 1: 43-44; ORN, pp. 244-45.
Lincoln the Realist
Some of those who have examined the secession crisis present Lincoln as neither a war hawk nor a failed peacemaker. Kenneth M. Stampp and Richard N. Current disagree with those who allege Lincoln's responsibility for provoking the Civil War. Indeed, they argue, one could readily reverse the charge and allege that the Confederacy was motivated to provoke the war. For Jefferson Davis and the Confederate government, Sumter provided an opportunity to unify the Confederacy, uphold southern honor and prestige, and drag the upper South out of the Union, despite Lincoln's best efforts to avoid conflict! It was Davis, after all, who ordered the attack on Sumter before the arrival of the expedition.
At the same time, these historians do not think Lincoln was unequivocally committed to a peaceable resolution of the crisis and the voluntary reconstruction of the Union. If the President truly sought the most peaceable course possible, he would have let Sumter go and taken his symbolic stand for federal authority at Fort Pickens. Since Sumter had no military value, Lincoln could have justified his withdrawal on the grounds of military necessity, blaming the previous Buchanan administration for handing him the fort in an indefensible condition. Even in sending the Sumter expedition, Lincoln could have announced his purpose without also stating that he would attempt to reinforce the fort if the provisioning were resisted. Such a course would have appeared less threatening to sensitive southern leaders.
Lincoln, then, neither deliberately provoked war nor followed the most peaceable course imaginable. Instead, he was a realist who acknowledged the possibility that his policy risked conflict. According to Stampp, Lincoln developed a "strategy of defense," by which he would hold federal property by means that would be considered defensive, not coercive. Thus, despite his cabinet's almost unanimous approval initially to withdraw from Sumter, Lincoln continued to search for ways to relieve it. He himself formulated the idea of sending in provisions unless resistance occurred, and of providing advance notice to the South Carolina government. The South, then, would have to bear the onus of firing the first shot, and firing it against an unarmed ship bringing food to hungry troops.
To be sure, Lincoln hesitated for a time before making his final decision to dispatch the Sumter expedition. But this cautiousness was not dictated by the tempting prospect of focusing attention on Fort Pickens and abandoning Sumter. Instead, it was due to the greater military and political dangers inherent in the situation in Charleston Harbor. He could not simply ignore advice from military experts that a relief mission was impossible, and he had to find a way of sending it without appearing to be the aggressor. His determination to go forward with the Sumter operation was made independently of the situation at Pickens. He made his decision prior to learning that Pickens had not been reinforced, though that news likely confirmed his judgment to proceed.
To Stampp and Current, the outbreak of fighting did not represent a failure of Lincoln's policy; he had always recognized the risk of conflict. Indeed, his policy would have succeeded regardless of what happened at Sumter. If the South permitted the fleet to resupply the fort, the prestige and legitimacy of the Confederacy would have suffered a severe blow. If, as happened, the South resisted, Lincoln would find a more united North and a sympathetic European community standing against the South's aggressive attack. As his private secretaries, Nicolay and Hay, later expressed it, when Lincoln issued the decisive order for the Sumter ships to sail, "he was master of the situation."
Although they dispute key aspects of Potter's argument, Stampp and Current agree with him that in sending the Sumter expedition, Lincoln was not choosing war over peace. While he realized the probability that the expedition would be attacked, it was at least possible that the South would acquiesce. Moreover, alternatives, such as abandoning Sumter, also entailed risks. Withdrawal could bestow legitimacy on the Confederacy and hasten a new crisis over another issue. It could also encourage the upper South to secede, persuade European governments to offer recognition, or merely postpone the inevitable conflict. Finally, if the expedition eventuated in battle, as was likely, Lincoln did not necessarily anticipate a protracted and bloody war. He may well have expected a brief contest which would lead to the quick restoration of the Union. In accepting the risk of conflict, Lincoln was not envisioning the Civil War that actually came to pass.
Commentary
Bibliography: Current, Lincoln and the First Shot, pp. 188-94; Stampp, Imperiled Union, pp. 177-85; Stampp, And the War Came, pp. 284-86; Stampp, "Comment" on Potter's "Why the Republicans Rejected Both Compromise and Secession," Knoles, ed., Crisis, pp. 107-13; Nicolay and Hay, Lincoln, 3: 442, 4: 62.
At the same time, these historians do not think Lincoln was unequivocally committed to a peaceable resolution of the crisis and the voluntary reconstruction of the Union. If the President truly sought the most peaceable course possible, he would have let Sumter go and taken his symbolic stand for federal authority at Fort Pickens. Since Sumter had no military value, Lincoln could have justified his withdrawal on the grounds of military necessity, blaming the previous Buchanan administration for handing him the fort in an indefensible condition. Even in sending the Sumter expedition, Lincoln could have announced his purpose without also stating that he would attempt to reinforce the fort if the provisioning were resisted. Such a course would have appeared less threatening to sensitive southern leaders.
Lincoln, then, neither deliberately provoked war nor followed the most peaceable course imaginable. Instead, he was a realist who acknowledged the possibility that his policy risked conflict. According to Stampp, Lincoln developed a "strategy of defense," by which he would hold federal property by means that would be considered defensive, not coercive. Thus, despite his cabinet's almost unanimous approval initially to withdraw from Sumter, Lincoln continued to search for ways to relieve it. He himself formulated the idea of sending in provisions unless resistance occurred, and of providing advance notice to the South Carolina government. The South, then, would have to bear the onus of firing the first shot, and firing it against an unarmed ship bringing food to hungry troops.
To be sure, Lincoln hesitated for a time before making his final decision to dispatch the Sumter expedition. But this cautiousness was not dictated by the tempting prospect of focusing attention on Fort Pickens and abandoning Sumter. Instead, it was due to the greater military and political dangers inherent in the situation in Charleston Harbor. He could not simply ignore advice from military experts that a relief mission was impossible, and he had to find a way of sending it without appearing to be the aggressor. His determination to go forward with the Sumter operation was made independently of the situation at Pickens. He made his decision prior to learning that Pickens had not been reinforced, though that news likely confirmed his judgment to proceed.
To Stampp and Current, the outbreak of fighting did not represent a failure of Lincoln's policy; he had always recognized the risk of conflict. Indeed, his policy would have succeeded regardless of what happened at Sumter. If the South permitted the fleet to resupply the fort, the prestige and legitimacy of the Confederacy would have suffered a severe blow. If, as happened, the South resisted, Lincoln would find a more united North and a sympathetic European community standing against the South's aggressive attack. As his private secretaries, Nicolay and Hay, later expressed it, when Lincoln issued the decisive order for the Sumter ships to sail, "he was master of the situation."
Although they dispute key aspects of Potter's argument, Stampp and Current agree with him that in sending the Sumter expedition, Lincoln was not choosing war over peace. While he realized the probability that the expedition would be attacked, it was at least possible that the South would acquiesce. Moreover, alternatives, such as abandoning Sumter, also entailed risks. Withdrawal could bestow legitimacy on the Confederacy and hasten a new crisis over another issue. It could also encourage the upper South to secede, persuade European governments to offer recognition, or merely postpone the inevitable conflict. Finally, if the expedition eventuated in battle, as was likely, Lincoln did not necessarily anticipate a protracted and bloody war. He may well have expected a brief contest which would lead to the quick restoration of the Union. In accepting the risk of conflict, Lincoln was not envisioning the Civil War that actually came to pass.
Commentary
Bibliography: Current, Lincoln and the First Shot, pp. 188-94; Stampp, Imperiled Union, pp. 177-85; Stampp, And the War Came, pp. 284-86; Stampp, "Comment" on Potter's "Why the Republicans Rejected Both Compromise and Secession," Knoles, ed., Crisis, pp. 107-13; Nicolay and Hay, Lincoln, 3: 442, 4: 62.
Lincoln Provoked the War
Southern leaders of the Civil War period placed the blame for the outbreak of fighting squarely on Lincoln. They accused the President of acting aggressively towards the South and of deliberately provoking war in order to overthrow the Confederacy. For its part, the Confederacy sought a peaceable accommodation of its legitimate claims to independence, and resorted to measures of self-defence only when threatened by Lincoln's coercive policy. Thus, Confederate vice president, Alexander H. Stephens, claimed that the war was "inaugurated by Mr. Lincoln." Stephens readily acknowledged that General Beauregard's troops fired the "first gun." But, he argued, the larger truth is that "in personal or national conflicts, it is not he who strikes the first blow, or fires the first gun that inaugurates or begins the conflict." Rather, the true aggressor is "the first who renders force necessary."
Stephens identified the beginning of the war as Lincoln's order sending a "hostile fleet, styled the 'Relief Squadron'," to reinforce Fort Sumter. "The war was then and there inaugurated and begun by the authorities at Washington. General Beauregard did not open fire upon Fort Sumter until this fleet was, to his knowledge, very near the harbor of Charleston, and until he had inquired of Major Anderson . . . whether he would engage to take no part in the expected blow, then coming down upon him from the approaching fleet . . . When Major Anderson . . .would make no such promise, it became necessary for General Beauregard to strike the first blow, as he did; otherwise the forces under his command might have been exposed to two fires at the same time-- one in front, and the other in the rear." The use of force by the Confederacy , therefore, was in "self-defence," rendered necessary by the actions of the other side.
Jefferson Davis, who, like Stephens, wrote his account after the Civil War, took a similar position. Fort Sumter was rightfully South Carolina's property after secession, and the Confederate government had shown great "forbearance" in trying to reach an equitable settlement with the federal government. But the Lincoln administration destroyed these efforts by sending "a hostile fleet" to Sumter. "The attempt to represent us as the aggressors," Davis argued, "is as unfounded as the complaint made by the wolf against the lamb in the familiar fable. He who makes the assault is not necessarily he that strikes the first blow or fires the first gun."
