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	From Rwanda to Aleppo: a history of inaction by Lindsey Hilsum Channel 4 News   15 Dec 2016   Every few hours I check my WhatsApp feed from the doctors in East Aleppo. They post videos of injured children and a combination of eyewitness news and desperate messages: “Iran militia shot the convoy,” “The regime forces are still angry, I may die tens times now,” “Warplane with heavy machine gun attacking right now.”   It takes me back to April 1994, when I sat, terrified, in my house in Kigali listening to Rwandan friends who called to tell me about the slaughter in their neighbourhoods. Monica dictated to me her last words to pass onto her husband, Marcel, who was travelling. As it happened, she survived, but their five children, who were staying with their grandparents, were murdered. These are not easy memories.   A few years later, Samantha Power, then Professor of Human Rights Practice at Harvard’s John F. Kennedy School of Governance, published a book called A Problem from Hell; America and the Age of Genocide. Her thesis, simply put, was that in the face of mass slaughter the USA has a moral and legal obligation to intervene. America did nothing when Saddam Hussein gassed the Kurds in Halabja, nor during the genocide in Rwanda nor the massacre of 7,000 men and boys at Srebrenica in Bosnia the following year.   Last week, Power, now US Ambassador to the UN, made an impassioned and futile speech in the Security Council.   “Aleppo will join the ranks of those events in world history that define modern evil, that stain our conscience decades later. Halabja, Rwanda, Srebrenica, and, now, Aleppo,” she said. She pointed the finger at Syria, Russia and Iran. “When one day there is a full accounting of the horrors committed in this assault of Aleppo – and that day will come, sooner or later – you will not be able to say you did not know what was happening. You will not be able to say you were not involved. We all know what is happening. And we all know you are involved,” she said.   Generals say there is always a tendency to fight the last war – in other words, to base your strategy on what the enemy did last time. Politicians are the same. They didn’t intervene in Rwanda because they were still obsessed with the “Black Hawk Down” incident in Somalia, where a US helicopter was shot down and the pilots killed and dragged through the streets of Mogadishu. Similarly, after the debacles in Iraq and Libya, President Obama had no appetite for intervention in Syria despite the entreaties of Power and former Secretary of State, Hillary Clinton.   Yet non-intervention has consequences too, political as well as humanitarian. By not intervening in Syria, including refusing to punish President Bashar al Assad when he crossed the ‘red line’ and used chemical weapons against civilians, Obama signalled that he would cede influence in the Middle East. President Vladimir Putin was ready to fill the space. Many Americans (and Europeans) are against intervention these days, but it’s important to understand that if the US doesn’t, someone else will. Many object to the way the US wields power in the world, but the alternative is not no-one wielding power, it’s Russia, or maybe in the future, China, dictating terms.   At this point it’s very hard to see what, beyond pushing for safe corridors and ceasefires, the US and European governments can do. It’s too late for the kind of intervention that might have established a ‘no-fly zone’ to protect civilians, and far too late for robust support to the non-Islamist rebels who have dwindled in number. There’s no guarantee that either tactic would have worked. A Syrian journalist I know just emailed me: “All what we want now is just to get the besieged people out, then everything would be whatever.”   Two years after the genocide in Rwanda I stood in a court in Arusha, Tanzania, and testified to what I had seen in those terrible, unforgettable days. Journalists usually refuse to appear as witnesses, but I felt that I had been in a unique situation, the only foreign correspondent who had happened to be there when the genocide started, a helpless observer who had done nothing to save any lives. I was laying history to rest. Nearly all the organisers of the genocide in Rwanda were tried at the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda and most are still serving gaol sentences. That was something, but it was too late to save Marcel and Monica’s children and up to a million other Rwandans. And it is cold comfort to the people of Eastern Aleppo today. Visit the related web page
	Imagine a future where people throughout the world act together to reject corruption by Transparency International   Corruption – the abuse of entrusted power for private gain – is wrong. It destroys the basic rights of hundreds of millions of people across the world, it has devastating consequences on the services provided by public institutions and it undermines the prospect for a better life for future generations.   Together we can work towards ending corruption, overcoming widespread injustice and impunity. All forms of corruption must be ended to secure the basic rights of all people and ensure a world where everyone can live in dignity.   People are dying because money meant for health care is stolen. The proceeds of large-scale corruption laundered in luxury property. Women and girls subjected to sexual demands in return for passing exams. Democracy undermined by money in politics. Factory workers losing their lives when unsafe buildings certified by unscrupulous inspectors collapse. Hard earned tax payer money misappropriated.   Directly or indirectly, all of us are affected by corruption. But it does not have to be this way. Imagine a future where people throughout the world act together to reject corruption. Together we can and will bring about real change. This is what you can do in your daily life, in your place of work, in schools, hospitals and places of worship to be part of this change.   Do not pay bribes. Do not seek bribes. Work with others to campaign against corruption. Speak out on corruption and report on abuse. Only support candidates for public office who say no to corruption and demonstrate transparency, accountability and integrity.   Show your solidarity with the billions of victims of corruption around the world and add your voice to those who are saying enough is enough! All of us have the power to fight corruption.   Jan. 2017   Corruption and inequality: how populists mislead people, by Finn Heinrich   With the launch of Transparency International’s Corruption Perceptions Index 2016 just five days after Donald Trump’s inauguration as US President, it’s timely to look at the links between populism, socio-economic malaise and the anti-corruption agenda.   Indeed, Trump and many other populist leaders regularly make a connection between a “corrupt elite” interested only in enriching themselves and their (rich) supporters and the marginalisation of “working people”.   