TF Board Thanks Outgoing Staff, Welcomes New Editor

Editor’s Note: The following is the writer’s analysis.

While Russia and the United States continue to act as geopolitical rivals during what is now dubbed the “new Cold War,” they often agree to deals on political crises and conflicts around the globe. 

Recently, the two countries discussed the Donbass War between two Moscow-backed self-proclaimed republics—the Donetsk People’s Republic and the Luhansk People’s Republic in Ukraine’s Donbass region—and the Washington-sponsored Ukraine. But will that finally end the bloodshed that erupted in the energy-rich region of eastern Ukraine after more than 89 percent of voters in the Donbass voted in May 2014 for independence from Kiev?

Every conflict has its epilogue around the negotiating table. In 2015, the self-proclaimed Donbass republics, as well as Ukraine, Russia and European mediators signed the Minsk Agreement, which effectively ended offensive military operations in the war-torn region. But it did not end the war itself. To this day, sporadic shelling and gunfire remain part of everyday life for the local population. 

On October 13, Ukrainian Armed Forces captured Andrey Kosyak, the officer of the Luhansk People’s Republic Office at the Joint Center for Control and Coordination. Kosyak is one of about 600,000 Donbass residents who hold Russian citizenship in a region of 2.5 million people. In response to the arrest, local activists blocked the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE)’s headquarters in Donetsk, demanding Kosyak’s release. The mission then suspended its operations in the Donbass. The Kremlin’s reaction to this incident appeared weak. It took a week for the Russian foreign ministry to demand Ukraine grant access to the Russian citizen. Kiev, backed by the West since the neo-Nazi rampage the Obama-Biden administration fueled, is unlikely to rush to allow Russian diplomats to meet with the captured officer. That means the Kremlin has no option. However, former Russian President Dmitry Medvedev wrote on October 11, “Russia knows how to wait. We are patient people.”

Indeed, endless waiting along with a few weak actions seem to be the Russian strategy. After the Ukrainian Army on October 26 captured the village of Staromaryevka in the Donbass, Russia did not take any steps to defend its proxies in the region. More importantly, Ukraine has destroyed the artillery of pro-Russian forces in its first combat deployment of the Turkish-made Bayraktar drones, and the Kremlin’s reaction was yet again soft. Even though Kiev confirmed its army has used the sophisticated weapon, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said, “It is very hard to figure out what is true and what is false.” It is not a secret Ukraine purchased Bayraktar drones from Turkey after the unmanned combat aerial vehicle proved to be a game changer in the 44-day war in Nagorno-Karabakh between Azerbaijan and Armenia.  

Given the Kremlin hesitates to engage in a direct military confrontation with Ukraine, Kiev is expected to continue its limited military operations in the Donbass, quite aware Moscow will turn a blind eye to Ukrainian actions. Russia is still waiting for Ukraine to implement the Minsk agreements and grant the Donbass a special self-governing status after it holds elections under Ukrainian legislation. In return, the Russian-backed Donetsk People’s Republic and Luhansk’s People’s Republic would allow Ukraine to reinstate full control over its border with Russia. Neither side, however, seems determined to implement the deal.

From the Ukrainian perspective, a special self-governing status for both Donbass region republics would mean a second Crimea has been created. Another pro-Russia entity potentially creates obstacles in Ukrainian political life, which has been heavily linked with the West since late 2013’s Euromaidan. From the Russian perspective, returning the Donbass region to Kiev’s control would mean Moscow has de facto betrayed its proxies in the region and has lost control over the Donbass coal mines at the time when coal prices in the global market have hit a record high.