From Davis's point of view, to permit the strengthening of Sumter, even if done in a peaceable manner, was unacceptable. It meant the continued presence of a hostile threat to Charleston. Further, although the ostensible purpose of the expedition was to resupply, not reinforce the fort, the Confederacy had no guarantee that Lincoln would abide by his word. And even if he restricted his actions to resupply in this case, what was to prevent him from attempting to reinforce the fort in the future? Thus, the attack on Sumter was a measure of "defense." To have acquiesced in the fort's relief, even at the risk of firing the first shot, "would have been as unwise as it would be to hesitate to strike down the arm of the assailant, who levels a deadly weapon at one's breast, until he has actually fired."
In the twentieth century, this critical view of Lincoln's actions gained a wide audience through the writings of Charles W. Ramsdell and others. According to Ramsdell, the situation at Sumter presented Lincoln with a series of dilemmas. If he took action to maintain the fort, he would lose the border South and a large segment of northern opinion which wanted to conciliate the South. If he abandoned the fort, he jeopardized the Union by legitimizing the Confederacy. Lincoln also hazarded losing the support of a substantial portion of his own Republican Party, and risked appearing a weak and ineffective leader.
Lincoln could escape these predicaments, however, if he could induce southerners to attack Sumter, "to assume the aggressive and thus put themselves in the wrong in the eyes of the North and of the world." By sending a relief expedition, ostensibly to provide bread to a hungry garrison, Lincoln turned the tables on the Confederates, forcing them to choose whether to permit the fort to be strengthened, or to act as the aggressor. By this "astute strategy," Lincoln maneuvered the South into firing the first shot.
Bibliography: Stephens, Constitutional View, 2: 35-41; Davis, Rise and Fall, 1: 289-95; Ramsdell, "Lincoln and Fort Sumter,"pp. 259-88.
Stephens identified the beginning of the war as Lincoln's order sending a "hostile fleet, styled the 'Relief Squadron'," to reinforce Fort Sumter. "The war was then and there inaugurated and begun by the authorities at Washington. General Beauregard did not open fire upon Fort Sumter until this fleet was, to his knowledge, very near the harbor of Charleston, and until he had inquired of Major Anderson . . . whether he would engage to take no part in the expected blow, then coming down upon him from the approaching fleet . . . When Major Anderson . . .would make no such promise, it became necessary for General Beauregard to strike the first blow, as he did; otherwise the forces under his command might have been exposed to two fires at the same time-- one in front, and the other in the rear." The use of force by the Confederacy , therefore, was in "self-defence," rendered necessary by the actions of the other side.
Jefferson Davis, who, like Stephens, wrote his account after the Civil War, took a similar position. Fort Sumter was rightfully South Carolina's property after secession, and the Confederate government had shown great "forbearance" in trying to reach an equitable settlement with the federal government. But the Lincoln administration destroyed these efforts by sending "a hostile fleet" to Sumter. "The attempt to represent us as the aggressors," Davis argued, "is as unfounded as the complaint made by the wolf against the lamb in the familiar fable. He who makes the assault is not necessarily he that strikes the first blow or fires the first gun."
From Davis's point of view, to permit the strengthening of Sumter, even if done in a peaceable manner, was unacceptable. It meant the continued presence of a hostile threat to Charleston. Further, although the ostensible purpose of the expedition was to resupply, not reinforce the fort, the Confederacy had no guarantee that Lincoln would abide by his word. And even if he restricted his actions to resupply in this case, what was to prevent him from attempting to reinforce the fort in the future? Thus, the attack on Sumter was a measure of "defense." To have acquiesced in the fort's relief, even at the risk of firing the first shot, "would have been as unwise as it would be to hesitate to strike down the arm of the assailant, who levels a deadly weapon at one's breast, until he has actually fired."
In the twentieth century, this critical view of Lincoln's actions gained a wide audience through the writings of Charles W. Ramsdell and others. According to Ramsdell, the situation at Sumter presented Lincoln with a series of dilemmas. If he took action to maintain the fort, he would lose the border South and a large segment of northern opinion which wanted to conciliate the South. If he abandoned the fort, he jeopardized the Union by legitimizing the Confederacy. Lincoln also hazarded losing the support of a substantial portion of his own Republican Party, and risked appearing a weak and ineffective leader.
Lincoln could escape these predicaments, however, if he could induce southerners to attack Sumter, "to assume the aggressive and thus put themselves in the wrong in the eyes of the North and of the world." By sending a relief expedition, ostensibly to provide bread to a hungry garrison, Lincoln turned the tables on the Confederates, forcing them to choose whether to permit the fort to be strengthened, or to act as the aggressor. By this "astute strategy," Lincoln maneuvered the South into firing the first shot.
Bibliography: Stephens, Constitutional View, 2: 35-41; Davis, Rise and Fall, 1: 289-95; Ramsdell, "Lincoln and Fort Sumter,"pp. 259-88.
Lincoln, the Man of Peace
Lincoln, the Man of Peace
Almost all historians reject the claim that Lincoln deliberately provoked the Civil War. They consider the idea unsubstantiated by evidence, inconsistent with Lincoln's character, and unwarranted by the context of events. David M. Potter, for example, contends that Lincoln sincerely pursued a policy that would avert war. Placing great-- too great-- faith in the existence of unionist sentiment in the South, Lincoln did all he could to avoid a confrontation that would und ermine unionist chances of regaining power. He modified his Inaugural Address to eliminate the threat of repossessing federal property, and seriously contemplated abandoning Sumter if military considerations made such an action necessary. Although he would not sacrifice the essential principle of Union, on every occasion, Lincoln adopted the least provocative course available.
In the end, Lincoln reluctantly sent the Sumter expedition only after learning that the reinforcement of Fort Pickens had not taken place. Since Pickens could not provide a symbol of the Union's permanency, the abandonment of Sumter was now unacceptable. Even in these circumstances, Lincoln took the most peaceable course possible. He adopted a plan to resupply rather than reinforce the fort, and informed South Carolina officials of his intention. Althou gh fighting broke out as a result of his decision, Lincoln did not deliberately choose war. Instead, he opted for a course whose consequences were unknown, and which offered at least a possibility of avoiding war.
From Potter's perspective, the bombardment of Sumter represented a failure of Lincoln's policy to avert war. War was an unintended consequence of a policy that failed because of Confederate actions and Lincoln's miscalculation of the strength and determination of the secessionist cause. The Lincoln scholar, James G. Randall, has articulated the significant distinction between intentions and unintended consequences. "To say that Lincoln meant that the first shot would be fired by the other side if a first shot was fired, is not to say that he maneuvered to have the shot fired. The distinction is fundamental," Randall observes.
Bibliography: Potter, Lincoln and His Party, xxxi-xxxiii, 336-75; Potter, "Why the Republicans R
Almost all historians reject the claim that Lincoln deliberately provoked the Civil War. They consider the idea unsubstantiated by evidence, inconsistent with Lincoln's character, and unwarranted by the context of events. David M. Potter, for example, contends that Lincoln sincerely pursued a policy that would avert war. Placing great-- too great-- faith in the existence of unionist sentiment in the South, Lincoln did all he could to avoid a confrontation that would und ermine unionist chances of regaining power. He modified his Inaugural Address to eliminate the threat of repossessing federal property, and seriously contemplated abandoning Sumter if military considerations made such an action necessary. Although he would not sacrifice the essential principle of Union, on every occasion, Lincoln adopted the least provocative course available.
In the end, Lincoln reluctantly sent the Sumter expedition only after learning that the reinforcement of Fort Pickens had not taken place. Since Pickens could not provide a symbol of the Union's permanency, the abandonment of Sumter was now unacceptable. Even in these circumstances, Lincoln took the most peaceable course possible. He adopted a plan to resupply rather than reinforce the fort, and informed South Carolina officials of his intention. Althou gh fighting broke out as a result of his decision, Lincoln did not deliberately choose war. Instead, he opted for a course whose consequences were unknown, and which offered at least a possibility of avoiding war.
From Potter's perspective, the bombardment of Sumter represented a failure of Lincoln's policy to avert war. War was an unintended consequence of a policy that failed because of Confederate actions and Lincoln's miscalculation of the strength and determination of the secessionist cause. The Lincoln scholar, James G. Randall, has articulated the significant distinction between intentions and unintended consequences. "To say that Lincoln meant that the first shot would be fired by the other side if a first shot was fired, is not to say that he maneuvered to have the shot fired. The distinction is fundamental," Randall observes.
Bibliography: Potter, Lincoln and His Party, xxxi-xxxiii, 336-75; Potter, "Why the Republicans R
Reflections
Reflections
As the reality of civil war quickly took hold in the days following April 12, the dramatic saga of Anderson's garrison at Fort Sumter faded into the background. Montgomery Blair remarked that "events of such magnitude" rapidly crowded on the country and President Lincoln, that "Sumter and Anderson are not thought of for the moment."
Fort Sumter, of course, was not forgotten, and the story of the fort and its small garrison holds a prominent place in American history. Sumter's fame has little to do with its military aspects. In strictly military terms, the battle between Union and Confederate forces at Fort Sumter scarcely merits attention. After a relatively brief bombardment, the small Union garrison surrendered a position of questionable military value to either side. Not a single human life was lost during the fighting, as compared to the massive, momentous, and bloody engagements at Gettysburg, Fredericksburg, or at Cold Harbor during the Wilderness Campaign where in a brief period of no more than half an hour, Union forces suffered some 7,000 casualties.
It is Sumter's association with the Civil War, one of the great shaping events of the American experience, which gives it a symbolic dimension far outweighing its military significance. The attack on Sumter was the first notable clash of arms between the newly formed Confederacy and the Union. The battle marked a transition from the period of precarious peace that accompanied the initial secession of seven deep South states from the Union to the four protracted years of bloodshed and devastation of the Civil War.
Like the Civil War itself, however, Sumter remains the subject of considerable controversy. Contemporary recollections, popular investigations, and historical analyses, have offered different assessments of a variety of issues connected with the outbreak of fighting. The most intense debate has focused on Lincoln, some of whose critics at the time, as well as later, held him responsible for the war and contended that he deliberately provoked the South into firing on Fort Sumter. In their view, Lincoln deliberately and disingenuously fixed the onus for starting the war on the Confederacy. To be sure, scholars have also investigated the Confederate government, and some hold it accountable for the fighting. But it is Lincoln's decisions and motives that have been most closely scrutinized.
