It's a global climate solution — if it can get past conspiracy theories and NIMBYs

Carlos Moreno, a Franco-Colombian urbanist, has been helping spread the idea of 15-minute cities — where people can access key things in their life within a short walk, bike ride or transit ride of their home. But the climate solution is seeing huge challenges, including conspiracy theories.

October 8, 2023
By  Julia Simon
NPR

PARIS — In the 11th arrondissement, a middle-to-working class neighborhood in the east of Paris, if you walk out your front door, you can arrive at a preschool in one minute. A bookstore in three minutes. A cheese store in four minutes. Baguette for that cheese? Bakery's across the street.

Grocery store and pharmacy, five minutes. Parks, restaurants, metro stops, a hospital: all within a 15-minute walk. I know this because I used to live there, on a tiny cobblestone street with buildings covered in vines.

This is a 15-minute city, says Carlos Moreno, a professor at University of Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne, who met me on the banks of the Seine River. Moreno says that in a 15-minute city, a person can access key things in their life — work, food, schools and recreation — within a short walk, bike, or transit ride of their home.

My former Paris street and much of the neighborhood were built in this dense way more than 150 years ago. But this old idea of areas with many amenities close by has now evolved into an urban planning model gaining popularity with politicians around the world. Moreno says that's because it not only improves quality of life, but 15-minute cities can also reduce cars' planet-warming greenhouse gases. Transportation accounts for about 20% of global energy-related carbon dioxide pollution, with cars making up almost 10%, according to the International Energy Agency.

In recent years, Moreno has been helping mayors put this idea to use, particularly the mayor of Paris, Anne Hidalgo. Paris is converting old military buildings and old parking structures into mixed-use buildings with apartments, retail and office space. Parisian neighborhoods are opening new parks and community gardens and expanding hours for child care nurseries. And the city has built more than 600 miles of protected bike lanes. "What is important is creating a roadmap for the transformation of the city," Moreno says.

Now the 15-minute city idea is spreading with mayors in the United States, including Justin Bibb, the 36-year-old mayor of Cleveland, Ohio, who made building 15-minute cities one of his top priorities when he came into office last year. But this climate solution is running into obstacles, from zoning regimes that prioritize single-family homes to conspiracy theories that have stirred up death threats for the idea's proponents.

"We're trying to retrofit suburbia," says Michael Brilliot, deputy director for citywide planning for San Jose, Calif. "It really is like trying to turn an ocean liner."

Paris is using the 15-minute city as part of a broader strategy to cut back on cars and air pollution, says François Croquette, the city's director for climate and ecology.A tale of two cities 4,000 miles apart

Moreno says focusing on the way people want to live is key to successfully introducing a 15-minute city approach to an area. For example, besides reducing planet-heating emissions, there are lots of "co-benefits" for people who live in 15-minute cities, he says. Infrastructure that prioritizes walking, biking and public transit means less noise from cars and more safety for pedestrians and bikers. Less air pollution from cars and daily routines with more walking and biking promote health. More parks and urban trees can pull carbon dioxide from the air, provide shade, and cool down neighborhoods — all increasingly important as the planet warms.

And redesigning cities where homes are mixed in with businesses can drive more foot traffic to those businesses, Moreno says. "That is why our concept is liked by many mayors," Moreno says. "We are proposing climate solutions that generate more economic activity."

 A1 5-minute city gives you an amazing baseline to prioritize people.                                                   Jason Bibb, mayor of Cleveland

Moreno is agnostic as to whether people travel by foot, bike or public transit. And he has a loose definition for 15 minutes. "It can be 10 or 18," Moreno says. "What is important is the proximity to accessing services."

Paris is using the 15-minute city as part of a broader strategy to reduce the number of cars and amount of air pollution, says François Croquette, the city's director for climate and ecology. This includes converting streets away from cars and increasing infrastructure for bikers and pedestrians. Since 2011, Paris has reduced the amount of car traffic by about 45% and nitrogen oxide pollution — a common type of car pollution — by about 40%, Croquette says.

Croquette says the 15-minute city, or "la ville du quart d'heure," is now part of Paris' climate plan. "Our plan has been to use ville du quart d'heure as leverage to get closer to net zerogoals," he says.

The Clichy-Batignolles neighborhood in the north of Paris has built more high-density apartments in addition to green spaces and access to amenities.
Paris' experience with 15-minute cities reached Cleveland Mayor Justin Bibb in March 2020. Back then, in the early days of the pandemic, Bibb was a banker, stuck at home at his apartment in downtown Cleveland. He was poking around online when he found an article about the mayor of Paris and the 15-minute cities she was promoting.

"I read up on it. I'm like, 'Oh, the dots are connecting for me now,'" Bibb says. He thought about when he went to college in Washington, D.C., and would catch a bus to the grocery store. He thought about studying abroad in London, when he would walk to classes and restaurants, or take a bus to the barbershop. And he thought about growing up in Cleveland and his old neighborhood, with many amenities within a 15-minute walk.

"It really showed me that when you think about urban planning," Bibb says, "a 15-minute city gives you an amazing baseline to prioritize people."

Bibb says when he came into office last year, "first thing we did was we conducted our own internal 15-minute city index. To really examine from a data-driven perspective, what parts of our city would we consider a 15-minute city?"

It turned out that many parts of Cleveland had amenities within a 15-minute walk, bus or bike ride. The problem, Bibb said, was the quality of those amenities, like grocery stores and parks. And the quality of the transport infrastructure, like buses, bike lanes and sidewalks.

Cleveland was once the fifth-largest American city. Now it is around the 54th, shrunk in the past 70-plus years by white flight and a loss of manufacturing jobs. Today, Bibb sees a way back to more density. "We have to reimagine our infrastructure," he says, "to make sure that regardless of where you live in Cleveland, you have a 15-minute city with high-quality amenities."

But Bibb and other politicians are encountering big obstacles in their pursuit of higher-density cities where residents are less reliant on cars.

A protester demonstrates against 15-minute cities in Oxford, England, in February 2023. Fifteen-minute cities have gotten drawn into a conspiracy that global elites are trying to restrict people's movements and create open-air prisons.Martin Pope/Getty Images


Conspiracy theories mean urban planners are getting death threats

Conspiracy theories are a growing problem for 15-minute cities. For Duncan Enright, a councilor in West Oxfordshire in the United Kingdom, the problems started at a community meeting in fall 2022. Enright and his colleagues have been trying to introduce a type of bus priority lanes to car-congested central Oxford to reduce emissions and address local air pollution.

