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IOL News
25-05-2025
- Politics
- IOL News
US-SA Game of Thrones: Lights, Cameras and Genocide
A picture shows documents, belongings and skulls of victims ahead of the commemorations of the 30th anniversary of the Rwandan genocide at the Kigali Genocide Memorial in Kigali, on April 5, 2024. Image: Picture: LUIS TATO / AFP) Dr Nazreen Shaik-Peremanov Metaphorical Orwellian allegories have become commonplace in contemporary international relations as never before. All animals are equal, but some are more equal than others. With the United Nations Security Council and General Assembly resolutions and domestic legislation, the Cambodian War Crimes Tribunal was established. So too, the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia read in culpability arising from superior command responsibility, finding that subordinates have a duty of diligence and application of mind when acting on superior commands. When the Khmer Rouge regime did not bow to Western ideologies, the US began bombing in the 1950s and 60s, the subsequent genocide was more directly attributed to external northern influences. Vietnam demonstrated the US's capacity to declare war on a nation that refused conformity to Western-dominated political ideals. When the genocide was imminent in Rwanda, allied forces withdrew the last remaining Belgian soldiers on the brink of time. When 18 American soldiers were dragged through the streets of Mogadishu, Black Hawk Down did not sit by idly. Hastily, the US retracted. See: American lives matter more than those of others. American lives are more equal than those of others. Costa Rica is a favoured nation housing US military launch pads in South America as if Greenland's space is not enough for so-called training exercises. As peacekeepers wailed over horns to the UN in Rwanda, the Hutus and Tutsis revelled in demonising genocide and crimes against humanity. Pray tell, how did these atrocities come to pass? Erecting reinforced walls to keep Mexicans out of North America; deporting immigrants in open military aircraft to their home states, supplying arms and ammunition to one brother against the other to indoctrinate Western political thinking, collapsing entire villages across South America willfully to destroy a whole or a part of a nation because they were endowed with individual political intellect are but some of the atrocities. Video Player is loading. Play Video Play Unmute Current Time 0:00 / Duration -:- Loaded : 0% Stream Type LIVE Seek to live, currently behind live LIVE Remaining Time - 0:00 This is a modal window. Beginning of dialog window. Escape will cancel and close the window. Text Color White Black Red Green Blue Yellow Magenta Cyan Transparency Opaque Semi-Transparent Background Color Black White Red Green Blue Yellow Magenta Cyan Transparency Opaque Semi-Transparent Transparent Window Color Black White Red Green Blue Yellow Magenta Cyan Transparency Transparent Semi-Transparent Opaque Font Size 50% 75% 100% 125% 150% 175% 200% 300% 400% Text Edge Style None Raised Depressed Uniform Dropshadow Font Family Proportional Sans-Serif Monospace Sans-Serif Proportional Serif Monospace Serif Casual Script Small Caps Reset restore all settings to the default values Done Close Modal Dialog End of dialog window. Advertisement Next Stay Close ✕ Forcibly disappearing and kidnapping (rendition if you will) by US agents exercising extra-territorial jurisdiction in Peru, Mexico, Colombia, and the like are crimes against humanity, bordering on genocidal conduct. Embarrassingly so, the truth of how this comes to pass is simple: if something does not adversely impact or threaten the north mainland of the US, then it does not matter at all. Atrocities are a bystander's collateral. South Africa was no bystander in the Oval Room this week. South Africa will never be a bystander in international relations, nor will she become apologetic. Forming the guard of honour around South Africa's head of state, President Ramaphosa stood unflinchingly tall, almost as if he sat across, laying his balming hand on Trumptonia's shoulders, saying, 'It's alright, old Boy. Calm down. Breathe. Genocide does not exist in the South African dictionary. It does exist in the US dictionary.' Since Minister Lamola's stature was disarming and simultaneously frustrating to the White House, perhaps the hope was that 49 refugee families would spin the wheel for the green card. Ernie Els's surpassed brilliance on the course has little whittle at Union Buildings, or the Kremlin, let alone the White House. Yet, there he was on a US presidential invitation with Retief Goosen. To do what? To speak of untold genocidal atrocities against the minority white farmers on South African soil. South Africa's racially segregated history, perpetrated by the White minority, informs her history, and her crimes. Moreover, the charismatic leadership of Nelson Mandela ushered in a dispensation of unity, quelling White minority fears and Black majority zeal, along with the now President Ramaphosa as the ANC's aide. In recent years, crime has escalated in South Africa. Stats SA reports on crimes committed in South Africa. White farmers setting killer dogs loose on black farm workers mauling them to death, somehow escapes the US beams. White Afrikaner farmers killing their farm help and feeding the bodies to pigs also escape the Nazi-like beam. So, too, do the Krugersdorp attacks on Black citizens, followed closely by killings perpetrated by Afrikaner Whites in Ventersdorp. Orania has carved out a state of its own in South Africa, beautifully relying on the exemplary South African Constitution's article on the right to self-determination. The message is clear: WHITES ONLY. South Africa's democratic constitutional dispensation protects constitutional imperatives. Musk has carved out his state in Austin, Texas, and at the Italian compound. The message is clear: MUSKIEANS ONLY. The US had sent South Americans, Indians and others back home in droves. So, when popcorn is not served but visual clips are played at the White House, we should learn that people in glass houses should not throw stones or arms or ammunition or nuclear armament or…erect fences for Mexican expulsion... Freedom of speech is a hard-fought-for South African right, which was drenched in Apartheid censorship. The only limitation will be by a law of general application in an open and democratic society based on freedom, equality and dignity. So, it remains firmly a constitutional imperative for those wishing to express their thoughts, beliefs and opinions. We know what genocide means, and will share its meaning with you, Mr President. Genocide is the willful killing or extermination by any acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group, killing members of the group like collapsing South American villages or setting starved dogs on black farm workers; or causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group like exclusive Texas and Orania... Mr President. We thank you, Mr President. * Dr Nazreen Shaik-Peremanov University of Fort Hare Law Faculty and University of Cambridge Wolfsons College Scholar (former) ** The views expressed in this article do not necessarily reflect the views of IOL, Independent Media or The African.