Lincoln was not the first, or last, President to be accused of acting deceitfully and provocatively in order to advance broader military or political objectives. In an earlier period, President James K. Polk was charged by opponents, including Lincoln himself, with initiating the Mexican War by sending American troops into disputed territory. In more recent American history, some critics assailed Franklin D. Roosevelt for maneuvering the United States into World War II, and Lyndon B. Johnson was alleged to have used an ambiguous incident in the Tonkin Gulf to widen the Viet Nam War.
The controversy over who was responsible for the "first shot" of the Civil War raises substantial moral and political issues. Americans have long and proudly considered themselves a peaceable people, who repel aggression but do not initiate war. Fortunate circumstances, including isolation from Europe and the presence of few and weak neighbors, partly explain the existence of the idea of America as a peaceful oasis in a contentious world. But the sources of this claim run deeper. The insightful nineteenth-century French visitor to the United States, Alexis de Tocqueville, remarked that democratic nations "quench the military spirit." According to Tocqueville, the manners and customs of democracies, combined with their wide diffusion of wealth and property, mitigate against war and warlike passions.
Whatever the validity of Tocqueville's observation, Americans have generally taken it to heart. They have affirmed that the United States should avoid international conflict and only intervene in response to outside aggression-- after the enemy has fire d the first shot. In a society devoted to democracy and prosperity, war is an aberration. When compelled to fight, however, Americans claim the high moral ground of defending freedom against aggressors. The possibility that either the Lincoln or Davis administrations initiated war, therefore, challenges long-established and strongly held cultural assumptions.
The issue of responsibility also involves broader questions of both policy and decision making. What exactly were the policies of the Lincoln and Davis administrations in dealing with the Sumter crisis? What were the decisions they made, and what assumptions underlay their decisions? Did either government, for example, want or expect war? What did each side expect would happen when it implemented its policy? Did their decisions have unintended consequences? Were their policies consistent over time, or did policies change as conditions altered? Issues of policy and decision making, therefore, call not only for an investigation of actions taken, but also of the motives and intentions behind those actions.
This section contains a survey of some of the key controversies surrounding Fort Sumter. Two topics, often overlooked by historians today but of great moment during the Sumter crisis, concern the Fox expedition and the condition of Fort Sumter itself. Could Fox's plan have worked? If so, if it had been possible to relieve Sumter, would the fort have been able to withstand the Confederate assault and remain in Union hands?
These two questions suggest a much broader issue about the Fort Sumter episode. Assuming there were reasonable grounds to send the relief expedition, what were Lincoln's expectations when he dispatched it? In answering this question, commentators have offered very different assessments of Lincoln's motives and actions. He has been variously portrayed as a man who provoked war, as a man of peace, and as a political realist. Depending on how Lincoln is viewed, the events at Sumter take on very different meanings.
To explore the issues concerning the Fox expedition and Fort Sumter, and to understand the various ways in which Lincoln's motives and actions during the Sumter crisis have been portrayed, click on the appropriate topic. The information presented illuminates the different perspectives with which Americans have viewed their Civil War. The section ends with a series of questions raised by this program.
* Fox Expedition's Feasibility
* Fort Sumter Defense
* Lincoln Provoked The War
* Lincoln, Man of Peace
* Lincoln The Realist
* Questions for Consideration
Bibliography: Current, Lincoln and the First Shot, pp. 7-12, 182-208; Stampp, Imperiled Union, pp. 163-88; McWhiney, "Confederacy's First Shot," pp. 5-6; Robertson, American Myth, American Reality, pp. 324-31; Tocqueville, Democracy in America, ed. Bender, p. 54
As the reality of civil war quickly took hold in the days following April 12, the dramatic saga of Anderson's garrison at Fort Sumter faded into the background. Montgomery Blair remarked that "events of such magnitude" rapidly crowded on the country and President Lincoln, that "Sumter and Anderson are not thought of for the moment."
Fort Sumter, of course, was not forgotten, and the story of the fort and its small garrison holds a prominent place in American history. Sumter's fame has little to do with its military aspects. In strictly military terms, the battle between Union and Confederate forces at Fort Sumter scarcely merits attention. After a relatively brief bombardment, the small Union garrison surrendered a position of questionable military value to either side. Not a single human life was lost during the fighting, as compared to the massive, momentous, and bloody engagements at Gettysburg, Fredericksburg, or at Cold Harbor during the Wilderness Campaign where in a brief period of no more than half an hour, Union forces suffered some 7,000 casualties.
It is Sumter's association with the Civil War, one of the great shaping events of the American experience, which gives it a symbolic dimension far outweighing its military significance. The attack on Sumter was the first notable clash of arms between the newly formed Confederacy and the Union. The battle marked a transition from the period of precarious peace that accompanied the initial secession of seven deep South states from the Union to the four protracted years of bloodshed and devastation of the Civil War.
Like the Civil War itself, however, Sumter remains the subject of considerable controversy. Contemporary recollections, popular investigations, and historical analyses, have offered different assessments of a variety of issues connected with the outbreak of fighting. The most intense debate has focused on Lincoln, some of whose critics at the time, as well as later, held him responsible for the war and contended that he deliberately provoked the South into firing on Fort Sumter. In their view, Lincoln deliberately and disingenuously fixed the onus for starting the war on the Confederacy. To be sure, scholars have also investigated the Confederate government, and some hold it accountable for the fighting. But it is Lincoln's decisions and motives that have been most closely scrutinized.
Lincoln was not the first, or last, President to be accused of acting deceitfully and provocatively in order to advance broader military or political objectives. In an earlier period, President James K. Polk was charged by opponents, including Lincoln himself, with initiating the Mexican War by sending American troops into disputed territory. In more recent American history, some critics assailed Franklin D. Roosevelt for maneuvering the United States into World War II, and Lyndon B. Johnson was alleged to have used an ambiguous incident in the Tonkin Gulf to widen the Viet Nam War.
The controversy over who was responsible for the "first shot" of the Civil War raises substantial moral and political issues. Americans have long and proudly considered themselves a peaceable people, who repel aggression but do not initiate war. Fortunate circumstances, including isolation from Europe and the presence of few and weak neighbors, partly explain the existence of the idea of America as a peaceful oasis in a contentious world. But the sources of this claim run deeper. The insightful nineteenth-century French visitor to the United States, Alexis de Tocqueville, remarked that democratic nations "quench the military spirit." According to Tocqueville, the manners and customs of democracies, combined with their wide diffusion of wealth and property, mitigate against war and warlike passions.
Whatever the validity of Tocqueville's observation, Americans have generally taken it to heart. They have affirmed that the United States should avoid international conflict and only intervene in response to outside aggression-- after the enemy has fire d the first shot. In a society devoted to democracy and prosperity, war is an aberration. When compelled to fight, however, Americans claim the high moral ground of defending freedom against aggressors. The possibility that either the Lincoln or Davis administrations initiated war, therefore, challenges long-established and strongly held cultural assumptions.
The issue of responsibility also involves broader questions of both policy and decision making. What exactly were the policies of the Lincoln and Davis administrations in dealing with the Sumter crisis? What were the decisions they made, and what assumptions underlay their decisions? Did either government, for example, want or expect war? What did each side expect would happen when it implemented its policy? Did their decisions have unintended consequences? Were their policies consistent over time, or did policies change as conditions altered? Issues of policy and decision making, therefore, call not only for an investigation of actions taken, but also of the motives and intentions behind those actions.
This section contains a survey of some of the key controversies surrounding Fort Sumter. Two topics, often overlooked by historians today but of great moment during the Sumter crisis, concern the Fox expedition and the condition of Fort Sumter itself. Could Fox's plan have worked? If so, if it had been possible to relieve Sumter, would the fort have been able to withstand the Confederate assault and remain in Union hands?
These two questions suggest a much broader issue about the Fort Sumter episode. Assuming there were reasonable grounds to send the relief expedition, what were Lincoln's expectations when he dispatched it? In answering this question, commentators have offered very different assessments of Lincoln's motives and actions. He has been variously portrayed as a man who provoked war, as a man of peace, and as a political realist. Depending on how Lincoln is viewed, the events at Sumter take on very different meanings.
To explore the issues concerning the Fox expedition and Fort Sumter, and to understand the various ways in which Lincoln's motives and actions during the Sumter crisis have been portrayed, click on the appropriate topic. The information presented illuminates the different perspectives with which Americans have viewed their Civil War. The section ends with a series of questions raised by this program.
* Fox Expedition's Feasibility
* Fort Sumter Defense
* Lincoln Provoked The War
* Lincoln, Man of Peace
* Lincoln The Realist
* Questions for Consideration
Bibliography: Current, Lincoln and the First Shot, pp. 7-12, 182-208; Stampp, Imperiled Union, pp. 163-88; McWhiney, "Confederacy's First Shot," pp. 5-6; Robertson, American Myth, American Reality, pp. 324-31; Tocqueville, Democracy in America, ed. Bender, p. 54
Aftermath
April 13, 1861 - April 14, 1865
Ironically, the situations at both Forts Pickens and Sumter were resolved even before the arrival of the relief expeditions. On the evening of April 12, 1861, following Lieutenant Worden's arrival in Pensacola, United States troops were landed at Pickens. The fort was secured, thereby offsetting the loss of the other naval fortifications at Pensacola Harbor. Fort Pickens and the surrounding island remained in Union hands throughout the Civil War. While public attention focused on the shelling of Fort Sumter and the outbreak of Civil War, Meigs's relief expedition became a footnote in history, a relatively obscure "second" reinforcement of Pickens.
Meanwhile, Fox's expedition to Sumter arrived too late to provision or reinforce Anderson and his garrison. Fox's plan was never tested, partly because of the Confederacy's decision to attack Sumter before his expedition arrived, and partly because the Powhatan, with its essential boats and crew, sailed to Fort Pickens instead of Sumter.