At the fall meeting, Enright saw a group of attendees he didn't recognize. One of them stood up and asked about 15-minute cities. "To be honest, first I'd ever heard of that phrase," Enright says.

The group grew so agitated that they stopped the meeting. "They were explaining all about this theory about world government via the World Economic Forum trying to institute this policy everywhere of '15-minute cities,'" Enright recalls, "by which they meant you would only be able to travel 15 minutes from your home."

Enright couldn't understand why the bus priority lanes were getting mixed up with a conspiracy theory about 15-minute cities that restrict people's movements. "My job is to make travel easier so people can go wherever they like to find opportunity: jobs, education," he says. "Not to stop people going more than 15 minutes."

Yet the conspiracy theory that 15-minute cities are a way for the global elite to contain people in open-air prisons took off in the past year, says Jennie King, head of climate research and policy at the Institute for Strategic Dialogue in London, a nonprofit that studies extremism.

"Fifteen-minute cities is the latest victim in a broader trend," King says. "The unifying theme of a lot of these attacks and conspiracies is that climate change is being used as a pretext to strip people of their civil liberties."

Some prominent right-wing podcasters, including Canadian psychologist Jordan Peterson and Joe Rogan, have brought up the conspiracy theory on their shows. Last month, Rogan talked about 15-minute cities on his show. "You'll essentially be contained unless you get permission to leave," Rogan said. "That's the idea they're starting to roll out in Europe."

Now the language of this 15-minute conspiracy theory has made its way to some of the highest levels of the British government. Last week at the U.K.'s Conservative Party conference, the country's transport secretary, Mark Harper, said he was "calling time on the misuse of so-called 15-minute cities."

"What is sinister and what we shouldn't tolerate," Harper said, "is the idea that local councils can decide how often you go to the shops and that they ration who uses the roads and when, and they police it all with CCTV."

While Oxford plans to use cameras for these lanes that prioritize buses over private cars, it is false that local governments in the U.K. are deciding how often people can go shopping or restricting people's freedom of movement.


NPR'S CLIMATE WEEK: A SEARCH FOR SOLUTIONS
Climate solutions are necessary. So we're dedicating a week to highlight them

Pyrra Technologies, a company that monitors misinformation on smaller social media sites, pulled data for NPR that showed more than 5,000 posts about 15-minute cities in the past year. These posts spiked during events like the fires in Maui in August and the February derailment of a train in Ohio, with posters saying — falsely — that these were planned events to kick people off their land and into 15-minute cities. Cleveland Mayor Justin Bibb says one of his city planners received online attacks for the city's promotion of 15-minute cities.

In February, thousands of protesters gathered in Oxford decrying the proposed bus priority lanes, which they saw as an onramp to draconian societal controls. Enright and his colleagues began receiving strange messages, phone calls and, eventually, death threats.

The protests in the U.K. brought more attention to the man behind the 15-minute city idea, Carlos Moreno. Around this time, Moreno also began receiving death threats. "With the death threats it was a little more difficult to bear psychologically because it wasn't just me anymore, but my wife, my daughters," Moreno says. "So it was heavier."

The problem, Enright says, is that the prevalence of conspiracy theories is complicating his local climate work by muddying legitimate criticisms of the bus priority lane rollout with untruths.

King says that's a deliberate outcome. She notes that a lot of disinformation around climate change has moved from denying that global warming exists, to attacks on climate solutions.

"It actually doesn't matter if 99% of the public believe in climate change," King says. "If they are still confused about the viable pathways forward, or you're able to embed real fear and seeds of doubt about the solutions that are on the table, you end up with the same outcome, which is no legislative agenda, no meaningful policy proposals, no local action."

Falafel's Drive In is on a car-friendly boulevard in San Jose, Calif., where we struggled to cross the four lanes of traffic by foot. San Jose is trying to build denser neighborhoods, but it's a challenge.  Other obstacles for 15-minute cities include zoning, schools and NIMBYs

Many U.S. cities see potential benefits for implementing the 15-minute city model. But America has huge obstacles to creating higher-density urban living that have long been woven into public policy.

Lots of those obstacles can be found in California's third-largest city, San Jose. I met Brilliot, a planner for the city of San Jose, at Falafel's Drive In. It's on car-friendly Stevens Creek Boulevard, where we struggled to cross the four lanes of traffic by foot.

Some challenges to building 15-minute cities across the U.S. are financial. Many banks are still reluctant to provide loans for mixed-use developments, because they are still a relatively uncommon way to build communities. Other barriers have to do with parking: Many cities require that developers make parking spots when they build new housing or businesses, and that takes up space and diminishes neighborhood density. And some obstacles involve public schools, says Carrie Makarewicz, an urban and regional planning professor at University of Colorado, Denver.

When urban U.S. couples have kids, they often leave cities for suburbs, which they think have better schools, she says. "If we want regional sustainability, we have to look to these urban places and why aren't people staying in them and thriving in them, and a lot of it comes back down to the urban schools," Makarewicz says.

But one of the biggest obstacles to creating 15-minute cities in the U.S. is zoning restrictions, says Jonathan Levine, professor of urban and regional planning at University of Michigan. "The single-family zone absolutely dominates residential land in all of our metropolitan areas."

The prevalence of single-family zoning traces back to policies of segregation. For much of the 20th century, federal loan guarantees were fundamentally restricted to whites and were mostly geared toward building single-family homes.

Single-family zoning reduces neighborhood density, because you can't fit as many people on a lot with a house compared to a lot with an apartment or a duplex, Levine says. And single-family zoning often precludes establishing nearby retail businesses, which are the amenities that make 15-minute cities possible.

Brilliot says he's seen the limits of zoning firsthand. San Jose is working on a project called "urban villages," their version of 15-minute cities, he says. Brilliot and I drove to the new urban villages — apartment buildings with both low income and "market rate" units and some amenities close by.

We parked and walked along the tree-lined pedestrian-friendly passageway that connects the new buildings, past a playground, a dog park and benches. Along the other side of the building is a nail salon, a coffee shop and a popular brunch spot.

But once we left the quiet, tree-lined street, we were back in a loud, car-dominated area. Surrounding us were blocks and blocks of single-family homes.

Brilliot explains that the urban villages are in a special corridor of "mixed-use" zoning sandwiched in between single-family zoning. "These properties here were developed because they're on the corridor, but going south of here into the single-family neighborhood," Brilliot says. "Generally, that's the approach. We don't — for the most part — plan to encroach in the single-family neighborhood."

The problem is there's only so much land zoned for mixed uses in San Jose. About 94% of residential land in San Jose is zoned for single-family homes, Brilliot says. He says they'll eventually have to think about converting neighborhoods full of single-family properties into higher-density developments, including duplexes and fourplexes.

