September 2021 - Page 2 of 2

September 6, 2021 by Sydney Neuman

Racial and Religious Profiling in the United States in the Name of ‘National Security’

Many things changed in the United States following the 9/11 terrorist attacks. Changes in law, policy, and security were made not only in the United States but around the world, in order to tackle the growing threat of terrorism. In response to these attacks, the United States government launched a military campaign called the “War on Terror.” This led to the enactment of many laws for law enforcement agencies to protect against terrorist activities.

The Federal Bureau of Investigation, the Department of Justice, and the Department of Homeland Security are just some of the law enforcement agencies that are effective in combating terrorism. However, there is a major flaw in their combating measures. This is their improper use of racial profiling used to address national security and public safety concerns. Racial profiling is wrong and has been proven to be a very ineffective measure for preventing terrorism.

The post-9/11 era has seen racial profiling of people perceived to be Muslim in the U.S. through many different factions. This has included airport profiling, surveillance of Muslim communities, detention, deportations, special registration of immigrants, and much more. Many American Muslims have been treated as potential terrorists based on their faith alone. Following the attacks, law enforcement agencies detained over a thousand Muslims in the United States, both citizens, and noncitizens, while the government figured out whether they had any connection to the attacks.

This blatant racial and religious profiling went on for years. The first step to try and prohibit this was in 2003 when the Department of Justice issued guidelines prohibiting racial and ethnic profiling in most law enforcement contexts. According to the guidelines, profiling is ineffective because it is “premised on the erroneous assumption that any particular individual of one race or ethnicity is more likely to engage in misconduct.” These guidelines also emphasize that race-based assumptions in law enforcement “perpetuate negative racial stereotypes that are harmful to our rich and diverse democracy, and materially impair our efforts to maintain a fair and just society.”

Shortly after his inauguration, President Joe Biden reversed former President Donald Trump’s Muslim Travel Ban. This ban was an executive order that prevented individuals from primarily Muslim countries, and later, from many African countries, from entering the United States. It was seeking to keep out or deport people perceived to be Muslim based upon the racist assumption that “they” are violent potential terrorist enemies of the U.S. nation. There are solutions to improve this major flaw through more intense and reconstructed training as well as implementing new policies for all law enforcement agencies.

The next step that can be taken is for Congress to pass the End Racial and Religious Profiling Act which was most recently introduced as part of the George Floyd Justice in Policing Act. This Act would prohibit federal, state, and local law enforcement from targeting a person based on actual or perceived race, ethnicity, national origin, religion, gender, gender identity, or sexual orientation without trustworthy information that is relevant to linking a person to a crime. These measures would help demonstrate to the many diverse communities in our nation’s commitment to protecting national security based on facts rather than on bias.

It is so important now than ever before, to change racist, common sense ways of thinking about Arabs, Iranians, Afghans, and anyone perceived to be connected, in one way or another, to the idea of a “Muslim terrorist threat.”

September 1, 2021October 19, 2021 by Stefan Bakumenko

The United Nations in Africa: Mali’s Challenging Future

The Long Road Ahead

The UN’s peacekeeping operation in Mali faces an uphill battle to stabilize the country, made even more difficult by recent events. The peace that this operation hopes to keep stems from a 2015 peace agreement between northern Tuareg and Arab rebels and the government of Mali. But the civilian government was deposed in an August 2020 coup, hampering mission goals and further destabilizing the country. This article highlights three challenges to the mission mandate and how best to respond to them.

The United Nations Multidimensional Integrated Stabilization Mission in Mali (MINUSMA), established in April 2013 by Security Council resolution 2100, has become the UN’s most dangerous current peacekeeping operation. To date, there have been 253 fatalities out of the 15,209 authorized personnel in-country. On April 2nd, four peacekeepers were killed and nineteen wounded in a direct assault on their camp in Kidal region. Significant challenges abound for this mission aiming to implement its transitional roadmap and seven-part mandate. Its main goal since June 2015 has been safeguarding and implementing an Algiers peace agreement signed between the government and the Coordination of Movements for Azawad (CMA) rebel coalition. Further complications come from jihadist insurgents such as Al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM) and the Islamic State in the Greater Sahara (ISGS), as well as brutal communal violence in central Mali. Understanding these hurdles, concrete strategies must follow.

Dual Military Coups

The most immediate challenge facing MINUSMA’s mandate is the August 2020 coup, which saw the resignation of President Keïta and Prime Minister Cisse after they were detained by the Malian Armed Forces. On January 18th, 2021, the military junta’s transitional National Committee for the Salvation of the People (CNSP) was disbanded, with interim president Bah Ndaw supervising an 18-month transition back to civilian rule. This promise of civilian rule gave cause for optimism, but the second coup in late May saw the removal of Ndaw by Colonel Assimi Goïta, who also organized last year’s coup. Goïta has since become Mali’s new president while maintaining that elections and the release of Ndaw and his prime minister will eventually occur.