In one sense, all of the decision making and planning behind the two expeditions was pointless. But such a view unduly minimizes the significance of Lincoln's actions. The Pickens mission decisively secured the fort from hostile forces, assuring a more effective implementation of the Union's blockade of southern ports. Furthermore, Lincoln's decision to send these expeditions influenced Jefferson Davis to initiate the attack on Sumter. While the irony of the Sumter and Pickens expeditions should be fully appreciated, their featured role in the coming of the Civil War still merits recognition.
Ironically, the situations at both Forts Pickens and Sumter were resolved even before the arrival of the relief expeditions. On the evening of April 12, 1861, following Lieutenant Worden's arrival in Pensacola, United States troops were landed at Pickens. The fort was secured, thereby offsetting the loss of the other naval fortifications at Pensacola Harbor. Fort Pickens and the surrounding island remained in Union hands throughout the Civil War. While public attention focused on the shelling of Fort Sumter and the outbreak of Civil War, Meigs's relief expedition became a footnote in history, a relatively obscure "second" reinforcement of Pickens.
Meanwhile, Fox's expedition to Sumter arrived too late to provision or reinforce Anderson and his garrison. Fox's plan was never tested, partly because of the Confederacy's decision to attack Sumter before his expedition arrived, and partly because the Powhatan, with its essential boats and crew, sailed to Fort Pickens instead of Sumter.
In one sense, all of the decision making and planning behind the two expeditions was pointless. But such a view unduly minimizes the significance of Lincoln's actions. The Pickens mission decisively secured the fort from hostile forces, assuring a more effective implementation of the Union's blockade of southern ports. Furthermore, Lincoln's decision to send these expeditions influenced Jefferson Davis to initiate the attack on Sumter. While the irony of the Sumter and Pickens expeditions should be fully appreciated, their featured role in the coming of the Civil War still merits recognition.
And The War Came
April 7 - 12, 1861
Lincoln had made his decision to relieve Forts Sumter and Pickens. The messengers to Charleston and Pensacola had been dispatched. Two expeditions, one headed to Sumter, the other directed to Pickens, were in the process of embarking. Now there would be days of waiting until the fate of these efforts was known. Throughout the Union, there was a general anticipation that the long period of standoff between Washington and Montgomery was about to end.
Lincoln had set his plan in motion, but its outcome was no longer subject to his control. Already, and still unknown to him, the flagship of the Sumter fleet, the Powhatan, was headed for the wrong fort, Pickens. Furthermore, nature was proving uncooperative. A storm struck the Atlantic just as the Sumter expedition left port, blowing gale winds, rain, and high seas. The ships had to make their way through this "unpropitious" weather to reach Charleston. Most significantly, the action of Confederate officials would also determine the consequences of Lincoln's decision.
Lincoln had made his decision to relieve Forts Sumter and Pickens. The messengers to Charleston and Pensacola had been dispatched. Two expeditions, one headed to Sumter, the other directed to Pickens, were in the process of embarking. Now there would be days of waiting until the fate of these efforts was known. Throughout the Union, there was a general anticipation that the long period of standoff between Washington and Montgomery was about to end.
Lincoln had set his plan in motion, but its outcome was no longer subject to his control. Already, and still unknown to him, the flagship of the Sumter fleet, the Powhatan, was headed for the wrong fort, Pickens. Furthermore, nature was proving uncooperative. A storm struck the Atlantic just as the Sumter expedition left port, blowing gale winds, rain, and high seas. The ships had to make their way through this "unpropitious" weather to reach Charleston. Most significantly, the action of Confederate officials would also determine the consequences of Lincoln's decision.
Final Orders
March 31 - April 6, 1861
By the end of March, Lincoln had made certain key decisions involving Forts Sumter and Pickens. He had set in motion preparations for a relief mission to Sumter, and placed Gustavus V. Fox in charge. He had also established April 6 as the approximate date for the expedition to get under way, if sent, so as to arrive in time to help Anderson's garrison.
As for Fort Pickens, which was more accessible and politically less controversial, Lincoln had ordered it to be held and reinforced at the outset of his administration. However, no word had yet reached Washington that his orders had been successfully carried out. Instead, rumors were rampant that federal troops had never landed. At the suggestion of Secretary of State Seward, Lincoln, therefore, initiated conversations with Captain Montgomery C. Meigs to consider plans for another relief expedition to Florida.
In this delicate and potentially explosive situation, Lincoln may well have wondered at times whether it would have been better had the Buchanan administration abandoned Sumter and Pickens. By retaining the forts, President Buchanan had, in effect, left him with a highly visible, emotional, symbolic point of contention with the Confederacy. But the problem was now his, and with it, the responsibility of decision making. As the month of March came to a close, Lincoln stood poised to make a final decision concerning Sumter and Pickens.
By the end of March, Lincoln had made certain key decisions involving Forts Sumter and Pickens. He had set in motion preparations for a relief mission to Sumter, and placed Gustavus V. Fox in charge. He had also established April 6 as the approximate date for the expedition to get under way, if sent, so as to arrive in time to help Anderson's garrison.
As for Fort Pickens, which was more accessible and politically less controversial, Lincoln had ordered it to be held and reinforced at the outset of his administration. However, no word had yet reached Washington that his orders had been successfully carried out. Instead, rumors were rampant that federal troops had never landed. At the suggestion of Secretary of State Seward, Lincoln, therefore, initiated conversations with Captain Montgomery C. Meigs to consider plans for another relief expedition to Florida.
In this delicate and potentially explosive situation, Lincoln may well have wondered at times whether it would have been better had the Buchanan administration abandoned Sumter and Pickens. By retaining the forts, President Buchanan had, in effect, left him with a highly visible, emotional, symbolic point of contention with the Confederacy. But the problem was now his, and with it, the responsibility of decision making. As the month of March came to a close, Lincoln stood poised to make a final decision concerning Sumter and Pickens.
March 19-29, 1861
Ever since Lincoln learned on March 5 that Anderson's troops at Sumter had supplies that would last no longer than mid-April, time became an increasingly weighty consideration for the President. It would take time to organize and dispatch a relief expedition, whether small-scale or massive. It would take time to reach Sumter from northern ports. Meanwhile, Confederate forces at both Sumter and Pickens were strengthening their batteries and tightening the noose around these Union positions. Every day made reinforcement more difficult, particularly at Sumter; every day made life at these posts more stressful; every day increased the possibility of a Confederate attack. And every day, too, brought demands from segments of his own Republican Party and northern public opinion for some action that would show the kind of energy and commitment to the Union that the previous Buchanan administration had lacked.
Despite pressure to act quickly, Lincoln took advantage of the time that remained to him. During the ten days following the submission of his cabinet's written opinions, Lincoln gathered information and explored ways of holding the Union's forts. By March 29, he was ready to decide on a course of action.
Despite pressure to act quickly, Lincoln took advantage of the time that remained to him. During the ten days following the submission of his cabinet's written opinions, Lincoln gathered information and explored ways of holding the Union's forts. By March 29, he was ready to decide on a course of action.
March 5-18, 1861
Lincoln's Inaugural Address formulated a general statement of policy concerning federal forts and possessions. At the time he composed and delivered it, he understood that no immediate crisis existed at the forts still in the government's hands. He assumed that both Fort Pickens and Fort Sumter were secure and adequately supplied for the foreseeable future. Although the situation at the forts was uneasy, especially at Sumter, which was located in the charged atmosphere of Charleston, there was no immediate need to disturb the status quo. Time was available to try peaceable remedies and, perhaps, smooth the way for reconciliation.
However, Lincoln's assumptions received a jolt at the very outset of his presidency, when he learned that Sumter's troops could not hold out for any substantial period of time without assistance. Lincoln would now have to decide what to do in these new circumstances.
However, Lincoln's assumptions received a jolt at the very outset of his presidency, when he learned that Sumter's troops could not hold out for any substantial period of time without assistance. Lincoln would now have to decide what to do in these new circumstances.
Lincoln's Inaugural Address
Monday March 4, 1861
With the failure of compromise, attention focused increasingly on the question of secession itself and the related issue of federal property. As southern states took over federal forts one by one, those few that remained in Union hands came to symbolize the conflict over the legitimacy of secession.
Especially important were both Fort Sumter and Fort Pickens, which the Confederate government was demanding and where federal troops were now surrounded by hostile Confederate forces. Did states have a constitutional right to peaceably secede from the Union and reclaim (with compensation to the federal government) federal property within their borders, as the seceding states claimed?
If states had no such right, what were the best means of asserting the permanency of the Union and the legitimate claims of federal government over the states? Now that the long waiting period was over, Lincoln would have an opportunity in his inaugural message on March 4, 1861 to address the questions of secession and federal property. What would he say?
Problem 2
With the failure of compromise, attention focused increasingly on the question of secession itself and the related issue of federal property. As southern states took over federal forts one by one, those few that remained in Union hands came to symbolize the conflict over the legitimacy of secession.
Especially important were both Fort Sumter and Fort Pickens, which the Confederate government was demanding and where federal troops were now surrounded by hostile Confederate forces. Did states have a constitutional right to peaceably secede from the Union and reclaim (with compensation to the federal government) federal property within their borders, as the seceding states claimed?
If states had no such right, what were the best means of asserting the permanency of the Union and the legitimate claims of federal government over the states? Now that the long waiting period was over, Lincoln would have an opportunity in his inaugural message on March 4, 1861 to address the questions of secession and federal property. What would he say?
Problem 2
December 3, 1860 - March 3, 1864
Shortly after Lincoln's election, Congress assembled, and the following three months leading up to Lincoln's inauguration were marked by events of profound significance for the country. Seven states left the Union, formed a new government, and took over federal property; eight slaveholding states precariously walked a tightrope between Union and secession; the Buchanan administration, after conceding the loss of most federal posts, held firm at Forts Pickens and Sumter; and moderates formulated compromise proposals to resolve the crisis and provide a means for the peaceable reconstruction of the country.