Michael Brilliot, deputy director for citywide planning for San Jose, Calif., is building urban villages — with a mix of apartments and amenities nearby. He says it's the city's version of 15-minute cities. Most of San Jose is dominated by single-family neighborhoods that aren't so dense.

Many challenges to rezoning to build things like 15-minute-cities can come from the communities themselves, says Fernando Burga, assistant professor of urban planning at the University of Minneso


Some of this comes as "not in my backyard," or NIMBY, attitudes, sometimes called "neighborhood defenders," Levine says.

Burga notes that his city, Minneapolis, is currently seeing a legal challenge to the 2018 plan to end single-family zoning. The Minneapolis challenge comes primarily from environmentalists, who see new apartments posing a threat to wildlife migration. "There is this vein of NIMBYism in the American psyche, arguably," Burga says.

But Burga adds that given the history of U.S. urban planning, which includes paving over predominantly Black neighborhoods for freeways, some mistrust of planners is understandable.

"I would be remiss in demonizing NIMBYists," Burga says. "I can have my reasons why I don't agree with them, but I think it's more productive to bring them to a conversation."

Along the Seine River in Paris, cars used to zoom by making noise and pollution. Now the city has converted some streets along the Seine into places for pedestrians and restaurants.15-minute cities are not predestined; they take political will
Levine says when Americans visit a place like Paris or Amsterdam and experience 15-minute cities, what they are experiencing wasn't inevitable.

"The result that many Americans find desirable — 'Wow, isn't it wonderful? We go to Europe, we can walk, we can take the bus, we can take the train, etc.' — is a policy choice. It's not preordained," Levine says.

Much of Europe was just as enamored with cars after World War II as the U.S. was, Levine says. But European cities like Amsterdam and Paris — and other cities like Seoul and Mexico City — have deliberately chosen to move away from cars.

The COVID-19 pandemic showed that some urban spaces can get transformed away from cars in a relatively quick period, says Farzaneh Bahrami, a professor of urban design and mobility at the University of Groningen in the Netherlands. "We have seen that we can make radical changes if we see the urgency," she says.

But not all political leaders and communities see the urgency of addressing global warming or the housing crisis, she says.
And Moreno says there isn't a varita mágica, or magic wand. "There's no magic wand to 'poof!' transform it," he says. "It's a question of political will."

UK

The Forward March of Nationalism Halted? 

OCTOBER 8, 2023LABOUR HUB EDITORS

The result of the Rutherglen and Hamilton West by-election has far more to do with Nationalist decline than Labour advance – but the impact could still be huge, argues Stephen Low

By-elections are traditionally discussed in terms of swings – and there were a few big ones to shout here. It’s entirely of a piece with current Scottish politics that the biggest and most significant one got the least discussion. That was the swing from ‘voter’ to ‘non-voter’.

The reality is that Labour’s victory stems not from any sort of advance but from SNP failure. Labour claimed victory on Thursday with fewer votes than the party obtained when losing the seat in 2019.  

That makes Anas Sarwar’s description of it as “seismic” a bit  hyperbolic. That said, It wasn’t the most eyebrow-raising reaction from a party leader. The SNP’s Humza Yousaf takes that prize with “disappointing”. Monty Python’s Black Knight declaring “it’s only a flesh wound” springs to mind.

This was a by-election that was called for rather than called, being the result not of a death or resignation – but a recall petition. This in itself put the SNP on the back foot before the start.

Labour selected in May. As is now standard, various strong local candidates were ruled out before shortlisting. This allowed the emergence of Michael Shanks. There were some raised eyebrows that someone who had left the party and voted for the Lib Dems at the last general election should be the candidate.

While we were out trying to elect a Labour government committed to tackling fundamental problems, Mr Shanks was voting for privatisation and against better rights at work. Knowing this might incline people to develop a dim view of his capacities. This would be unfair. As mild as Fairy Liquid, he managed to go through a long by-election without saying anything at all that was either noteworthy or memorable – no small achievement. He now becomes Scottish Labour’s second MP, joining Ian Murray – best known for practising a speech at the rehearsal of the launch of the defecting Labour MP group TIG (The Independent Group) – but failing to turn up at the actual event.

The scale of Labour’s win took everyone, including those running the campaign by surprise. However, it isn’t based on Labour’s achievement but rather a quite breathtaking drop in SNP support. Turnout in the seat dropped from 66.5% in 2019 to a mere 37.2% this week. This scarcely impacted on Labour whose vote dropped by a mere 700. The SNP, however, were in freefall dropping 15 376 votes. The Tories – never in contention here – dropped from 8,094 to a deposit-losing 1,192.

Humza Yousaf points to the what we could charitably call the unfortunate circumstances of Margaret Ferrier’s departure , the recent police investigation into the SNP’s finances and tactical voting as factors. That schools in the constituency  – and across three-quarters of Scotland  – were closed by striking UNISON members for three days the week before probably didn’t help.

There are any number of local  and even national factors that can be pleaded in mitigation, although if anyone can discern significant  tactical voting in that result, it means Labour’s capacity to enthuse its own support is in a very bad way. Those local and national events may even be sufficient to explain a defeat. They can’t, though, explain a catastrophic failure on this level.

It goes without saying that anyone saying ‘If this swing were repeated…” after a by-election is fantasising, not forecasting. It is also the case though that by-elections can highlight things  – and what was highlighted on Thursday is the nature of the trouble the SNP are in – and hint at its scale.

SNP travails aren’t anything to do with a drop in support for Independence. Polling indicates Scotland remains almost equally divided between ‘Fannies for Freedom’ and ‘Bawheids for Britain’ with a small but crucial number of ‘don’t knows’ denying either side a convincing, or any, majority. What has changed is the salience of that issue. It is now an issue rather than the issue. Indy supporters still want to wrap themselves in saltires, but many of them are now prepared to put other issues ahead of that – things like tackling the cost of living crisis, or getting rid of the Tories.

There are doubtless several reasons for this. One of them, though, is the prospect of Independence has receded. The SNP have at every parliamentary election since 2015 promised that a vote for them will deliver another Indyref. They won these elections – but made little to no effort to fulfil this promise.

That tactic has run its course and as I’ve argued here before – it was an understanding of that more than any other issue that prompted Nicola Sturgeon’s departure. The SNP now have no real plan for how independence will be achieved. The “independence strategy” motion being put to their conference next week lacks credibility and coherence. The electoral consequences of this could be massive.

