One of the most fun annual traditions at Fletcher is the Blakeley Halloween Party. Who knows how long it’s been going on, but as far as I can tell, it’s been a while. As a Blakeley resident last year, I, along with tons of other Blakeleyites, helped coordinate and organize the party. Our Fletcher first-year residents, led by our very own blogger Drew Bennett and Corinne Onetto, did a great job hosting this year and a great time was had by all. The lounge looked spooky, the music was spinning, the beverages flowing and the party lasted until the wee hours of the morning.

As you can see from the pics below, Fletcherites definitely love to dress up for Halloween. While I’m not normally a big Halloween person, it’s kind of fun at Fletcher as it’s often the first time some of the international students have experienced Halloween. And, of course, it’s fun trying to guess everyone’s costumes and to come up with your own creative ideas for one. I missed the awards ceremony for the best costume, so I’ll just show you some of my favorites from the evenings festivities.

Nathan (MALD 07) as Borat:

Not quite sure what Erica (MALD 08) is supposed to be, but it’s beautiful:

Bernie (MALD 07) as a superhero!:

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It is around this time each semester when you just need to get away from Fletcher and Boston in general… to come up for a quick gulp of fresh air as you turn the corner on the midpoint of the semester and head for the stretch run. I had the privilege of taking my weekend off in New York City with my family. From fine meals across Manhattan, a gallop through the art galleries in Chelsea, a scintillating evening listening to legend keyboardist Joe Zawinul at Lincoln Center, and a costume party in Tribeca, this weekend was just the R&R Dean Bosworth ordered!

Alas, all good things must come to an end. The multi volume “to-do list” awaits me as do three separate paper assignments. Hopefully I have recharged enough to complete those with a semblance of success. On tap for this week: an interview with Amb. Pascual, currently of Brookings, in support of my group project on Provincial Reconstruction Teams (PRTs) is Afghanistan for Prof. Martel, a talk by Dexter Filkins of the New York Times, and hopefully the launch of the fall issue of Al-Nakhlah!

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As at most universities, the professors at Fletcher are not just responsible for teaching students, but are also engaged in their own research and publishing, consult for international organizations and governments, and act as board members for businesses and NGOs. It’s not uncommon to be told by a professor, “Please shoot me an email, but just keep in mind it may take me a few days to respond – I need to be in Haiti for some research” or “New York to speak to the General Assembly” or “Nairobi for a conference this weekend.”

The results of this work often appear in course syllabi or as anecdotal support in class lectures, and it’s this dual involvement – between the classroom and the ‘real world’ – that many students feel makes studying with Fletcher profs so fulfilling.

In addition to learning about Fletcher professors’ research, students sometimes have an opportunity to participate in research projects. I’ve been lucky enough to be hired by two Fletcher profs for such work this semester, and it’s been an enormously satisfying part of my experience thus far. Studying at Fletcher is great, but can also feel disconnected from the action; removed from the “change-making” work we’ve all come to Fletcher to learn to do better. Contributing to and learning from these research projects – one UN and one post-conflict related – has become a valuable chance to focus attention on some specific issues, to get to know some amazing profs better, and to contribute to some really important work that goes beyond the Fletcher bubble.

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Having missed the Fletcher screening of Laura Poitras’ documentary on the elections in Iraq, I was determined not to miss its PBS airing on the 28th. ‘My Country, My Country’ is the title of Ms. Poitras’ latest work, which is a moving portrait of life in war-torn Iraq. The documentary follows the film’s protagonist, Dr. Riyadh, a Sunni Doctor who runs for election in the Iraqi Parliament. Despite the fact that most Sunni’s boycotted the elections thereby ensuring his loss, Riyadh still maintains subdued optimism that one day his country will be healed. Despite some minor flaws, the film is well-directed and filled with symbolism. Even the films’ title takes on different meaning after watching. I recommend everyone see this film.

Watch the trailer: http://www.zeitgeistfilms.com/displaytrailer.php?directoryname=mycountrymycountry&size=high&extension=mov

“Iraq is my spirit and my wish is for the Iraqi people to live peacefully and love each other and work together to re-establish this damaged country, setting up a government working for all Iraqis. I know that is a dream but I pray to God for it to be real.”

–Dr. Riyadh, October 2006

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This weekend I will be taking part in SIMULEX, a crisis simulation hosted by Fletcher and coordinated with various military academies, including West Point and the Naval War College.

As a member of the American team, I’ll be acting as the U.S. attorney general, which should be quite interesting because the simulation involves a nuclear Iran. Other Fletcher classmates will be pitted against our American team on teams representing regional players from the European Union to Hezbollah.

Things are also “escalating” quite a bit with courses and Jessup. I’ve spent quite a bit of time over the past week in the baronial confines of the Ginn Library, preparing for midterm examinations in my int’l business transactions class and in my course on the int’l legal order (ILO).

Happily, much of the work we are doing now in ILO actually corresponds with the Jessup Competition topic for this year. How does one interpret a treaty? Does one take a textual approach, focusing simply on the plain meaning of the textual language, or does one take a contextual approach, looking at the constellation of factors which may have brought a treaty into being.