Officially, Lincoln had no more authority in this situation than any other American. Due to a constitutional requirement, he would not take office until March 4, 1861. In the meantime, power remained in the hands of a lame-duck President and Congress . Yet unofficially, Lincoln possessed considerable influence, and what he decided to do about the various compromise proposals during this period would be as fateful as any decision he made after he became President.
In making up his mind, Lincoln had to consider, among other things, his own principles and ideals, the demands of his party and constituents, the situation in the upper South, the strength of the secessionist movement in the deep South, and the likely consequences of any decision on the future course of events.
Officially, Lincoln had no more authority in this situation than any other American. Due to a constitutional requirement, he would not take office until March 4, 1861. In the meantime, power remained in the hands of a lame-duck President and Congress . Yet unofficially, Lincoln possessed considerable influence, and what he decided to do about the various compromise proposals during this period would be as fateful as any decision he made after he became President.
In making up his mind, Lincoln had to consider, among other things, his own principles and ideals, the demands of his party and constituents, the situation in the upper South, the strength of the secessionist movement in the deep South, and the likely consequences of any decision on the future course of events.
Private sector seeks solutions to global economic recession
Private sector seeks solutions to global economic recession
Tuesday, 17th February, 2009
By Sylvia Juuko
WITH only 10 months to go before all goods trade freely within the East African Community (EAC), the private sector is still grappling with lack of capacity to trade within the region.
This comes against a backdrop of the looming impact of the global economic crisis that will impact negatively on the private sector.
While goods have been enjoying a tariff-free regime within the EAC since 2005, Kenyan goods pay a diminishing interim duty for five years to take care of concerns that Kenya was more developed. However, this period expires in 2010.
There was consensus at a chief executives’ consultative forum on improving Uganda’s competitiveness that the private sector needs to become more pro-active by advising the Government and supporting small and medium enterprises (SMEs).
“While its trade capacity diminishes, most of the SMEs suffer internal constraints like inefficiency in production, non-existent books of accounts and limited management skills,” noted Lamin Manjang, the managing director of Standard Chartered Bank.
“Internal limitations reduce competitiveness of SMEs, which in turn reduces that of large enterprises and eventually Uganda’s trade capacity within the region,” he noted during the forum organised by the Private Sector Foundation.
The private sector is grappling with infrastructure challenges, which have pushed up costs of doing business. The cost of finance and ease of doing business are other challenges.
Leading industrialist, James Mulwana agreed, noting that that unless the private sector improves its trade capacity, the country was at risk of becoming a supermarket
“Donors and the Government have given us support. It is up to us to utilise that and become a player and not a supermarket for other countries in the region.”
With a raging global economic crisis that is affecting Uganda’s trade partners, leveraging on its competitive advantage to supply the region has become more urgent for Uganda’s private sector.
“The private sector has been relaxed about the global crisis but it’s with us now. If we organised forums just to talk, that was last year, it can’t work this year. We have to be pro-active, otherwise we won’t to find opportunities because we haven’t yet built capacity to confront this crisis.”
Mulwana suggested a reduction of Value Added Tax for companies setting up shop in rural areas to add value to agro-produce for export to the region.
Patrick Bitature, the chairman of the Uganda Investment Authority, said: “We should see how to help farmers build storage capacity like silos, improve production and marketing so that their business is sustainable and not vulnerable to price shocks. This will help them plan beyond a season.”
Tuesday, 17th February, 2009
By Sylvia Juuko
WITH only 10 months to go before all goods trade freely within the East African Community (EAC), the private sector is still grappling with lack of capacity to trade within the region.
This comes against a backdrop of the looming impact of the global economic crisis that will impact negatively on the private sector.
While goods have been enjoying a tariff-free regime within the EAC since 2005, Kenyan goods pay a diminishing interim duty for five years to take care of concerns that Kenya was more developed. However, this period expires in 2010.
There was consensus at a chief executives’ consultative forum on improving Uganda’s competitiveness that the private sector needs to become more pro-active by advising the Government and supporting small and medium enterprises (SMEs).
“While its trade capacity diminishes, most of the SMEs suffer internal constraints like inefficiency in production, non-existent books of accounts and limited management skills,” noted Lamin Manjang, the managing director of Standard Chartered Bank.
“Internal limitations reduce competitiveness of SMEs, which in turn reduces that of large enterprises and eventually Uganda’s trade capacity within the region,” he noted during the forum organised by the Private Sector Foundation.
The private sector is grappling with infrastructure challenges, which have pushed up costs of doing business. The cost of finance and ease of doing business are other challenges.
Leading industrialist, James Mulwana agreed, noting that that unless the private sector improves its trade capacity, the country was at risk of becoming a supermarket
“Donors and the Government have given us support. It is up to us to utilise that and become a player and not a supermarket for other countries in the region.”
With a raging global economic crisis that is affecting Uganda’s trade partners, leveraging on its competitive advantage to supply the region has become more urgent for Uganda’s private sector.
“The private sector has been relaxed about the global crisis but it’s with us now. If we organised forums just to talk, that was last year, it can’t work this year. We have to be pro-active, otherwise we won’t to find opportunities because we haven’t yet built capacity to confront this crisis.”
Mulwana suggested a reduction of Value Added Tax for companies setting up shop in rural areas to add value to agro-produce for export to the region.
Patrick Bitature, the chairman of the Uganda Investment Authority, said: “We should see how to help farmers build storage capacity like silos, improve production and marketing so that their business is sustainable and not vulnerable to price shocks. This will help them plan beyond a season.”
Financial Sector Wages
There is a lot of irritation currently about salaries and bonuses in the financial sector, especially in light of recent bail-outs. Critics of the exuberance in the financial sector should not worry. According to a new working paper by Thomas Philippon and Ariell Reshef, we can expect a sharp decrease in financial sector salaries in the coming years. This prediction is based on an analysis of the wage and skill development in the U.S. financial sector from 1909 to 2006. Until 1933, the financial sector was a high-skill, high wage industry. After the Great Depression, the financial sector not only lost its high human capital, but also the wage premium compared to the rest of the private sector. It was not until the 1980s that the financial sector became yet again a high-skill and high-wage industry, driven by financial liberalization and innovation.
Salaries
Both in the period from the mid-1920s to the mid-1930s and from the mid-1990s onwards, salaries in the financial sector were not consistent with education levels and employment risk, suggesting short-term rents for financial sector employees and an unsustainable labor market equilibrium. So, expect financial sector salaries to drop, although not immediately as the experience from the Great Depression shows, where it took several years for relative financial sector wages to drop. But given excess wages of 40%, expect big drops! These high excess wages might also explain regulatory failures in the run-up to the crisis; regulators could simply not attract sufficient talent given the high excess compensation in the private sector. So, the next question will be: what about the impact on MBA and Finance programs.
Posted by Thorsten Beck on January 28, 2009 in Lessons from the past | Permalink | TrackBack (0)
Aid to the Suffering World
William Easterly, of The White Man's Burden fame, has just started a blog on the market for development aid. His first entry discusses president Zoellick's recent proposal to have a small percentage of stimulus packages in the West be dedicated to aid for developing countries. Easterly argues that besides being unrealistic, this proposal does not offer any increased responsibility for how the money would be used. Read on.
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Posted by Simeon Djankov on January 29, 2009 in Aid in the crisis | Permalink | TrackBack (0)
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Posted by Simeon Djankov on January 29, 2009 in Aid in the crisis | Permalink | TrackBack (0)
Living in a Madoff World
Editor's Note: Arshad Sayed is World Bank Country Manager in Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia.
Madoff made off with billions, Nassim Taleb kept sighting unseen Black Swans, and the global economy has been in a tailspin. Meanwhile, I have been ensconced on the Mongolian Steppe. It's so far from it all that the approaching recession looked impenetrable – until now.
The prices for Mongolia’s major export, copper, and the herder’s main sources of livelihood, cashmere and meat, are in free fall. Why?
What unleashed this financial maelstrom that threatens to besiege my neighbor’s lives seemingly so disconnected from those at the center of it on Wall Street? As I look for answers there is no shortage of raison d’êtres.
Continue reading "Living in a Madoff World" »
Posted by Arshad Sayed on January 29, 2009 in East Asia and Pacific | Permalink | TrackBack (0)
Madoff made off with billions, Nassim Taleb kept sighting unseen Black Swans, and the global economy has been in a tailspin. Meanwhile, I have been ensconced on the Mongolian Steppe. It's so far from it all that the approaching recession looked impenetrable – until now.
The prices for Mongolia’s major export, copper, and the herder’s main sources of livelihood, cashmere and meat, are in free fall. Why?
What unleashed this financial maelstrom that threatens to besiege my neighbor’s lives seemingly so disconnected from those at the center of it on Wall Street? As I look for answers there is no shortage of raison d’êtres.
Continue reading "Living in a Madoff World" »
Posted by Arshad Sayed on January 29, 2009 in East Asia and Pacific | Permalink | TrackBack (0)
The Ukrainian Tax Administration's Response to the Crisis
It is widely known in Ukraine that the performance of the State Tax Administration (STA) is assessed by the volume of collected tax revenues, which is tracked on a monthly and annual basis. It is these figures that matter, and not the level of taxpayer service or public opinion. A new year has just started and the STA is already asking the Government to reduce the targets on tax revenues for 2009, which are the same as last year for company profit tax and slightly higher for VAT.
The STA argues that the targets are unrealistic considering the general decline in production and trade, the reduction of exports, etc. The signal is clear – we should prepare for hard times and the STA doesn’t want to be a poor performer, with a culture that demands the set targets should be exceeded, a heritage coming from the Soviet past.
This last decade tax revenues have been growing from year to year, based on a natural tendency of inflation and GDP growth.