Without the motivational tool of imminent Independence there is a real prospect of, as they did on Thursday, the nationalist electorate sitting on its hands. This could have an impact across the UK as it puts many Scottish seats in Labour’s grasp. We have seen on a smaller scale how this plays out.

In 2017 Labour saw the ‘Corbyn surge’ across the UK. This didn’t happen in Scotland  – the then leadership did everything possible to distance themselves from JC. We did, however, go from one seat to seven. This had little to do with Labour efforts – it was achieved with a grand total of 9,200 extra votes in the whole of Scotland. What happened was that over 400 000 previously SNP voters stayed at home. This is the pattern of the Rutherglen result.

If this indicates a trend and Labour can gain even homeopathic levels of support away from other parties, then dozens of seats across the central belt of Scotland where Labour are challengers begin to look very winnable indeed. If that’s the case, winning at a UK level is much, much easier.

 Stephen Low is a member of Glasgow Southside CLP. He is a former member of Labour’s Scottish Executive and part of the Red Paper Collective 

Image: Anas Sarwar. https://www.flickr.com/photos/scottishlabour/3931524913. Creator: Scottish Labour  Copyright: GUS CAMPBELL PHOTOGRAPHY. Licence: CC BY-NC-ND 2.0 DEED Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 2.0 Generic

Russian Prisons Won’t Change Until Russia Does, Karetnikova Says

Russian Prisons Won’t Change Until Russia Does, Karetnikova Says

            Staunton, Oct. 4 – Anna Karetnikova, who worked as a Memorial human rights defender between 2002 and 2023 with particular attention to conditions in Russian penal institutions before fleeting the country after being threatened with arrest, says that Russian prisons won’t change until Russia as a whole because penal institutions inevitably reflect what society is like does.

            She describes her work in a new interview (cherta.media/interview/tyurma-ne-izmenitsya-poka-ne-izmenitsya-strana/) as well as in a book which the Russian authorities are now removing from libraries (The Route. Social Control of Penal Institutions: Eight Years without the Right to Stop (in Russian; Moscow: Memorial, 2018, 268 pp., full text at memohrc.org/sites/all/themes/memo/templates/pdf.php?pdf=/sites/default/files/marshrut_s.pdf).

            In both, she makes important points about the way in which prisons in Russia today reflect not only the broader society but also a Russian past that the jailors do not feel any need to get rid of and that many others do not understand how it continues to inform what happens in that country behind bars.

            Specifically, Karetnikova points out that Memorial divided its work into two parts, historical and human rights defense. “I underestimated the role of the historical direction,” she says. “For me, it was always a little boring: why should we be talking about what happened in 1937 all the time?”

            “But now I have understood. If those events had been understood, if sentences and punishments of those responsible had been possible, then, a greater part of our society would have developed an immunity to the impact of television. This is very important work, but unfortunately, it was missed.”

            She suggests that rights activists should have known better given how important the Kremlin views such activities and tries to block them

Repression of Spontaneous Protests in 2018-2019 Cost Moscow and Magas Trust of the Ingush People, Mutsolgov Says

            Staunton, Oct. 4 – For almost all residents of the Russian Federation, Oct. 4 this year is the 30^th anniversary of Boris Yeltsin’s use of force to suppress the Russian parliament, an action that returned the country to the authoritarian path that has achieved fully flower in the regime of Vladimir Putin.

            But for Ingush, this date is being remembered as the fifth anniversary of spontaneous popular protests against the decision of the Ingush leadership at the time with Chechnya’s Ramzan Kadyrov to give away ten percent of the country’s smallest republic (fortanga.org/2023/10/godovshhina-nachala-ingushskogo-protesta-kak-eto-bylo-i-k-chemu-privelo/).

            Participants and opposition leaders are recalling three things in particular: First, that the Ingush people despite years of repression went into the streets in the tens of thousands to protest what the Moscow-imposed leaders had done to them and continued to do in the course of the nearly year-long protest movement.

            Second, that the leaders of the opposition were caught off guard by the rise of the protests and many who took part in the demonstrations were upset by the willingness of those opposition leaders not behind bars at the time to negotiate with the powers that be rather than take things to the end.

            And third, that the protests against the border agreement quickly overcame all divisions within society and allowed the previous largely quiescent population to take to the streets and organize itself rather than rely on activists of any kind, a pattern that the Ingush and others hope can be repeated.

The response of the authorities in Moscow and Magas was repression which quieted the streets of Ingushetia but at a terrible price. According to one opposition figure, Magomed Mutsolgov, “as a result, Ingush society finally lost trust in the regional and federal powers.” Five years on, as repression continues, that has not changed.

Yeltsin’s Use of Force against Parliament in October 1993 Set Stage for Rise of Putin, Gromov Says

            Staunton, Oct. 4 – With each passing year, it becomes more obvious that the events of the end of September and beginning of October 1993 when Boris Yeltsin used force against the Russian parliament and essentially solidified presidentialist rule in Russia were “one of the key turning points in present-day Russia,” Andrey Gromov says.

            Indeed, the Russian journalist suggests, they more than anything else set the stage for the rise of Vladimir Putin, an outcome that few of those in Russia or in Western governments who backed Yeltsin at the time really wanted or understood would be the result (cherta.media/interview/sobytiya-1993-putinskij-rezhim/).

            Thirty years on, Gromov continues, it is clear that what happened then was “the main tragedy of post-Soviet Russia” and that it is completely accurate to describe what happened then as “the birthday of the Putin regime,” an ironic consequence because the defenders of the Russian White House mostly consisted of people who back what Putin stands for.

            Those who attacked the White House said they were doing so to strengthen Russian democracy but in fact they undermined it in critical ways by showing their lack of respect for the institutions of democracy which require that all parts of the government work together rather than one dictating the outcomes for all.

            Gromov says that he still believes that the Russian Supreme Soviet was conducting a destructive and irresponsible policy and that Yeltsin and his team were defending necessary reforms. “But for the future of Russia, it wasn’t this that turned out to be important.” Rather it was the concentration of power in the hands of the president.

            “But even this was not the most important thing,” the journalist continues. “Up to October 3, there were numerous attempts to find a compromise” with representatives of both sides meeting together. But then Yeltsin decided to end them by the use of tanks, precisely what has become “the model of the Putin regime.”

Kenya’s Haiti mission facing uncertain costs despite UN nod


SUNDAY OCTOBER 08 2023

Police recruits march during a pass out parade at Kiganjo Training College in Nyeri County, Kenya 

By AGGREY MUTAMBO
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By MARY WAMBUI
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The United Nations Security Council may have approved Kenya-led Multinational Security Support mission (MSS) to Haiti, but the cost of deploying the troops is something that may not be known until later next year.

