Political Violence in Mozambique

On April 4th and 5th of this year, Voice of America and the NY Times posted articles discussing the episode of political violence that occurred earlier that week. The NY Times article was titled Mozambique: Political Violence Rises, giving a brief description of the violent event that left four police officers and one Renamo commander dead, in addition to a dozen wounded. 

Renamo is the opposition party to the currently governing party, Frelimo. The attack was by Renamo members in the town of their party's headquarters  Muxunge. Renamo was attacking in an attempt to free their party members that had been arrested in a Frelimo supported police raid a few days prior. The New York times called it "one of the worst outbreaks of political violence in a decade."

To gain a bit of historical context and details I turned to Voice of America's article titled: Mozambique Faces Rising Political Tensions, Violence. This article helped me understand that Remano and Frelimo are former political war foes, and that this violence is occurring after months of political disputes over local elections at the end of this year. 

I also learned further details on the police raid that occurred prior to Renamo's retaliation and effort to gain back its party members. Police had stormed Renamo's headquarters with tear gas arresting an estimated 15 party supporters. This raid is linked to Renamos threat that "it would disrupt municipal elections set out for November, after its proposals to overhaul electoral laws were not accepted." Renamo has been losing party support, with currently 51 of 250 seats in Parliament, creating angst and hostility toward opposition party, Frelimo. 

Furthermore, hostility has risen due to the move of Renamo's leader to a prior civil war base with a threat to return to war if the government does not reassess terms of a peace deal signed in 1992 after the end of the war. 

This conflict after civil war reminded me of this weeks Collier reading discussing conflict traps. He explained: "The end of a war often is not the end of a conflict; once over a conflict is alarmingly likely to restart. Only half of the countries in which a conflict has ended manage to make it through a decade without relapsing into war." I would hope that a relapse into civil war is not the case for Mozambique. I am interested to see how things turn out in the upcoming November elections. 

An Egyptian coup d'état

The recent violence in Egypt surrounding the removal of their Islamist President ties in nicely to the discussion topics for this week. After several were killed and over 260 people injured, the new Egyptian government is appointing their leaders. Unfortunately, as with any coup, there are two (or more) different sides to the argument, each with different views and opinions.

Political Violence in Mexico

Mexico has been in the news a lot in the past decade, mostly for drug-related crimes and political violence. The killing of many politicians and their family members has long been a problem throughout Mexico, and while trying to resolve this violence, not much has been done to permanently stop these attacks. There can be a couple of motives behind Mexico's political violence. 1. Drug cartels want to expand their routes or territories and look to bribing local politicians to ensure protection of their area. "Cartels are known to interfere in local campaigns to elect officials who will be friendly to their interests." 2. Politician vs. politician--a quick and dirty way to get rid of the competition.

On July 7, 2013 Mexico's 14 states held elections. The violence against political figures leading up to these elections is said to have been the worst in many years, and many of the violet acts are keeping citizens away from polling areas. There were many politicians who dropped out of the race due to being scared for their lives and their families. According to USAtoday, many of these acts of violence are occurring in city and towns where organized crime usually rules. These attacks may suggest that the certain political figure running for office did not agree, or want to help out the drug cartel in anyway. A leader of a leftist party of the Democratic Revolution was shot dead in sugar field in Oaxaca, and only a few days earlier in Chihuahua, a mayoral candidate for the Institutional revolutionary Party was also found dead.

President Enrique Pena Nieto

Current President of Mexico, Enrique Pena Nieto, had promised to control Mexico's violence, and has said he thinks Mexico's struggle with violence has become better over the past decade. However, these political attacks before July 7's elections have not proven well for the new president. Opposition leaders demanded that Pena Nieto put army's in the streets to protect Mexico's voters and many are upset Pena Nieto has not fixed Mexico's political violence. "A state that cannot protect its candidates, is a state that cannot protect democracy," quoted by Ernesto Lopez Portillo, director of the Institute for Security and Democracy in Mexico City.

Political Violence in Egypt

Political Violence in Egypt

In the past year Egypt has fallen into a state of political unrest.  It wasn't long ago that the former President Hosni Mubarak was over thrown to issue in a new era of politics in Egypt.  Muhammad Morsi has been in power since 2011, but recently the military has forced him out of power sparking a new round of political violence.  The situation in Egypt has been very unstable ever since the Arab spring and the Morsi administration has been largely ineffectual and with political instability comes political violence.  Egypt is not an exception.

Just a couple of days ago killed 7 more Morsi supporters that tried to stage a sit in at Cairo University.  There have been several clashes between police, Morsi supports, and Morsi disinters.  Just a week ago 50 supports were killed after a clash with army troops.  The Muslim Brotherhood , the party that backed Morsi claims that live ammunition was used against protesters. 

This is a very crucial time in the political history of Egypt and the region as a whole.  It is important that peace and stability be returned to Egypt, but it is also important that a democratically elected leader is at the helm of the Egyptian government.  

To add a twist to this internal conflict is the role that the United States has allegedly played.  The White House continues to walk the line between classifying the current unrest in Egypt as a coup.  Many have speculated that the US has been involved with the overthrow from the beginning.  It is true that the US has never been comfortable with the Morsi government and the US has supported coups around the world.  While the US has yet to publicly back the new military government, they have also refused to classify what happened to be a coup.  This is because the US is required to support any democratically elected leader against a military coup.