Continue reading "The Ukrainian Tax Administration's Response to the Crisis" »
Posted by Nadiya Pustovoytova on January 29, 2009 in Eastern Europe | Permalink | TrackBack (0)
The STA argues that the targets are unrealistic considering the general decline in production and trade, the reduction of exports, etc. The signal is clear – we should prepare for hard times and the STA doesn’t want to be a poor performer, with a culture that demands the set targets should be exceeded, a heritage coming from the Soviet past.
This last decade tax revenues have been growing from year to year, based on a natural tendency of inflation and GDP growth.
Continue reading "The Ukrainian Tax Administration's Response to the Crisis" »
Posted by Nadiya Pustovoytova on January 29, 2009 in Eastern Europe | Permalink | TrackBack (0)
Disclosure by Politicians
After three years in the making, we have just completed a large research project on the disclosure of conflicts of interest and business dealings by politicians in 175 countries. The resulting paper, Disclosure by Politicians, a joint effort with Rafael La Porta (Dartmouth), Florencio Lopez-de-Silanes (EDHEC Business School) and Andrei Shleifer (Harvard), is the first to look at what disclosures are required by law, which of these are made public, in which countries someone actually checks whether the disclosures are made or not, and what penalties exist in the event of faulty or incomplete disclosures.
The topic will undoubtedly raise heat in countries that don't do well. More relevant for the current crisis, however, one can imagine a call for similar types of disclosures by CEOs of publicly-traded companies and perhaps even privately-held financial companies. The scandals starting to emerge from the crisis - take Madoff and Satyam - suggest there is considerable sleaze in the private sector too.
The good news is that the methodology now exists and can be adapted to the captains of industry.
Posted by Simeon Djankov on February 2, 2009 in Moral hazard | Permalink | TrackBack (0)
The topic will undoubtedly raise heat in countries that don't do well. More relevant for the current crisis, however, one can imagine a call for similar types of disclosures by CEOs of publicly-traded companies and perhaps even privately-held financial companies. The scandals starting to emerge from the crisis - take Madoff and Satyam - suggest there is considerable sleaze in the private sector too.
The good news is that the methodology now exists and can be adapted to the captains of industry.
Posted by Simeon Djankov on February 2, 2009 in Moral hazard | Permalink | TrackBack (0)
Kaufmann Takes Aim At Corruption
Dani Kaufmann, one of the pioneers of the governance agenda at the World Bank, discusses the role that corruption played in the financial crisis:
There are multiple causes of the financial crisis. But we can not ignore the element of "capture" in the systemic failures of oversight, regulation and disclosure in the financial sector. Concrete examples abound.
First, the way Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae spent millions of dollars lobbying some influential members of Congress in exchange for, among other things, lax capital reserve requirements for these mortgage giants.
Second, how AIG's "small" derivatives unit located in London managed to obscure its accounts, be governed by lax regulatory oversight, and take inordinate risks that effectively brought down AIG's empire of 100,000 employees in 130 countries, accelerating the global financial crisis...
Third, how giant mortgage lenders such as Countrywide Financial switched regulators so to fall under the lax oversight of the Office of Thrift Supervision, which was funded by fees paid by the regulated banks (and which also supervised AIG's derivative unit).
Fourth, how in April 2004, during a 55-minute-long meeting at the Securities and Exchange Commission, the largest investment banks persuaded the SEC to relax its regulatory stance and allow them to take on much larger amounts of debt.
Finally, Madoff's giant Ponzi scheme, some of which appears to be plain fraud, though system-wide irregularities also point to subtler forms of corruption and capture. Years ago the SEC knew that Madoff, who had served on the commission's own advisory committee, had multiple violations and was misleading it in how he managed the funds of his customers. Yet the SEC failed in unmasking the Ponzi scheme.
Worse yet, more governance challenges are yet to come, as fiscal stimulus packages present all kinds of opportunities for the ethically challenged. Kaufmann recommends far-reaching measures to improve transparency as an antidote. I agree with that but doubt that's enough.
Continue reading "Kaufmann Takes Aim At Corruption" »
Posted by Ryan Hahn on February 2, 2009 in Moral hazard, Prudential regulation, Stimulus policies | Permalink | TrackBack (0)
There are multiple causes of the financial crisis. But we can not ignore the element of "capture" in the systemic failures of oversight, regulation and disclosure in the financial sector. Concrete examples abound.
First, the way Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae spent millions of dollars lobbying some influential members of Congress in exchange for, among other things, lax capital reserve requirements for these mortgage giants.
Second, how AIG's "small" derivatives unit located in London managed to obscure its accounts, be governed by lax regulatory oversight, and take inordinate risks that effectively brought down AIG's empire of 100,000 employees in 130 countries, accelerating the global financial crisis...
Third, how giant mortgage lenders such as Countrywide Financial switched regulators so to fall under the lax oversight of the Office of Thrift Supervision, which was funded by fees paid by the regulated banks (and which also supervised AIG's derivative unit).
Fourth, how in April 2004, during a 55-minute-long meeting at the Securities and Exchange Commission, the largest investment banks persuaded the SEC to relax its regulatory stance and allow them to take on much larger amounts of debt.
Finally, Madoff's giant Ponzi scheme, some of which appears to be plain fraud, though system-wide irregularities also point to subtler forms of corruption and capture. Years ago the SEC knew that Madoff, who had served on the commission's own advisory committee, had multiple violations and was misleading it in how he managed the funds of his customers. Yet the SEC failed in unmasking the Ponzi scheme.
Worse yet, more governance challenges are yet to come, as fiscal stimulus packages present all kinds of opportunities for the ethically challenged. Kaufmann recommends far-reaching measures to improve transparency as an antidote. I agree with that but doubt that's enough.
Continue reading "Kaufmann Takes Aim At Corruption" »
Posted by Ryan Hahn on February 2, 2009 in Moral hazard, Prudential regulation, Stimulus policies | Permalink | TrackBack (0)
Share Prices and Accounting Reclassifications
Editor's Note: The following post is a joint contribution by Costas Stephanou and Haocong Ren.
As some may recall, Deutsche Bank (DB) took advantage of the change in IFRS rules (under pressure from the EU Commission) and reclassified almost Euro 25 bn. of hard-to-value (toxic?) securities from its available-for-sale portfolio to the held-to-maturity portfolio in October 2008. This allowed it to improve its reported net income for 2008Q3 by more than Euro 500 million and to report a quarterly profit, as opposed to the loss that analysts were expecting. Its stock price shot up 15% on the day of the announcement (October 30, 2008) vs. 1.2% for the relevant benchmark index (S&P 500 financials), and similar behavior could be observed for its 5-year CDS spread vis-a-vis the relevant benchmark (iTraxx Europe senior financials).
This jump in the share price washes away (based on a preliminary statistical analysis - see the attached Excel file) when looking at the evolution over a longer time period vis-a-vis the benchmark. It may also be due to a perceived market relief that DB's reported tier one capital adequacy ratio (partly as a result of the accounting changes) exceeded 10% and therefore DB had no apparent need for more capital raising that would lead to shareholder dilution. However, it is instructive to see how - at least anecdotally - accounting rules have real effects on share prices since DB's accounting reclassifications represented the main reason why analyst expectations were exceeded, as was pointed out explicitly in the financial press. (See here, here, here, here, and here.)
Posted by Costas Stephanou on February 3, 2009 in Accounting and auditing | Permalink | TrackBack (0)
As some may recall, Deutsche Bank (DB) took advantage of the change in IFRS rules (under pressure from the EU Commission) and reclassified almost Euro 25 bn. of hard-to-value (toxic?) securities from its available-for-sale portfolio to the held-to-maturity portfolio in October 2008. This allowed it to improve its reported net income for 2008Q3 by more than Euro 500 million and to report a quarterly profit, as opposed to the loss that analysts were expecting. Its stock price shot up 15% on the day of the announcement (October 30, 2008) vs. 1.2% for the relevant benchmark index (S&P 500 financials), and similar behavior could be observed for its 5-year CDS spread vis-a-vis the relevant benchmark (iTraxx Europe senior financials).
This jump in the share price washes away (based on a preliminary statistical analysis - see the attached Excel file) when looking at the evolution over a longer time period vis-a-vis the benchmark. It may also be due to a perceived market relief that DB's reported tier one capital adequacy ratio (partly as a result of the accounting changes) exceeded 10% and therefore DB had no apparent need for more capital raising that would lead to shareholder dilution. However, it is instructive to see how - at least anecdotally - accounting rules have real effects on share prices since DB's accounting reclassifications represented the main reason why analyst expectations were exceeded, as was pointed out explicitly in the financial press. (See here, here, here, here, and here.)
Posted by Costas Stephanou on February 3, 2009 in Accounting and auditing | Permalink | TrackBack (0)
Guerilla Trade Tactics
In 1930, the Smoot Hawley tariff was implemented in the United States, raising tariffs on nearly 900 goods. The Europeans retaliated with similar tariff hikes. World trade fell by two-thirds from 1929 to 1934 largely as a result of declining demand during the world depression, but also because of the increased tariffs. Such conventional trade warfare finally came to an end with the advent of the GATT in 1947.
Thanks to the rules provided in the WTO, the successor to the GATT, a conventional trade war is now unthinkable. But as demand is plummeting, countries are seeking ways to shift it to domestic goods. This is where guerilla trade tactics come in. The WTO Secretariat reported that in the first half of 2008 (the most recent data available) there was a 39 per cent increase in antidumping investigations among members as compared with the same period in 2007. Subsidies around the world are being directed at specific domestic industries. Now, the U.S. stimulus package appears likely to include a “buy American” clause.
Such guerilla trade tactics may be just as dangerous as a conventional trade war. A key issue is the non-transparency of these antidumping duties, countervailing duties, and targeted domestic subsidies. If these modes of discrimination explode it will take a long time to disentangle them and reopen the trade system. Not to mention the resources wasted and uncertainty they generate for importers (for example, in the United States, it takes the ITC and ITA between 235 to 390 days to reach a final conclusion in an antidumping investigation!).
The WTO has been among the most successful of the international institutions. The ongoing Doha Round—with all its promises—may be able to claim victory after all if it can simply prevent protectionism from surging during the global recession.