On Monday, the UNSC passed Resolution 2699/23 to a vote of 13 and 2 abstentions. It paved the way for Kenya to deploy its pledged 1,000 police personnel. Other countries Jamaica, Antigua and Bermuda and the Bahamas were listed as having volunteered to send personnel too. Mongolia, Spain, Senegal and Belize had also expressed support while Canada has pledged to join the US in fundraising for the Mission.


The Council asked member states and regional organisations to “contribute personnel, equipment, and necessary financial and logistic resources based upon the urgent needs of the Multinational Security Support mission.”

Read: UN approves nations to deploy police to Haiti

Though mandated by the UN, the Mission may not directly get funding from the security funding channels of the global organisation, signaling that it will instead rely on donor support and other voluntary contributions from member states.

The Council indicated that the UN Secretary-General “may provide logistical support packages to the MSS, when requested by the MSS and MSS donors, subject to the full financial reimbursement to the UN through available voluntary contributions, and in full respect of the United Nations Human Rights Due Diligence Policy (HRDDP).”

Haiti welcomes Kenya offer to bolster security


The Mission’s mandate or viability could be reviewed every periodically “on the understanding that the cost of implementing this temporary operation will be borne by voluntary contribution,” it added.
Technical support

The US, which had drafted the resolution alongside Ecuador, has pledged an initial $100 million in financial assistance and another $100 million in technical support for the Mission. Canada has pledged technical support too.

“We intend to work with Congress to provide $100 million in support. And the Department of Defense is prepared to provide robust enabling support. We call on the rest of the international community to join us. We need more countries to step forward,” Linda Thomas-Greenfield, the US Ambassador to the UN told a telephonic press briefing on October 2.

Read: Kenya, US sign pact to fight terrorism

“If we act with urgency, the mission can deploy within months. And there is no time to waste.”

The MSS came about nearly a year after Haiti formally requested external assistance to combat the gang violence. But Russia and China abstained from the vote, arguing elevating the deployment Chapter VII of the UN Charter was a bar too high, and that the lack of a stable government was likely to worsen the situation.

The Mission will work alongside Haitian National Police including training and equipping local officers “to counter gangs and improve security conditions in Haiti, characterised by kidnappings, sexual and gender-based violence, trafficking in persons and the smuggling of migrants and arms, homicides, extrajudicial killings, and recruitment of children by armed groups and criminal networks.”
Critical installations

MSS will also guard critical installations such as the main airport, seaport and schools and hospitals but will be compelled to use force only when proportionate. The leadership of the Mission will also be required to table periodic reports, and strategy to combat rights violations and will be encouraged to use community policing.

Read: Kenya promises different ‘footprint’ in Haiti

As such, all UN member states will, for the next one year, be barred from selling or transferring armed to Haiti.

The Council directed that necessary measures be taken to prevent such dealings but that any formal transfer of arms be only to the mandated Haitian authorities.

The cost of the MSS is likely to be higher as it will incorporate health and environmental conservation components as well as humanitarian support arms.

This week, Kenya said it was ready to deploy, indicating it is something it loves doing.

“It is very sad that at one time we were country number four at peace keeping missions over the years we are now at number 41
Three months ago, parliament passed the National Peace Support Operations Fund) Regulations, 2023 that creates the National Peace Support Operations Fund, into which the government is expected to contribute Ksh1 billion ($6.9 million).

The money will go towards supporting the operations of Kenyan troops in the countries they are deployed to.

Funds related to the participation of Kenyan troops in various missions were always paid from the Consolidated Fund making it difficult for the Ministry of Defence to support such troops’ operations.
Seasoned peacekeepers

In the past, Kenya participated in peacekeeping missions in 44 peacekeeping missions globally, including the African Union Transition Mission in Somalia (Atmis), East African Community Regional Force in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, UN Transition Assistant Group in Namibia, the UN Protection Force in Croatia.

Read: Kenya-Haiti mission faces controversy over legality

The deployment set to kick off in January next year has sparked controversy owing to the odds facing the officers. President William Ruto promised to leave a “different footprint” in Haiti, drawing lessons from past failed interventions.

Amnesty International UK Executive Director Sacha Deshmukh added that any intervention force anywhere around the world needs to have ground support from the citizens it’s going to protect which stems from the locals understanding that the intervening force has a deep understanding of the country’s human rights and context of the situation they are setting themselves up for.

“I would genuinely question the deployment of an intervention force that doesn’t have that level of understanding. We have seen in history that such an intervention can come in and add new safety issues in the location where they are intervening and that is definitely my concern with this one,” he said.

Some observers say Kenya should be given benefit of the doubt, given the officers have dealt with local gangs before, albeit controversially.
Marauding gangs

“The mission should not enter Haiti with a binary approach of an enemy to vanquish and a government to prop up. The mission should simply do what President Ruto recommended, that it should “solely provide an appropriate environment for the leadership…to usher in stability, development, and democratic governance, through a political framework owned and driven by the people of Haiti,” said Nasong’o Muliro, a foreign policy and security specialist at the Global Centre for Policy and Strategy think-tank in Nairobi.

Read: Kenya faces scrutiny over Haiti mission

“However, the existential threat to Kenya police and the multinational mission is not the marauding gangs, but the sincerity of its backers – the USA. The matter that needs unequivocal assurance is whether the USA has genuinely resolved to see Haiti return to a functional state by fully supporting Kenya and the mission.”

Kenya’s team is set to comprise of units from its special Administration Police Service including those from Border Patrol Unit (BPU), Rapid Deployment Unit (RDU) and the General Service Unit (GSU) who are neither conversant with the local terrain nor the local languages making the mission a risky affair not just to the locals but to the officers themselves some analysts have argued.

Haiti's revolution was betrayed by greed, graft AND AMERICN IMPERIALI$M

MONDAY OCTOBER 09 2023


People march as tires burn during a protest in Port-au-Prince, Haiti on August 7, 2023. 

By TEE NGUGI
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The United Nations Security Council has approved deployment of Kenya-led international mission to Haiti to curb gang violence. The gangs have taken over most of the capital and countryside.

They control some government assets, disrupt normal functioning of the state, and have transformed life in that country into a violent Hobbesian dystopia.


The social contract in which, according to English philosopher John Locke, individuals agree to a set of rules, and in return the state guarantees them certain rights, among them security, has broken down.

What is left is Thomas Hobbes’ apocalyptic vision, where “everyone fears and mistrusts everyone else, and there can be no justice, no arts, no letters, no society, and worst of all, continual fear, and danger of violent death, and the life of man, solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short.”