Still, the Kremlin has appeared to have signaled it is ready to compromise over the energy-rich region. On October 11, U.S. Under Secretary of State Victoria Nuland met in Moscow with Dmitry Kozak, who serves as Russian President Vladimir Putin’s deputy chief of staff. According to reports, the two officials had a “productive discussion about the full implementation of the Minsk Agreements and the restoration of peace, stability, and Ukrainian sovereignty in the Donbass.” That Nuland, who was on Russia’s sanctions list, was allowed to visit the Russian capital is a sign Washington has the upper hand in its relations with Moscow. The Kremlin had lifted targeted sanctions on the U.S. diplomat in exchange for a lift in U.S. sanctions on a few Russian officials and foreign-policy experts. As the U.S. dollar still controls transactions throughout the world, U.S. sanctions have had devastating consequences for 39 countries. Plus, the United States had requested Nuland’s visit to Russia. In other words, Russia had to make a concession to the United States. Moreover, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov stressed his country would not object to U.S. participation in talks on the Donbass if Washington supports the Minsk Agreement.

Given Washington is the major foreign actor operating in Ukraine, any peace process that excludes the United States is unlikely to have major success. So far, Moscow and Kiev have been attempting to resolve the Donbass conflict through Normandy-format talks that have included Russia, Ukraine, Germany and France. But no progress has been made. Lavrov recently suggested inviting the United States to these talks, but Germany reportedly refused the Kremlin’s proposal, which means warfare in the Donbass likely will continue for the foreseeable future.

This means the region will be stuck in a state that can be described as neither war nor peace, although forces on both sides will try to change the status quo. Alexander Borodai, who was prime minister of the self-proclaimed Donetsk People’s Republic in 2014 and is now a member of the Russian Parliament, said Russia should abolish the border with the Donbass republics. However, customs points between the republics already have been abolished and both entities have been integrated into the Russian economy. As Borodai pointed out, the Donbass already is a de facto part of Russia. However, unless the conflict in the region escalates into a large-scale confrontation, the Kremlin unlikely will incorporate the coal-rich territory into the Russian Federation. 

Ukraine, for its part, is not expected to start any significant military operations until it gets the green light from Washington. On October 18, during U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin’s visit to Kiev, a fresh allotment of U.S.-made arms and other military equipment was delivered, part of a $60 million package the Biden administration had approved.

Since 2014, the United States has committed more than $2.5 billion to support Ukraine’s forces so that they can preserve their country’s territorial integrity and secure its borders and territorial waters. pic.twitter.com/MqKupUaQSo

— Secretary of Defense Lloyd J. Austin III (@SecDef) October 19, 2021

According to Austin, the United States has committed more than $2.5 billion since 2014 to support Ukraine’s Armed Forces, and Turkish defense company Baykar is expected to build a maintenance and modernization center for Bayraktar drones in Ukraine, which means the former Soviet republic is seriously preparing for a potential war against Russia.

At this point, a major escalation of the Donbass conflict does not seem probable. But, in the long term, such an option will almost certainly be on the table.

Nikola Mikovic is a Serbia-based contributor to CGTN, Global Comment, Byline Times, Informed Comment, and World Geostrategic Insights, among other publications. He is a geopolitical analyst for KJ Reports and Enquire.

Editor’s Note: The following is the writer’s opinion.

Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni will provide room and board to about 2,000 Afghan refugees, at the request of the United States, until they can be transferred to Western countries in months or years to come. Airplanes carrying Afghan evacuees have already landed in Uganda.

This is a diplomatic triumph for a “useful” tyrant, who has repeatedly acted as a CIA enforcer in the sensitive regions of Central Africa and the Horn of Africa.

First, the open arms of the people of Uganda must be praised, especially now at a time of global racist pushback against asylum seekers and refugees. Uganda, a country with just $827 per capita income, is home to 2.2 million refugees fleeing grisly violence in Congo, Somalia and the rest of the African continent.

How ever generous, the good hearts of Uganda’s people have been used by Museveni as a bargaining chip to curry favor with the United States and thus solidify his calamitous rule.

Museveni has governed Uganda for 35 years. In the process, he has whipped skulls of challengers, forcibly pulled dissidents from airplane seats, and won a bloody election in January in circumstances that can be described as a stain on democracy.