Posted by Caroline Freund on February 4, 2009 in International organizations, Lessons from the past, Trade and trade finance | Permalink | TrackBack (0)
Thanks to the rules provided in the WTO, the successor to the GATT, a conventional trade war is now unthinkable. But as demand is plummeting, countries are seeking ways to shift it to domestic goods. This is where guerilla trade tactics come in. The WTO Secretariat reported that in the first half of 2008 (the most recent data available) there was a 39 per cent increase in antidumping investigations among members as compared with the same period in 2007. Subsidies around the world are being directed at specific domestic industries. Now, the U.S. stimulus package appears likely to include a “buy American” clause.
Such guerilla trade tactics may be just as dangerous as a conventional trade war. A key issue is the non-transparency of these antidumping duties, countervailing duties, and targeted domestic subsidies. If these modes of discrimination explode it will take a long time to disentangle them and reopen the trade system. Not to mention the resources wasted and uncertainty they generate for importers (for example, in the United States, it takes the ITC and ITA between 235 to 390 days to reach a final conclusion in an antidumping investigation!).
The WTO has been among the most successful of the international institutions. The ongoing Doha Round—with all its promises—may be able to claim victory after all if it can simply prevent protectionism from surging during the global recession.
Posted by Caroline Freund on February 4, 2009 in International organizations, Lessons from the past, Trade and trade finance | Permalink | TrackBack (0)
Competitive Devaluations?
Competitive Devaluations?
Kazakhstan’s central bank devalued the tenge by 18 percent yesterday. The central bank is letting the tenge weaken for the first time since it started managing the currency in 2007. Kazakshstan joins Russia, Ukraine, and Belarus in abandoning attempts to prop up exchange rates as currency reserves dwindle and economies stagger. A number of other resource-rich countries have also seen their currencies fall substantially against the dollar over the last few months, including Brazil, Mexico, and South Africa.
Maintaining a currency’s value under pressure is costly. Kazakhstan spent $3.5 billion, or 16 percent, of its foreign-exchange reserves supporting the tenge. Russia spent between $7 and $8 billion in one day last month defending the already weakened ruble. And the longer the process lasts, the more money that goes down the drain. Argentina’s net reserves fell by $20 billion in 2001 before the currency board eventually collapsed the following year.
Some countries attempt to maintain currencies because of a history of inflation. Sudden and large depreciations can be destabilizing, leading to inflation and higher interest rates. Depreciations also increase the cost of foreign currency debt. But depreciation is not necessarily bad for growth. Depreciation mimics an export subsidy and import tax, boosting exports and consumption of domestic goods. This can help countries to grow when domestic demand is weak or declining.
But what happens if many currencies collapse simultaneously? This puts downward pressure on import prices, fueling deflation in foreign markets. Kindleberger has argued that such competitive devaluations are part of what led to the Great Depression.
Volatile currency movements are already aggravating uncertainties in global financial markets. But at least so far, most of the these currency declines are understandable. Sharp declines in commodity prices have worsenened the terms of trade of the resource exporters at the same time as western capital has dried up. If depreciations spread to the large manufacturing countries then there could be real trouble.
Posted by Caroline Freund on February 6, 2009 in Currency markets, Eastern Europe | Permalink
Kazakhstan’s central bank devalued the tenge by 18 percent yesterday. The central bank is letting the tenge weaken for the first time since it started managing the currency in 2007. Kazakshstan joins Russia, Ukraine, and Belarus in abandoning attempts to prop up exchange rates as currency reserves dwindle and economies stagger. A number of other resource-rich countries have also seen their currencies fall substantially against the dollar over the last few months, including Brazil, Mexico, and South Africa.
Maintaining a currency’s value under pressure is costly. Kazakhstan spent $3.5 billion, or 16 percent, of its foreign-exchange reserves supporting the tenge. Russia spent between $7 and $8 billion in one day last month defending the already weakened ruble. And the longer the process lasts, the more money that goes down the drain. Argentina’s net reserves fell by $20 billion in 2001 before the currency board eventually collapsed the following year.
Some countries attempt to maintain currencies because of a history of inflation. Sudden and large depreciations can be destabilizing, leading to inflation and higher interest rates. Depreciations also increase the cost of foreign currency debt. But depreciation is not necessarily bad for growth. Depreciation mimics an export subsidy and import tax, boosting exports and consumption of domestic goods. This can help countries to grow when domestic demand is weak or declining.
But what happens if many currencies collapse simultaneously? This puts downward pressure on import prices, fueling deflation in foreign markets. Kindleberger has argued that such competitive devaluations are part of what led to the Great Depression.
Volatile currency movements are already aggravating uncertainties in global financial markets. But at least so far, most of the these currency declines are understandable. Sharp declines in commodity prices have worsenened the terms of trade of the resource exporters at the same time as western capital has dried up. If depreciations spread to the large manufacturing countries then there could be real trouble.
Posted by Caroline Freund on February 6, 2009 in Currency markets, Eastern Europe | Permalink
Russia: Corruption Prevention during the Financial Crisis
Russia: Corruption Prevention during the Financial Crisis
Editor's Note: Larisa Smirnova is a consultant at the World Bank and is currently working with the Transparency indicator team. She previously worked with the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees in Russia and Japan.
Experts at Troika Dialogue Group, a Russian investment company, estimate that the financial crisis may naturally decrease corruption in the country due to… lower oil prices! As the Russian economy is largely dependent on oil exports, lower oil prices means less money and therefore… less bribes?
Among fears that government anti-crisis money may become another easy prey for corruption, Russia adopted a new anti-corruption law in December 2008. After heated debates, financial disclosure requirements were extended to family members of government officials. However, the content of the declarations is confirmed to be not just publicly unavailable but constituting a "state secret".
The conclusions of a recent paper, Disclosure by Politicians, which compared financial disclosure procedures in 175 countries, suggest that Russia’s corruption prevention measures might not be the most effective ones. Analysis showed that family members’ disclosure does not correlate with lower perceived corruption. Publicity of disclosure, on the contrary, appears to be the crucial imperative for political accountability.
Posted by Larisa Smirnova on February 9, 2009 in Corruption, Eastern Europe | Permalink
Editor's Note: Larisa Smirnova is a consultant at the World Bank and is currently working with the Transparency indicator team. She previously worked with the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees in Russia and Japan.
Experts at Troika Dialogue Group, a Russian investment company, estimate that the financial crisis may naturally decrease corruption in the country due to… lower oil prices! As the Russian economy is largely dependent on oil exports, lower oil prices means less money and therefore… less bribes?
Among fears that government anti-crisis money may become another easy prey for corruption, Russia adopted a new anti-corruption law in December 2008. After heated debates, financial disclosure requirements were extended to family members of government officials. However, the content of the declarations is confirmed to be not just publicly unavailable but constituting a "state secret".
The conclusions of a recent paper, Disclosure by Politicians, which compared financial disclosure procedures in 175 countries, suggest that Russia’s corruption prevention measures might not be the most effective ones. Analysis showed that family members’ disclosure does not correlate with lower perceived corruption. Publicity of disclosure, on the contrary, appears to be the crucial imperative for political accountability.
Posted by Larisa Smirnova on February 9, 2009 in Corruption, Eastern Europe | Permalink
Remittances: Not as Bad as Predicted
Remittances: Not as Bad as Predicted
Writing on the World Bank People Move blog, Dilip Ratha points out that not all the dire predictions about the crisis have come to pass. At least in the cases for which we have data, remittances have proven resilient. Mexico - one of the most important recipients of remittances and a country for which there is good data - is a case in point:
Remittance flows to Mexico dropped 10 percent year-on-year in December 2008, bringing the 2008 12-month total to $25 billion, a 3.6 percent decline compared to $26 billion registered in 2007. This decline is much smaller than the 8 percent decline projected by Mexico in August 2008.
As long as this is not a blip on the screen, remittances should help cushion the blow of the retreat of other forms of private capital flows. The Institute for International Finance warned late last month that "the outlook for private capital flows to emerging economies has deteriorated significantly in recent months." The fate of stimulus packages in rich countries consequently becomes all that more important for the rest of the world, as migrants will have a hard time keeping or finding jobs in the face of rising unemployment rates.
Posted by Ryan Hahn on February 10, 2009 in Latin America and the Caribbean, Stimulus policies | Permalink
Writing on the World Bank People Move blog, Dilip Ratha points out that not all the dire predictions about the crisis have come to pass. At least in the cases for which we have data, remittances have proven resilient. Mexico - one of the most important recipients of remittances and a country for which there is good data - is a case in point:
Remittance flows to Mexico dropped 10 percent year-on-year in December 2008, bringing the 2008 12-month total to $25 billion, a 3.6 percent decline compared to $26 billion registered in 2007. This decline is much smaller than the 8 percent decline projected by Mexico in August 2008.
As long as this is not a blip on the screen, remittances should help cushion the blow of the retreat of other forms of private capital flows. The Institute for International Finance warned late last month that "the outlook for private capital flows to emerging economies has deteriorated significantly in recent months." The fate of stimulus packages in rich countries consequently becomes all that more important for the rest of the world, as migrants will have a hard time keeping or finding jobs in the face of rising unemployment rates.
Posted by Ryan Hahn on February 10, 2009 in Latin America and the Caribbean, Stimulus policies | Permalink
Trained to Be Dull
Trained to Be Dull
Nassim Taleb, author of the bestseller The Black Swan, doesn't have a very high opinion of bankers:
...think of a bank chairman whose institution makes steady profits over a long time, only to lose everything in a single reversal of fortune. Traditionally, bankers of the lending variety have been pear-shaped, clean-shaven, and dress in possibly the most comforting and boring manner, in dark suits, white shirts, and red ties. Indeed, for their lending business, banks hire dull people and train them to be even more dull. But this is for show. If they look conservative, it is because their loans only go bust on rare, very rare, occasions. There is no way to gauge the effectiveness of their lending activity by observing it over a day, a week, a month, or...even a century!