There are two ironies about the mission to Haiti. One: Kenya, a country with a high crime rate and some regions made lawless by bandits, sending police to curb gang violence in Haiti. Two: Haiti, which gained independence in 1804, requiring the help of a country that got its independence in 1963, 159 years later.

Related

Ruto urges UN to back security support for Haiti

Kenya-Haiti mission faces controversy over legality


Haiti declared its independence from France after a successful slave revolt. That insurrection against Napoleon’s France, then the most powerful military force in the world, remains one of the most heroic struggles in history. The revolution was led by a visionary, Toussaint Louverture. However, the French tricked him into trap, arrested and jailed him in France, where he died.

Those who succeeded him as leaders of the revolution and later the independent nation of Haiti did not have his insight and foresight and presided over the downward spiral.

In all the years it has been independent, Haiti has only known murderous despotism, economic collapse, violence and grinding poverty. The taking over of the country by violent gangs is the coup de grace. It signifies that the country is only such by name. To pretend otherwise is to participate in a convenient lie.

Read: Kenya promises different ‘footprint’ in Haiti

Haiti’s administrative institutions, its civic organisation, its ability to respond to disasters or dispense justice and services to its people have broken down.

The international police force might succeed in defeating the gangs. But that victory, if at all realised, can only be temporary. Gangs taking over a country is symptomatic of more fundamental problems.

Therefore, the international community will have to address broken governance institutions, morally decrepit political leadership, economic stagnation, deeply entrenched culture of corruption, desperate poverty, and breakdown of law and order.

Hopefully, addressing these issues will restore confidence in Haitians about their own country, attract foreign investment, and grow tourism. It will encourage highly-trained Haitians in the diaspora to return and staff revived institutions. This revival would rekindle the spirit of Toussaint Louverture.

Haiti’s downward spiral has a lesson for Africa: Continue with morally corrupt leadership and theft of public resources, and Haiti’s fate will be your future.


Tee Ngugi is a Nairobi-based political commentator.

Uganda suspends operations at Chinese-operated oilfield


SUNDAY OCTOBER 08 2023

The oil rig for the Kingfisher development area in Kikuube district in Uganda on January 24, 2023. Uganda says its oil dream is alive despite intensified criticism from several groups. PHOTO | STUART TIBAWESWA | AFPADVERTISEMENT

By JULIUS BARIGABA
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The Petroleum Authority Uganda (PAU) on October 7 suspended all operations at the Chinese-operated Kingfisher oilfield over safety concerns, after a fatal accident on October 6.

The Authority announced the development after a tragic motor vehicle accident that occurred at the Kingfisher Project Development Area in Kikuube District.

Ernest Rubondo, PAU executive director, which regulates the oil and gas sector, said the accident is unacceptable coming after several other incidents that the agency has previously brought to the attention of CNOOC Uganda Ltd (CUL).

"The purpose of this letter is therefore to direct that in accordance with Section 177 of the Petroleum (Exploration, Development and Production) Act, 2013 CUL halts all Kingfisher field development operations from 00.00 hours on Saturday 7th October 2023 until further notice," reads the letter signed by Mr Rubondo.

In a statement, Gloria Sebikari, PAU corporate affairs manager, confirmed that the October 6 incident resulted in the loss of the life of one of the sub-contractor's staffer.

On October 8, the PAU called a meeting of all top executives of joint venture partners, CNOOC, TotalEnergies and Uganda National Oil Company, to review the matter and guide on the fate of the ongoing oilfield developments. ADVERTISEMENT

The CNOOC-operated Kingfisher project is one of Uganda's oilfields that are currently in intensified drilling works to be ready for oil production in 2025. It will produce 40,000 barrels of oil per day, while the TotalEnergies-operated Tilenga project will produce 190,000 bpd at peak production.

Sudan army's Burhan, RSF's Daglo face war atrocities charges

MONDAY OCTOBER 09 2023


A man stands by as a fire rages in a livestock market area in al-Fasher, the capital of Sudan's North Darfur state, in the aftermath of bombardment by the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces on September 1, 2023. 

By AGGREY MUTAMBO
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Sudan’s warring factions are facing new pressure to end the war after rights groups lobbied the UN Human Rights Council to establish a taskforce on atrocities, potentially harming the shuttle diplomacy of junta leader Abdel Fattah al-Burhan who has been seeking legitimacy over his rival Mohamed Hamdani Daglo ‘Hemedti’.

And the situation now places Khartoum where Ethiopia was two years ago after activists lobbied for the creation of a panel of experts to investigate war crimes in Tigray.


Last week, 17 rights groups across Africa wrote to the UN Human Rights Council, asking that such a team be established to place warlords at the crime scene and save the country from collapsing.

Read: Sudan rival factions blame each other of bombing embassy

“We urge the (UN Human Rights) Council members to support the establishment of this mission to increase Sudanese people’s access to justice and accountability and enhance the chances of creating a transitional justice process that will support the efforts of peace-making in Sudan,” they wrote in an open letter on Wednesday.

These include Sudanese Doctors for Human Rights, Governance Programming Overseas, Sudanese Women Rights Action, International Bar Association’s Human Rights Institute, African Center for Democracy and Human Rights Studies, International Federation for Human Rights, Southern African Human Rights Defenders Network (Southern Defenders), Centre for Democracy and Human Rights – CDD Mozambique and Cairo Institute for Human Rights Studies.

Dengue fever kills hundreds in Sudan, medics say

They argued that the war in Sudan is “one of the worst humanitarian crises” at the moment and warring factions have closed access routes to humanitarian service for the vulnerable including women and children.

“The absence of the state institutions and the rule of law led to worsening human rights violations in the country. Local justice systems and law enforcement institutions collapsed and have not functioned in most of Sudan since the war erupted.

“There is an essential need for the establishment of an independent and international fact-finding mission to investigate human rights violations and collect evidence on abuses, GBV crimes and alleged war crimes.”

Read: Sexual violence rampant in Sudan war

More than 5 million people have been displaced, at least 5,000 killed and hundreds of others sexually assaulted, data from UN agencies shows.

This week, the UN Human Rights Council is expected to decide whether a special commission of inquiry is formed to establish atrocities in Sudan, potentially attracting unwanted attention for Burhan who has marketed himself as battling a rebellion from the Rapid Support Forces of Hemedti.

The draft resolution for establishing the Panel of three experts has been circulated by the United Kingdom which argues that both sides have committed atrocities.

Burhan promptly rejected the proposal.

Read: Sudan rejects UN proposal to establish atrocities probe

Sudan has been witnessing deadly clashes between the Sudan Armed Forces (Saf) and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) in Khartoum and other areas since April 15.