Forbes
21-03-2025
- Politics
- Forbes
Will Climate Damage Create New Security Risks?
TOPSHOT - A man stands on top of a tree trunk in an area full of damaged trees, mud and debris ... More carried by water following flash floods and landslides in Mai Mahiu, on April 30, 2024. At least 48 people died on April 29, 2024 when a dam burst its bank near a town in Kenya's Rift Valley, President of Kenya William Ruto said on April 30, 2024. The disaster raises the total death toll over the March-May wet season in Kenya to more than 170 as heavier than usual rainfall pounds East Africa, compounded by the El Nino weather pattern. (Photo by LUIS TATO / AFP) (Photo by LUIS TATO/AFP via Getty Images) This January was the hottest January on record, at a temperature of 1.75°C above the average for the month (2024 was the hottest year on record with 150 extreme weather events). February was the month with the highest level of economic policy uncertainty since the 1990's (excluding COVID). Something must be brewing but, the global narrative is so concentrated on the White House and intensely short-term that in a way, the future has been obscured. Whether we like it or not, climate damage is part of that future path, and will play its own role in the disorder and re-ordering of the international political economic landscape to come. Regular readers will know that in the framework of my 'Levelling', imbalances like the crisis of democracy, climate damage and debt will have to be overcome before a new world order is fully established. In particular, the deepening of climate damage and the rise of indebtedness are correlated and both are 'world' problems, at a time when coordination between the great powers is at its lowest ebb since the 1930's. For game theorists at least, this produces a tricky equation – how to achieve a global solution or compromise when the main players in the game are trying to steal a march on each other. Some of the pathways for climate warming are worrying (taking a range of datapoints from the IPCC, Berkley-Earth institute and the Global Carbon Project), if countries implement the commitments agreed at COP-Paris then global warming will be 2.4°C higher than the long-term average temperature by 2050, with current climate policies the increase is expected to be close to 3.5°C and with no climate policy adjustment it might be in the range of 4-5°C. Granted that a 1°C change in world average temperature can translate into a 4°C increase in some of the most climate precarious countries, this last scenario is frightening. If climate damage encroaches on some of the thresholds mentioned above, it will become even more of a strategic issue for the economy (there is a good literature review here), the technology sector, financial markets and security. Indeed, the 2023 yearly threat assessment produced by the US Director for National Intelligence highlighted that 'Climate change will increasingly exacerbate risks to U.S. national security interests'. This report might well become a collector's item because Pete Hegseth the new Defence Secretary recently (Jan 25) tweeted that 'The (Department of Defence) does not do climate change crap'. Whilst the US economy is a very powerful driver of climate technology (Texas gets nearly a third of its electricity from wind power), its absence as a moral leader will mean weaker climate policy adherence by other countries. In that context the link between climate damage and security will have to be made by others, notably the excellent team at UCL's Dawes Centre for Future Crime, with whom I spent time last week exploring how climate damage is provoking new forms of crime and threats to security that go beyond the simple theft of copper wires and solar panels (a vibrant trade apparently). There are a few strands in this emerging, important debate to draw out. Climate damage will in the long-run change cities, geographies and economies and produce migratory trends that malevolent states or non-state actors (gangs and organised crime) will exploit. Energy infrastructure is becoming more stressed because of climate change and the side-effects of this were evident last week with the closure of Heathrow following a fire in a nearby electricity substation. In a more futuristic vein, the response to climate warming will create new technologies, some of them in the realm of geo-engineering which may be able to alter the effects of climate damage, but that might also be commandeered for harm. Then there is AI, which itself will create much greater demand for electricity, but that can help optimise energy usage, though the AI itself is vulnerable to manipulation. Climate change is also leading to the development of new marketplaces – for carbon credits for example, as well as ESG driven assets and debt, but these new forms of financial market infrastructure are often illiquid, improperly regulated and prone to fraud. What all this points to is that as climate damage provokes innovation, new infrastructure, technologies and markets in the context of a world where security is now a priority and where non-state actors (i.e. gangs) become more powerful and daring, the response to climate damage now also needs to have countermeasures built into it.