Taleb will be speaking at the opening session of the upcoming Financial and Private Sector Development Forum at the World Bank, along with Tim Harford, a columnist at the Financial Times, and World Bank President Robert Zoellick. I expect the discussion will be lively.
Posted by Ryan Hahn on February 10, 2009 | Permalink
Nassim Taleb, author of the bestseller The Black Swan, doesn't have a very high opinion of bankers:
...think of a bank chairman whose institution makes steady profits over a long time, only to lose everything in a single reversal of fortune. Traditionally, bankers of the lending variety have been pear-shaped, clean-shaven, and dress in possibly the most comforting and boring manner, in dark suits, white shirts, and red ties. Indeed, for their lending business, banks hire dull people and train them to be even more dull. But this is for show. If they look conservative, it is because their loans only go bust on rare, very rare, occasions. There is no way to gauge the effectiveness of their lending activity by observing it over a day, a week, a month, or...even a century!
Taleb will be speaking at the opening session of the upcoming Financial and Private Sector Development Forum at the World Bank, along with Tim Harford, a columnist at the Financial Times, and World Bank President Robert Zoellick. I expect the discussion will be lively.
Posted by Ryan Hahn on February 10, 2009 | Permalink
Trade Still Weak but Not Worse in December
February 11, 2009
Trade Still Weak but Not Worse in December
More than 60 countries have now reported trade data for November and they are uniformly weak, with imports on average down 14 percent and exports down 17 percent, as compared with the same month last year. In addition, 22 countries have now reported December data. While trade continues to be weak, there is little change since November, and nearly half of the countries show some improvement. So, while conditions did not improve in December they did not worsen significantly either.
Another indicator that the trade situation did not deteriorate further in December comes from the Baltic Dry Index. (The BDI is issued daily by the Baltic Exchange, which canvasses brokers around the world about the cost of shipping cargo of raw materials on various routes.) After a 93 percent drop since the early summer, November is the month when the Baltic Dry Index (BDI) appears to have bottomed out, suggesting that demand for shipping was at a low in that month.
While this is not exactly positive news, it could have been a lot worse.
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Posted by Caroline Freund on February 11, 2009 in Trade and trade finance | Permalink
The Man with the Two Trillion Dollar Plan
On Monday, World Bank Chief Economist Justin Lin proposed the establishment of a $2 trillion Global Recovery Plan. A new Marshall Plan, of sorts. You can listen to his presentation and read about it here.
The issue is that the United States of today is in a different position than the United States after the Second World War. It is hard to imagine Congress giving much money for causes abroad when the domestic economy is hurting. The same applies to the other rich economies. If anything, one may expect some lean years in development aid.
Posted by Simeon Djankov on February 11, 2009 in Aid in the crisis, International organizations | Permalink
Trade Still Weak but Not Worse in December
More than 60 countries have now reported trade data for November and they are uniformly weak, with imports on average down 14 percent and exports down 17 percent, as compared with the same month last year. In addition, 22 countries have now reported December data. While trade continues to be weak, there is little change since November, and nearly half of the countries show some improvement. So, while conditions did not improve in December they did not worsen significantly either.
Another indicator that the trade situation did not deteriorate further in December comes from the Baltic Dry Index. (The BDI is issued daily by the Baltic Exchange, which canvasses brokers around the world about the cost of shipping cargo of raw materials on various routes.) After a 93 percent drop since the early summer, November is the month when the Baltic Dry Index (BDI) appears to have bottomed out, suggesting that demand for shipping was at a low in that month.
While this is not exactly positive news, it could have been a lot worse.
Comments (0) E-mail Digg Bookmark Facebook
Posted by Caroline Freund on February 11, 2009 in Trade and trade finance | Permalink
The Man with the Two Trillion Dollar Plan
On Monday, World Bank Chief Economist Justin Lin proposed the establishment of a $2 trillion Global Recovery Plan. A new Marshall Plan, of sorts. You can listen to his presentation and read about it here.
The issue is that the United States of today is in a different position than the United States after the Second World War. It is hard to imagine Congress giving much money for causes abroad when the domestic economy is hurting. The same applies to the other rich economies. If anything, one may expect some lean years in development aid.
Posted by Simeon Djankov on February 11, 2009 in Aid in the crisis, International organizations | Permalink
Increasing University Enrollment as Crisis Response
Increasing University Enrollment as Crisis Response
My friends in economics departments around the United States tell me that applications to PhD programs have trippled this year relative to last year. Some law schools have also reported a large increase in applications. This is because the unfolding crisis is putting lots of young people - particularly Wall Street types - out of jobs. What better time to get a graduate degree?
Even business schools report higher demand, even though one wonders what they really teach students there. Some "modesty" courses may be in order.
Increasing university enrollment is a good anti-cyclical device. In a country like the United States, this happens naturally as people with dimmed work prospects upgrade their skills. In smaller countries, this may be trickier as universities may be less prepared to meet increasing demand. Especially if they depend on government subsidies for financing a share of their operations. Hence, the need for a possible public policy.
Georgi Angelov, a senior economist at the Open Society Institute in Sofia, and I have just written a short paper on this topic, using data for Bulgaria as an example. The policy proposal is relevant for any country, however.
We develop a proposal for expanding university enrollment in Bulgaria by 30,000 students (or about 12% over 2008 enrollment). This is done by creating a student loan program guaranteed by the government. Student loans, offered competitively by commercial banks, would cover up to 50% of the cost of education. The remainder is covered by direct government subsidies (as is currently the case) and household income. The proposal is budget neutral – the government spends as much money on university education as in previous years.
Continue reading "Increasing University Enrollment as Crisis Response" »
Posted by Simeon Djankov on February 12, 2009 in Eastern Europe | Permalink
My friends in economics departments around the United States tell me that applications to PhD programs have trippled this year relative to last year. Some law schools have also reported a large increase in applications. This is because the unfolding crisis is putting lots of young people - particularly Wall Street types - out of jobs. What better time to get a graduate degree?
Even business schools report higher demand, even though one wonders what they really teach students there. Some "modesty" courses may be in order.
Increasing university enrollment is a good anti-cyclical device. In a country like the United States, this happens naturally as people with dimmed work prospects upgrade their skills. In smaller countries, this may be trickier as universities may be less prepared to meet increasing demand. Especially if they depend on government subsidies for financing a share of their operations. Hence, the need for a possible public policy.
Georgi Angelov, a senior economist at the Open Society Institute in Sofia, and I have just written a short paper on this topic, using data for Bulgaria as an example. The policy proposal is relevant for any country, however.
We develop a proposal for expanding university enrollment in Bulgaria by 30,000 students (or about 12% over 2008 enrollment). This is done by creating a student loan program guaranteed by the government. Student loans, offered competitively by commercial banks, would cover up to 50% of the cost of education. The remainder is covered by direct government subsidies (as is currently the case) and household income. The proposal is budget neutral – the government spends as much money on university education as in previous years.
Continue reading "Increasing University Enrollment as Crisis Response" »
Posted by Simeon Djankov on February 12, 2009 in Eastern Europe | Permalink
A Return of the Investment Banks?
February 12, 2009
A Return of the Investment Banks?
Not likely, or at least not very desirable, according to a new working paper from Asli Demirguc-Kunt and Harry Huizinga. In Bank Activity and Funding Strategies, the authors look at an international sample of 1,334 banks to get a handle on the risk-return tradeoff of various activity and funding strategies. Their findings suggest that the failure of investment banks in the U.S. was not really a statistical outlier or a once-in-a-century event:
The main contribution of this paper is to provide evidence on what bank income and funding strategies perform well in terms of producing profitable and stable banks. In particular, we examine how a bank’s income and funding mixes affect the rate of return on its assets and Z-score or distance to default. Our basic regressions suggest that at low levels of non-interest income and non-deposit funding, there may be some risk diversification benefits of increasing these shares, although at higher levels of non-interest income and non-deposit funding shares, further increases result in higher bank risk...
...The evidence presented in paper suggests that traditional banks – with a heavy reliance on interest-income generating and deposit funding – are safer than banks that go very far in the direction of non-interest income generation and funding through the wholesale capital market. Our results provide a strong indication that banking strategies that rely preponderantly on non-interest income or non-deposit funding are indeed very risky.
Figure 2: Trend of the fee income shareFee income
(The fee income share is the share of non-interest income in total operating income. This figure displays the trend of the fee income share from 1999 to 2007. The fee income share data are yearly averages. The data are from Bankscope.)
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Posted by Ryan Hahn on February 12, 2009 | Permalink
Increasing University Enrollment as Crisis Response
My friends in economics departments around the United States tell me that applications to PhD programs have trippled this year relative to last year. Some law schools have also reported a large increase in applications. This is because the unfolding crisis is putting lots of young people - particularly Wall Street types - out of jobs. What better time to get a graduate degree?
Even business schools report higher demand, even though one wonders what they really teach students there. Some "modesty" courses may be in order.
Increasing university enrollment is a good anti-cyclical device. In a country like the United States, this happens naturally as people with dimmed work prospects upgrade their skills. In smaller countries, this may be trickier as universities may be less prepared to meet increasing demand. Especially if they depend on government subsidies for financing a share of their operations. Hence, the need for a possible public policy.
Georgi Angelov, a senior economist at the Open Society Institute in Sofia, and I have just written a short paper on this topic, using data for Bulgaria as an example. The policy proposal is relevant for any country, however.
We develop a proposal for expanding university enrollment in Bulgaria by 30,000 students (or about 12% over 2008 enrollment). This is done by creating a student loan program guaranteed by the government. Student loans, offered competitively by commercial banks, would cover up to 50% of the cost of education. The remainder is covered by direct government subsidies (as is currently the case) and household income. The proposal is budget neutral – the government spends as much money on university education as in previous years.
Continue reading "Increasing University Enrollment as Crisis Response" »
Posted by Simeon Djankov on February 12, 2009 in Eastern Europe | Permalink
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