Is there evidence to back this up? Yes. Corruption and social inequality are indeed closely related and provide a source for popular discontent. Yet, the track record of populist leaders in tackling this problem is dismal; they use the corruption-inequality message to drum up support but have no intention of tackling the problem seriously.   But, first, let’s look at what corruption has to do with inequality and vice versa.   Corruption and inequality – a vicious cycle, left largely unattended   The relationship between the corruption scores in the Corruption Perceptions Index (CPI) and the degree of social exclusion as measured by the Social Inclusion Index for OECD countries (from the Bertelsmann Foundation’s Sustainable Governance Indicators) and by the Welfare Regime indicator for the rest of the world (from the Bertelsmann Foundation’s Transformation Index) shows a strong correlation between corruption and social exclusion.   For example, Mexico is in the bottom third of the CPI, indicating significant corruption, and has a score of less than 3.5 on the Social Inclusion Index that indicates that many people are marginalised and excluded. However, Denmark, which tops the CPI also performs well on the social inclusion index.   Still, correlation is not necessarily causation. Could it be that there’s a third characteristic that causes social inequality and corruption to travel in the same direction?   A likely possibility is a country’s level of development, as richer countries might be able to “afford” to spend more money on social services and redistribution of wealth while also addressing corruption.   A multivariate regression with both GDP per capita (measuring a country’s level of development) and social exclusion as predictors of corruption shows that social inclusion is a much stronger predictor of corruption levels than GDP per capita. In the case of the “remainder of the world” country sub-set, for every step increase in the 10-point social inclusion indicator, the CPI score would improve by as much as 5.5 points on its 1-100 scale.   This finding is actually nothing new. There has long been a scholarly consensus that corruption and inequality are closely interrelated. The two phenomena interact in a vicious cycle: corruption leads to an unequal distribution of power in society which, in turn, translates into an unequal distribution of wealth and opportunity.   State capture, grand corruption and the death of democracy   While the anti-corruption community has largely ignored the mutually reinforcing dynamics between corruption and social inequality, there are two quite different movements that made these issues a core element of their campaigning.   First is the emerging global inequality movement – the 99 percenters – spearheaded by progressive NGOs and supported by thinkers, such as Thomas Piketty and Branko Milanovic.   An influential 2014 report by Oxfam, titled Working for the Few summarises the main point: “Extreme economic inequality and political capture are too often interdependent. Left unchecked, political institutions become undermined and governments overwhelmingly serve the interests of economic elites to the detriment of ordinary people.”   In other words, corruption can flourish when elites control the levers of power without any accountability.   The second movement that links corruption and inequality is also global but it is not progressive. It is reactive, nativist and often right-wing. It is exemplified by politicians like Trump in the US, Prime Minister Jaroslaw Kaczynski in Poland and presidential candidate Marine le Pen of the National Front in France.   According to Trump, for example: “Our corrupt political establishment that is the greatest power behind the efforts at radical globalization and the disenfranchisement of working people. Their financial resources are virtually unlimited, their political resources are unlimited, their media resources are unmatched.”   And from Kaczynski: “Corruption is a part of this system that we have to change. Democracy is… endangered by corruption, by the decomposition of the state, by all that constitutes the system of Donald Tusk. We believe that this system is about to collapse, that its end will come, that corruption will be subdued, that our considerable possibilities will be used, that Poland will become a free country of free Polish people.”   Judging by the success of the populists at the ballot box, it is clear that they have been able to exploit the disenchantment of people with “the corrupt system” and present themselves as the only “way out” of the vicious cycle described above.   “Drain the swamp”, Trump’s epithet for reforming Washington D.C., clearly resonated with US voters and there is strong academic evidence that corruption as an issue was indeed salient for many anti-establishment voters in post-Communist countries.   The question is: are these voters backing a real anti-corruption proponent or supporting con artists?   By and large, anti-establishment parties fail to address – and often significantly increase – the very corruption they set out to get rid of. When an anti-corruption party won elections in New Delhi, for example, hopes were high but schisms and fights stalled progress. There are other examples in Italy, Slovakia and Hungary.   In the case of Donald Trump, the first signs of such a betrayal of his promises are already there. The talk is of rolling back key anti-corruption legislation and ignoring potential conflicts of interests that will exacerbate – not control – corruption.   Will this lead to his downfall? Evidence from other populist leaders (Erdogan in Turkey and Orban in Hungary and also Maduro in Venezuela) is not encouraging. They appear almost immune to challenges about unethical and corrupt behavior. While Turkey and Hungary have declined on the Corruption Perceptions Index since the election of populist leaders and Venezuela has been near the bottom of the table for years, the populist leaders seem to be more invincible than ever.   As history shows, turning back the corruption tide is often as hard as preventing a phony corruption fighter from getting into office in the first place. To pre-empt this, mainstream governments need to get much more serious about breaking the vicious cycle between corruption and social inequality.   We would advocate: Stopping the revolving door between business leaders and high-ranking government positions. Holding the corrupt to account rather than letting corrupt officials hide behind political immunity. Enforcing greater controls on banks, luxury goods sellers, lawyers, accountants and real estate agents who help launder corrupt money. Outlawing the use of secret companies that hide the identity of the real owners.   These proposals require the investment of substantial political capital by government leaders to confront entrenched interests. It is in the interests of democratic governments to use that capital so they can again deliver on their central promise to provide equal opportunities for all. Visit the related web page
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