Despite Museveni’s track record, the CIA counts him as a crucial bulwark against the radical Islamist menace in the Horn of Africa and East Africa region. The so-called “War on Terror” keeps Uganda wealthy with U.S. cash and makes Museveni so untouchable that his soldiers serving in Somalia drive around in bomb-resistant vehicles that once couriered U.S. troops around Afghanistan. Museveni is the United States’ dependable ally in East Africa, not thinking twice before he deploys Ugandan troops on behalf of U.S. operations to control the outcomes of regional wars in Somalia, Burundi or Congo.

As Yasin Kakande, fierce Museveni critic and author of Why We Are Coming, tells me: “Museveni plays a role akin to the head of a brokerage firm for rebels, rebellions and peace missions on behalf of America.”

The Afghan refugee emergency saw a bungling Biden scrambling for venues to temporarily place evacuated refugees ahead of a so-called “red-line ultimatum” given by an increasingly confident Taliban regime in Kabul. Qatar, a transit country, says it is now saturated with refugees and can take no more. Iran and Turkey were reportedly restricting the entry of Afghan refugees into their territory. However, Museveni has spotted a gap to play a benevolent friend to a desperate United States.

Museveni is clever. He knows after an election victory marred by widespread killings and torture of opponents, the United States was taking a hard line, imposing visa sanctions on Uganda government officials accused of undermining democracy in the East African nation. Civil society and global human-rights partners were calling on the United States to slap Museveni’s regime harder.

Running low on options, he had to wiggle his way out. A chance presented itself in Afghanistan and Museveni jumped to aid Biden in Afghanistan. By pretending to be generous to the Biden administration, Museveni is maneuvering back into the favor of Washington. Uganda government trolls are already having a field day, making sexist remarks about Afghan female refugees.

“President Museveni has opened borders to Afghan refugees,” charges outspoken Ugandan journalist Yasin Kakande, who has not lived in his homeland for years. “The CIA claps hands and tells Washington that Museveni is a model dictator who fights America’s failed wars. The same story like in Somalia.”

The nature of global politics has evolved significantly in the 21st century. The United States is no longer the uncontested world power, able to dominate every domain in every region of the world. Cooperation with dictatorial governments like Museveni’s in Uganda that do not hesitate to sign off on deals without consulting with their citizens is the sweetest dream of the contesting powers of the world. The United States is threatened by the closing gap between herself and her immediate competitor, China. The rivalry between the two is working to the advantage of power-hungry oligarchs in far-off places like Uganda, who survive by serving the interests of these powerful nations. The desperation of Afghan refugees is bringing the murderous political elites of Uganda and the U.S. government closer to deals. For Museveni, leveraging his legitimacy on cooperating with the United States significantly works to his political advantage, while the self-serving convenience of turning a brutal government into a useful ally is, to the United States, high priority. Access to loans from international funders, as well as to donor funds and ammunition, all work to build an elitist political empire that thrives by riding roughshod over the stricken of the region and Uganda whilst handsomely serving U.S. imperial goals.

The geopolitical relevance of autocratic strongmen in the African Great Lakes region puts the likes of Museveni in Uganda in a special class of despots the U.S. government cannot afford to stop working with. After the massive but disorganized and humiliating withdrawal from Afghanistan, the U.S. government seems not to care much about who it wines and dines with as long as it puts a cover on the negative implications of its rushed Afghan pullout.

There is nothing wrong with Ugandan people’s remarkable generosity in hosting batches of Afghan refugees. But Museveni opportunistically casting himself as a global refugee-rights icon must not cloud the United States’ duty to call out his repressive rule in Uganda.

The United States seemingly has two choices: Alienate an autocrat like Museveni by rebuking him or overlook his undemocratic excesses and retain Museveni’s help in the so-called “War on Terror.”

The United States has chosen the latter.

Ray Mwareya won the 2016 UN Correspondents Association Media Prize. His work appears in Newsweek, The Guardian and Reuters. He can be followed on Twitter at @rmwareya.

Editor’s Note: This article originally appeared in Electronic Intifada.

A court in Washington, D.C., has entirely dismissed a lawsuit against the American Studies Association over its support of an academic boycott of Israel.