Both coups have demonstrated the militarization of politics and the weakness of government legitimacy in Mali, and have significantly undermined item 2 in MINUSMA’s mandate; to support “national political dialogue and the electoral process.” Though protestors before and during the first coup had been calling for Keïta’s resignation due to economic woes and ongoing violence, a coercive resolution to an unpopular administration undermines national stability. Credibility has been damaged twice now among key allies of both Mali and MINUSMA, with the African Union (AU) suspending Mali twice, the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) imposing sanctions for the first coup, the United States cutting off military aid, and the UN Security Council condemning the military’s actions all throughout.

Close coordination with the government in Bamako is required for MINUSMA’s continued operation. Mission policymakers have the unenviable task of cooperating with the self-preservationist military regime while simultaneously upholding item 1’s ideals of “constitutional order, democratic governance, and national unity.” The strategy moving forward must be one of continued pressure on and agreement with Goïta’s government on the timeline and specifics of a transfer back to civilian rule. The real power brokers in Mali must be identified and engaged, and the UN must not be satisfied with easy promises from the military. Together with AU, EU, and US partners, MINUSMA’s liaisons must extract from the military firm dates for elections and guarantees that they will be “inclusive, free, fair, and transparent,” as per the mandate.

Protection of Civilians

Alongside the tragic loss of 253 UN peacekeepers since 2013, MINUSMA has also witnessed a great deal of civilian casualties in areas outside of government control. Peacekeepers have been patrolling and expanding social services in these areas, in line with items 1 and 3 of the mandate; supporting “reestablishment of State authority throughout the country” and “protection of civilians and United Nations personnel.” But as peacekeepers navigate deadly improvised explosive devices (IEDs) and ambushes, the multitude of violent actors, vast expanses of contested land, and complicated communal dynamics have allowed thousands of civilian casualties to slip through their fingers since 2013. Atrocities and possible war crimes have been well documented, further driving a wedge between hostile communities in central Mali. This continued violence against civilians undermines mission legitimacy and the 300+ development projects it has carried out.

Protecting civilians is often an issue of policing. Protecting them from separatists requires greater policing of the vast, contested northern regions, while population centers must be protected from jihadists. Communal violence in central Mali must be lessened by policing the boundaries between feuding communities. The number of police on mission should be increased, as MINUSMA has a 13-2 split of soldiers and police. More importantly, peacekeepers should step up technical assistance and recruitment drives for local police; this is a classic method to build peace and is included in the mandate.

A new, complex frontier in peacekeeping

The final challenge concerns a relatively important shift in UN peacekeeping doctrine. Of sixteen active UN missions, MINUSMA is the only one authorized to conduct counterinsurgency. Its mandate allows it to use “all necessary means… [to] deter threats and take active steps to prevent the return of armed elements to those areas.” Resolution 2164, an update to the mission, identified “asymmetric threats” as spoilers of peace; military jargon for insurgent groups. This has created challenges on the ground and great debate in the policy world. Strategically, peacekeepers appear not to have been deployed to keep the peace, but to reach peace through force, conducting counterinsurgency alongside France and the G5 Sahel (soldiers from Burkina Faso, Chad, Mali, Mauritania, and Niger). Tactically, counterinsurgency requires specialized training and equipment, two things that are far from standardized or even guaranteed in the UN system. Mission effectiveness is hampered by the unique challenges and confusions presented by this dissonance between peacekeeping and counterinsurgency. And with France recently announcing the end of its eight-year campaign in the Sahel, now is the time for MINUSMA to take up the mantle with clear and confident policy.

Any good counterinsurgency must clearly lay out its strategy. An understanding of the insurgents and of one’s own capacities is essential in choosing how to train soldiers and allocate resources. The 9 experts on-mission and 514 staff officers need a proper division of labor and understanding, including programs for intelligence, search-and-destroy, and public relations. All of this can only come from a unified, top-down doctrine. That is why this new arena for UN peacekeeping needs a field handbook that systematically demarcates tactics and limitations of action. This also lowers MINUSMA’s high death rate: training troops not for pitched battles but for countering IEDs and ambushes is vital, as argued by former mission commander Michael Lollesgaard.

Overall, much needs to be done. Two coups in under a year, the protection of civilians, and counterinsurgency strategy must be addressed through diplomatic pressure, increased police efforts, and tactical guidance, respectively. Relative peace is not on the immediate horizon, but these strategies will push the situation in Mali in a constructive direction.