Rights groups say mounting violations and atrocities have also been seen in Darfur, Kordofan and Blue Nile states and include “mass killings, sexual violence, ethnically motivated violence in Darfur, forced disappearance and indiscriminate bombardment on civilian areas.”

On Thursday, study by the Islamic Relief charity group warned of rising hunger, poverty and violence against women and children after the war in Sudan.

“Sudan's Ministry of Foreign Affairs reaffirms its categorical rejection of the draft resolution because it is wrong in describing what is happening in Sudan, and because it is prejudiced against the Saf, and does not take into account the real priorities of Sudan at this phase,” Khartoum said in a statement.

Saf under Burhan argue that they are protecting civilians from RSF. But that may not stop members of the Council in their ongoing discussions in Geneva, Switzerland, regarding a draft resolution that has also been backed by the US, Norway, and Germany.
Several nations, including Saudi Arabia, have opted not to endorse the draft resolution. And Sudan will bank on African members such as Gabon, Malawi, Cote d’Ivoire, Eritrea and Cameroon not to endorse the resolution.

If the Panel is set up, Sudan will be subjected to an international mechanism which Khartoum fear will elevate the war to a contest of equals. Burhan has portrayed RSF as a rebel group and says he stripped the group, once considered a paramilitary security unit, of legal status.

Read: Sudan's army general fires his rival deputy

“They have killed, looted, raped, robbed and seized citizens’ homes and properties, and destroyed infrastructure and Government buildings,” Burhan told the UN General Assembly on September 21 in New York, referring to the RSF.

“They attempted to obliterate the history of Sudanese people by destroying museums, court and civil registries. They had released terrorists and people wanted by international courts from prison.”

In his shuttle diplomacy that saw him travel to Egypt, Qatar, Turkey, Eritrea and Uganda, and later in New York, he promised a “a short period of transition during which the current security, humanitarian, and economic conditions and reconstruction are addressed.”

But a Panel could derail his vision of crushing the enemy unhindered. And like Ethiopia during the war with the Tigray People’s Liberation Front (TPLF), a Panel could force Khartoum into unnecessary lobbying beyond the search for legitimacy. Ethiopia sort of managed to weaken the blow of the Panel, including an earlier resignation of members. Addis Ababa later signed a peace deal with TPLF last year and has argued the Panel’s work is no longer necessary.

“Families can’t access food or medicine, women and girls live in constant fear of attack, and communities are being trapped in poverty and debt,” said Elsadig Elnour, Islamic Relief’s Country Director in Sudan.

“Years of progress on reducing maternal mortality and child malnutrition in Darfur are now at risk of being reversed due to the conflict and lack of humanitarian access.”

Read: Hunger, disease stalk Sudan town crowded with displaced

Islamic Relief’s says the findings were compiled from interviews of 384 households in 20 villages in Jabal Marra in Darfur now hosting people fleeing fighting. Some 1.6 million people in Darfur have been displaced within the region since the conflict began.

Last week, the US imposed sanctions on former Sudanese Foreign Minister Ali Karti, Secretary General of the Sudanese Islamic Movement, for fomenting war. Karti served in the government of Omar al-Bashir ousted in 2019. But Washington says he has “led efforts to undermine the former civilian-led transitional government and derail the Framework Political Agreement process.

“He and other former regime officials are now obstructing efforts to reach a ceasefire between the Sudanese Armed Forces and the Rapid Support Forces, mobilising forces to enable continued fighting, and opposing Sudanese civilian efforts to resume Sudan’s stalled democratic transition.”

OUTSOURCING WAR

Kenya paid $17m for Somalia security mission

SUNDAY OCTOBER 08 2023


Soldiers in action during training at the Kenya Defence Forces School of Infantry in Isiolo, Kenya on October 7, 2020. 

PHOTO | JOSEPH KANYI | NMGADVERTISEMENT

By MARY WAMBUI
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Kenya has received Ksh2.5 billion ($17 million) in the past five years for its contribution to the Somalia peacekeeping mission (now known as the African Union Transition Mission in Somalia) whose mandate is set to end in December next year.

Defence Cabinet Secretary Aden Duale told parliament this week that the money was sent to the National Treasury in tranches of Ksh500 million ($3.3 million) annually.


In October 2011, Kenya Defence Forces moved into Somalia to pursue Al Shabaab following a series of kidnappings along the Kenya-Somalia border.

Read: Kenya delays reopening border with Somalia

The following year, the troops were formally integrated into the African Union Mission to Somalia (Amisom) under the United Nations Security Council Resolution 2036. Amisom would later be converted into Atmis with a drawdown plan till December 2024.

Mr Duale further said compensation for dead soldiers in Somalia is settled within 30 days.

Kenya gets $199m for refugee transition plan

“If the officer was serving within the country, they immediately get Ksh4 million ($26, 881) above his pension which has a component called death gratuity. If he was serving under Atmis like in Somalia, apart from the Ksh4 million the AU and the UN give that family Ksh5 million ($33,602),” Duale told the National Assembly without revealing how many soldiers and officers who have died in Somalia.

In their decade’s stay in Somalia, KDF have come under at least three heavy attacks from Al Shabaab, the worst remains the January 2016 attack at a KDF Forward Operating Base in El Adde.
tack

Another attempt was made the following year in Kulbiyow with less casualties and yet another in 2012 at Hoosingo also with less casualties.

The troops have over the years not only destroyed terrorists' cells in Somalia that would have otherwise been used to plan attacks in Kenya but also trained Somali forces, secure the locals and provided medicine, water and educated women on alternative sources of income.

This week, Duale said more than 4,000 KDF troops will be leaving Somalia as scheduled by the UN in spite of the recent request by Somalia to delay scheduled September drawdowns by three months.

Saudi Arabia Railways launches hydrogen train tests

Published: 08 Oct 2023 


Riyadh: Saudi Arabia Railways (SAR) has announced the launch of hydrogen train tests in the Kingdom, following the signing of an agreement with the French company Alstom.

It will conduct operational tests and studies necessary to prepare this type of train to fit the Kingdom's environment, in preparation for its future entry into service, and in compliance with the memorandum of understanding signed by the Ministry of Energy and SAR.

The trials started this October, according to SAR, which said that such trains are the first to be used in the Middle East and North Africa region. On the occasion, SAR stressed the Kingdom's commitment to adopting sustainable transport technologies.