More to follow next week on the results of the SIMULEX competition. Hopefully, any emergent crises will be resolved peacefully…

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Ok, it’s mid-term season, so I’m multi-tasking – blogging from a talk by Dr. Caty Clement, the Central Africa Project Director for International Crisis Group. She’s speaking on the work her organization is doing in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, where the first elections in 40 years are being held – literally, right now – they’re in between rounds of the elections right now where Joseph Kabila, the incumbent and son of the post-Mobutu autocrat Laurent Kabila, is in a run-off against Jean-Pierre Bemba.

She’s going through a brief history of the murderous politics and oppression that have led up to this momentous election. Dr. Clement does a great job of really taking you to the streets of Kinshasa and giving a sense of the opinions on the street, and she doesn’t hesitate to toss in a few jabs and opinions of her own. She’s concerned that a Kabila victory will lead to protests and violence in the streets and between Bemba and Kabila’s militia. However, Kabila is winning the arms race thanks to ‘found money’ from the department of defense used to purchase hundreds of tanks, and may be gearing up for a serious defense of his presidency in the streets of Kinshasa.

She’s describing the logistics of the election now: 60 million people, 300 miles of paved road, 25 million registered, a system of everything from helicopters to horseback for delivering boxes and ballots back and forth from the provincial capitals to the most remote villages and getting it all back to Kinshasa. Incredible work by the UN, definitely one of those cases of UN success that doesn’t get enough press.

Meanwhile, an even bigger challenge will be keeping all the militias happy throughout the process and especially after. This election is extremely risky in many ways – we usually think of elections as the end of the peace process (in the DRC, the active fighting in the east is disassociated from the election in many ways), but in this case, it could be the spark for destabilization. But the goal is to create two authentic coalitions that have an interest in utilizing the parliamentary system for a democratically sound DRC. Even if Kabila wins 75% of the vote, this is still possible if violence can be quelled and Bemba sticks around to lead the opposition coalition.

Whatever the makeup of the government after the election, they will face some huge political challenges in building democratic institutions from the ground up and decentralizing the entire system and adding a number of provinces as well. They will also have to deal with a tenuous situation in the eastern provinces (North and South Kivu) where both the LRA from Uganda and Hutu/Tutsi fighters reside. The DRC will be in a tough diplomatic position as they try to deal with their neighbors and the network of donors putting pressure on all parties to hold the peace.

Part of this process is disarmament and reintegration of the many soldiers in the region from all sides. Here, Dr. Clement says, the UN has succeeded in the former and failed in the latter. Reintegration, Professor Chase points out (she’s the prof. who organized this), is a major, perhaps impossible challenge, throughout the world because the process isn’t integrated into a development framework that’s locally produced where jobs and institutions are created in lock-step with soldier reintegration in order to offer them economic opportunities. Previously, a ‘gun in their hand was their economic opportunity,’ Dr. Clement remarks.

And with that, I have to go – a mid-term awaits. See why I needed to multi-task? Ok, it’s economics, or as the prof. calls it: Some math, some pictures, and some poetry. Wish me luck.

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This past weekend I participated in an all-day Mediation simulation exercise that concerned the 25-year civil war that has been raging in Sri Lanka between the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) and the Government of Sri Lanka. Although my partner in crime, Katy Bondy, has blogged about this already (the entry is just below this one), I feel that it is important enough to be written about again.

In this simulation, I was part of the Government of Sri Lanka (GOSL) delegation, and was tasked with entering into negotiations with the LTTE, facilitated by a joint Norwegian-Japanese mediating team. We received confidential instructions one week before the simulation, and prepared our positions and our interests going into the mediation on Saturday. In the lead-up to the Mediation, we meet with the other members of our delegations, reviewed what the other side’s negotiating positions would be, and chose our identities to use in the simulation.

On the Saturday of the simulation, we opened by each delegation reading their opening statement. Then, we split off into groups where both sides, the LTTE and the GOSL, communicated their interests and their positions to our respective mediators. After a certain amount of time, the mediators switched positions and brought the viewpoints of the opposing sides to their table. The day proceeded in this manner, with the joint Norwegian-Japanese team engaging in “shuttle diplomacy” between our two negotiating sides.

This simulation was helpful for me in a number of ways. 1) It let me learn a great deal more about the conflict in Sri Lanka, and why the situation is so intractable. For our simulation, the proposal that the LTTE brought to us was unacceptable because it was predicated on an assumption that directly contradicted a non-negotiable position for us. Therefore, the rest of the negotiations broke down over that single but fundamental disagreement. 2) It allowed me to experience the psychological intracacies of having outside mediators. As the GOSL, we became very attached to the mediator from Japan, and felt somewhat abandoned when he left to meet with the LTTE. In turn, we were not as welcoming to the mediator from Norway when he came from the LTTE side, because we all assumed that the LTTE had brought him over to their side. 3) It made me see how exhausting the actual practice of negotiating and mediating can be, when you are quarreling and debating all day over small details and structures that have larger ideological significance. 4) It let me experience how quickly these types of negotiations can break down over simple things such as a word or a phrase that it not included, or a misinterpretation of a tiny clause.