The lawsuit, which was filed in 2016 by Israel advocates, has now failed three separate times in court – a significant defeat for the Israel lobby’s attempt to punish scholars who back Palestinian rights.

“The court found that the claims primarily arose from advocacy on an issue of public interest and were not likely to succeed,” stated the Center for Constitutional Rights.

In a 2013 referendum, members of the American Studies Association overwhelmingly endorsed an academic boycott of Israel.

The vote followed an endorsement of the boycott by the association’s governing body.

Declaring the boycott an ethical stance, the ASA said that it “represents a principle of solidarity with scholars and students deprived of their academic freedom and an aspiration to enlarge that freedom for all, including Palestinians.”

Israel advocates within the association, however, jumped into action to persecute colleagues who dared to criticize Israel.

Using a tactic known as lawfare, in which Israel lobby groups use legal means to harass and silence supporters of Palestinian rights, the plaintiffs claimed that the boycott resolution was brought by “insurgents” within the association who attempted to “subvert and change the ASA’s purpose” into a political advocacy organization.

The plaintiffs alleged that a “cabal” of leaders from the US Campaign for the Academic and Cultural Boycott of Israel (USACBI) surreptitiously took over the ASA and used their positions on its executive committee and national council to foist the boycott resolution on the association’s unsuspecting membership, misspending ASA money in the process.

A federal court threw out a key claim in the lawsuit in 2017, ruling that the ASA’s endorsement of the boycott was not contrary to the association’s charter.

After the lawsuit was initially dismissed in 2019, the plaintiffs filed an appeal, and opened a second case in the Washington, DC Superior Court.

Later that year, the Superior Court granted the defendants’ motions to dismiss in part, but denied their anti-SLAPP motion.

SLAPP suits are intended to suppress free speech and force people or organizations into spending money defending themselves in court.

But defendants appealed the denial of that anti-SLAPP motion.

The DC Court of Appeals ordered the court to reanalyze the case, resulting in the most recent ruling, notes the Center for Constitutional Rights.

The force behind the lawsuit was the Louis D. Brandeis Center, an Israel advocacy organization that has for years worked to smear Palestine solidarity activism as anti-Semitism, and attempts to suppress it with frivolous lawsuits and bogus civil rights complaints.

The organization’s former president, attorney Kenneth Marcus, represented the plaintiffs until February 2018 – when he was appointed as the Trump administration’s top civil rights enforcer at the US Department of Education.

After resigning from his position in 2020, Marcus returned to lead the Louis D. Brandeis Center.

“The purpose of lawsuits like these are really to harass and intimidate activists who support rights anywhere, but freedom and justice in Palestine in particular,” Astha Sharma Pokharel, staff lawyer with the Center for Constitutional Rights, told The Electronic Intifada.

Along with the anti-SLAPP laws that are designed to deter these kinds of attacks, the court’s dismissal “sends a message to Palestinian rights advocates that they are supported and that the law is on their side,” Sharma Pokharel added.

‘A Losing Strategy’

The Center for Constitutional Rights represented Steven Salaita, one of the defendants targeted by this lawsuit.

In 2014, Salaita was fired by the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign for social media comments criticizing Israel’s assault on Gaza that year.

He sued the university for breach of contract, alleging administrators acted under pressure from pro-Israel donors, later settling the case.

Salaita then found himself targeted by the lawsuit against the American Studies Association.

He told The Electronic Intifada this week that he was relieved that the DC court dismissed the lawsuit against the American Studies Association.

“It was something hanging over my head and I dislike being obliged to deal with people who deny my humanity,” Salaita said.

“I don’t know what message [Israel lawfare groups] will hear – probably nothing – but it should send them the message that it’s a losing strategy,” he said.

“More importantly, it should send them the message that even if their nonsense were to be effective according to judicial bodies in the United States, it still won’t stop anybody from agitating against the Israeli state.”

Boycotts, he added, are “designed to bypass and subvert state institutions.”