Saudi Press Agency (SPA quoted Minister of Transportation and Logistics and SAR Chairman of the Board of Directors Eng. Saleh Al-Jasser as saying that the step is part of the objectives of the National Transport and Logistics Strategy and plans to move to a more sustainable transport system that adopts the latest smart technologies, stressing that SAR is committed to its leading role in achieving the Saudi Green Initiative, stemming from the Saudi Vision 2030, which stipulates increasing the Kingdom's reliance on clean energy, reducing carbon emissions and protecting the environment.

The certified trials of this type of train began in 2018 in Germany and continued until 2020; commercial operations, limited to passenger transport, began in 2022.

STALINST STATE CAPITALI$M
Vietnam’s Arrest of Environmentalists Draws Fire Amid Surge of Funding for Green Transition

October 08, 2023

VOA News

Activists hold placards during a demonstration as part of the global climate strike week, in Hanoi, Vietnam, on Sept. 27, 2019.

HO CHI MINH CITY, VIETNAM —

A spate of arrests of leading Vietnamese environmentalists is drawing criticism of Hanoi during an infusion of international aid to support the country's shift away from coal.

Police arrested Ngo Thi To Nhien, the executive director of the Vietnam Initiative for Energy Transition Social Enterprise, a Hanoi-based think tank focused on energy transition, in Hanoi on Sept. 20.

She was the sixth environmentalist detained in the past two years and had been involved – with the U.N. Development Program Vietnam office – in implementing a 2022 deal between Vietnam and the G7 countries, EU, Norway and Denmark aimed at shifting Vietnam to cleaner energy sources.

The Just Energy Transition Partnership, or JETP, agreement came after Vietnam committed to reaching net-zero carbon emissions by 2050 at the 2021 U.N. Climate Change Conference.

According to the JETP deal, $15.5 billion in the form of grants, loans, and investment from the public and private sector will go to support Vietnam's transition to green energy sources.

In April, the 88 Project, a U.S.-based nonprofit focused on human rights in Vietnam, released a report on four leading anti-coal campaigners – Dang Dinh Bach, Nguy Thi Khanh, Mai Phan Loi, and Bach Hung Duong – imprisoned for tax evasion since 2021. The report outlines the results of an investigation into the arrests and details closed-door hearings, shows purported flaws in the prosecution, and argues that the tax evasion charge appears to be politically motivated.

Since the report's release, Hoang Thi Minh Hong, former director of environmental advocacy nonprofit CHANGE, has also been jailed for tax evasion.

Public Security Ministry spokesperson To An Xo told reporters Sept. 30 that Nhien had been arrested for appropriating internal documents from state-owned Vietnam Electricity, or EVN. Two EVN energy experts were also arrested, Xo said at the news conference, according to daily newspaper Dan Tri.

The spokesperson also criticized foreign media agencies for "falsely accusing Vietnam of arresting environmental activists."

"The Ministry of Public Security rejects the above distorted allegations, considering it an act of interference in Vietnam's internal affairs," Xo stated. "There is absolutely no arrest of an environmental activist, but purely an arrest for appropriating documents."

Analysts and rights groups, however, point to a broader trend of suppression.

Nguyen Khac Giang, visiting fellow at Singapore’s ISEAS-Yusof Ishak Institute told VOA that while Vietnam commits to climate-friendly initiatives, the arrests of environmentalists show Hanoi's desire to maintain control over energy policy.

"The government is making a statement that the state monopolizes climate change policy and does not want any potential policy interference," Giang wrote over WhatsApp.

The crackdown on climate leaders could harm the transition to cleaner energy sources, a spokesperson from Amnesty International's regional office said.

"Authorities are jailing the very people it should be working with," the spokesperson wrote by email. "The European Union, the United States and Australia must be blunt with Vietnam to ensure that the protection of human rights is incorporated into any agreements and participation to tackle climate change."

Nhien's arrest

Maureen Harris, senior adviser for the California-based environmental and human rights nonprofit International Rivers, said in a statement that Nhien's arrest shows that Hanoi is violating the "just" aspect of the Just Energy Transition Partnership.

"This latest arrest creates a chilling effect for anyone involved in the development of the JETP, as it signals that no independent voices in energy policy are safe," Harris said in a Sept. 27 statement on the group's website. "It also raises questions over how Vietnam’s JETP can be credibly developed and implemented when this kind of expertise is excluded."

A Ho Chi Minh City-based energy expert working in the industry told VOA that sharing documents among colleagues is common. Because of this, he suspects the reason for Nhien's arrest is more complex.

"I don't think it's genuine," he said of the grounds for her arrest, asking for anonymity due to the sensitivity of the topic.

"We share confidential documents on Zalo [the Vietnamese messaging app] and in private groups quite extensively. Actually everyone does that," he said.

"She was an expert we could rely on," he added.

Like the five other environmentalists arrested in the past two years, Nhien was a critic of coal power, a position that could be seen as a threat to authorities with interest in coal-burning power plants.

"She was very vocal about the energy transition and she criticized coal power. This angers the authorities, especially the coal interest group. What she was doing affected their business," the source said. "I think this was a big reason why they ordered her arrest."

Susann Pham, lecturer at Bilkent University in Turkey and author of a book on Vietnam's dissidents, said environmentalism is often at odds with stockpiling wealth.

"In general environmentalism became a threat to capital accumulation," Pham wrote over WhatsApp. "It hinders various stakeholders to tighten their grip over the market, further exploiting resources and pursuing their interests in infinite wealth and power."

The energy sector source said many in the industry are fearful.

"There is a negative atmosphere for the energy experts. … We cannot be vocal about energy and environmental issues, we have to keep a low profile," he said.

Broader crackdown

Nhien's case is not the only one drawing criticism. On Sept. 28, Hoang Thi Minh Hong, former director of environmental advocacy nonprofit CHANGE, was sentenced to three years in prison for tax evasion, a charge that has been levied against four other environmentalists.

Speaking to regional publication Southeast Asia Globe in 2021, Hong acknowledged the dangers of her work, citing blackmail attempts, threats to her safety, and the prospect of jail.

"Doing this job, I am absolutely aware of what I might have to face, and I just want people to support me and know that I am not a threat," she told the publication.

"The three-year prison sentence of environmental hero Hong Hoang is too harsh and unreasonable," Do Nguyen Mai Khoi, a Vietnamese activist and singer living in Philadelphia, told VOA in a written comment. "Maybe Hanoi wants to assert that… they do not allow civil society to influence any state policies."

Mark Sidel, professor of law and public affairs at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, said the recent arrests of climate leaders are part of a broader trend.

"These recent detentions and arrests are a continuation of a larger and deeply unfortunate pattern of suppression of patriotic Vietnamese civil society leaders," Sidel wrote in an email. "Vietnam is jailing some of its best and brightest thinkers."