All in all, it was a great learning experience for me, and I now feel better prepared to participate in a real-life mediation. Thanks to Professor Babbitt for organizing this simulation, and thanks to my fellow participants for making it feel like a real situation!

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This past Saturday, while all of Boston was busy spectating at the Head of the Charles Regatta, one of the most famous crew races in the world, I was busy mediating the Sri Lankan conflict. Ok, ok. I’ll fess up, I wasn’t *exactly* sitting with members of the government of Sri Lanka and the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE), but I was sitting on the 7th floor of Cabot taking part in a simulation for Professor Babbitt’s International Mediation course. Along with my team members, Kallissa (MALD 08) and Raul (MALD 08), we spent the majority of our Saturday representing the government of Sri Lanka, while three others represented the LTTE and yet another three represented the mediators, in our case, Norwegians, who have been attempting to mediate the ongoing conflict for the past several years. Hats off to all involved, particularly all of the mediators, who had the difficult task of simply getting the parties to talk to one another and trying to elicit compromise.

While these kinds of simulations are long, exhausting and stressful, you do get a glimpse, I presume, of what an actual mediation is like in real life. I have participated in other simulations since coming to Fletcher (International Negotiation with Professor Najam and Law and Politics of Conflict Management with Professor Chayes) and have found them to be equally interesting and more helpful once you have had some time to reflect on them. As practitioners and academics, our professors have the advantage of actually being mediators or negotiators and they bring their real life experience into the class room. This is particularly advantageous for Fletcher students and a benefit I never thought of before enrolling here. I’m certain I’ll be able to carry some of these skills into whatever job I find post-Fletcher.

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I had a great weekend. My roommate Suz and I drove up to New Hampshire (where my family lives), went on a hike, did some furniture shopping at cheapish antique stores, had a home-cooked meal and then headed back Fletcher-way. I’ve been lucky enough to get out of town almost every weekend the past few weeks (Western MA last weekend, New York the weekend before that), and it’s made a big difference in my measurement of “will to study” post-trip.

Many of my class readings this Sunday were on the subject of refugee camps and settlements. In college, I studied a pretty diverse range of subjects in foreign affairs as an international relations major, but little if any of that involved humanitarian aid issues (famine, food aid, conflict relief, refugees, etc.), and my course on humanitarian action has really started to fill in some gaps for me. It’s also informing a lot of my research ideas about international organizations.

A particularly important book of that bunch for me is David Rieff’s A Bed for the Night: Humanitarianism in Crisis, which is about Rieff’s concern that aid groups are increasingly being manipulated on the ground and, for that and other reasons, are far less effective than they need to be (and may in fact be doing harm). I came back from Cambodia incredibly angry and disillusioned by a lot of the things that I’d seen there, but especially about the aid and development communities. A Bed for the Night is one of the first things I’ve read that voices many of the same concerns that were raised for me last year and asks a lot of the same questions that I’m asking now. A discouraging read for sure, but also a comforting and confirming one to know that others out there are as frustrated as I am (and as many other Fletcher students I’ve met are) who also want to do something to change it.

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I first became interested in human beings’ obsession and utter necessity for notions of order when I read William Faulkner’s “Light in August” – to this day one of my favorite novels of all time. The protagonist of the novel, published in 1932, never comes to peace with his ambiguous background and ethnicity. His entire journey is defined by his search for order, or what some call intellectual equilibrium.

Students of International Relations examine “orders” ad nauseum. We seek to define international orders, or to order the international system. We categorize, we abstract, we group peoples, states, and ideologies. The more I study themes within this field I am coming to conclude that of all man’s vein missions, this ranks right up there. Without neat names or constructs for things that are anything but neatly ordered, it seems we are shackled into inaction.

My thesis – on the topic of semi-states – exposes me to much of this charade. Some refer to these areas (Chechnya, Nagorno-Karabakh, Iraqi Kurdistan, etc.) as de-facto states. The problem with this is that it suggests that they are but a stop along the inalienable path to statehood as we think we know it (i.e. that which exists in most of Europe and part of the Americas but which otherwise is a foreign construct to most). Scholars continue to suggest, and perhaps my use of semi-states is guilty of the same sin, that the best way to define an occurrence is through its contextualized relationship with a state-nation. It is here that we willfully don blinders – not for the sake of clarity but for escape from dissonance.

Removing these veils, however, reveals a far more dynamic international “system”. Now we can recognize a whole gamut of realities – some utterly frightening but others with opportunities we have not even started to envision. My co-conspirator and travel partner to Iraqi Kurdistan, Matthew Edmundson, and I are recognizing some features of these semi-states which could offer great lessons to the development and security fields. From innovative governance structures, entrepreneurial business relations with a world that does not recognize their existence, and sophisticated statecraft, places from Hargeysa to Arbil might be redefining the “rules” of the game right before our eyes. If we could only keep them open…

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