Al Qaeda and Political Terrorism in Southeast Asia

The University Archives has determined that this item is of continuing value to OSU's history.This presentation critically examines three approaches to the study of political terrorism in Southeast Asia: international terrorism studies, regional security studies, and country studies. International terrorism specialists place al Qaeda at the center of analysis. Regional security analysts have uncritically accepted this al Qaeda-centric paradigm. Country specialists initially denied there was an international dimension to terrorism, particularly in the case of Indonesia. Recent research by Indonesianists indicates the saliency of local over international factors in explaining political terrorism in Southeast Asia.Ohio State University. Mershon Center for International Security StudiesEvent webpage, event summary, phot

Armée et Parti au Viêt-Nam : une symbiose au service de l'économie de marché

L'expérience historique tout à fait exceptionnelle du Viêt-Nam depuis 1945 suffit à légitimer le caractère très spécifique du rôle assumé par l'Armée populaire du Viêt-Nam (APV). Avec l'adoption du Dôi Moi - ou grand programme de réformes - en 1986, et la fin de l'Union soviétique, on pouvait penser que les autorités vietnamiennes s'écarteraient progressivement de la logique de la « nation en armes » . En fait, il n'en fut rien et le Viêt-Nam associe désormais encore plus étroitement VAPV à des activités économiques importantes. Le Parti communiste vietnamien, et cela contrairement à son homologue chinois, ne cherche pas à professionnaliser véritablement son armée qui devient plus que jamais l'instrument du maintien de l'ordre intérieur. Cette symbiose volontairement renforcée se traduit par l'attribution de nouvelles fonctions civiles à VAPV. Divisé en trois parties , cet article étudie donc l'imbrication des rapports Parti-Armée, la mobilisation des militaires sur le front économique et l'amorce d'un professionnalisme immédiatement compensé par la définition de nouvelles tâches civiles.The analysis of civil-military relations is largely dominated by liberal theories. This paper demonstrates that the Vietnam People's Army remains in a symbiotic relation with the communist party although it is just starting to occupy a more autonomous role in the political system. The first part is an overview of the historical background in which the VPA was founded, the second part is concerned with the involvement of the army in economic reforms ; it discusses the way the VPA appears to be at the fore front of Vietnam's transition to a market economy. Although there has been, until now, no attempt to curtail the VPA'S roles in commercial and economic activities, the communist party is extending the army's role in the maintenance of internal order and security. A process of increasing professionalism, however, has begun, thus compensating for the decline of the VPA'S defense mission

Political development in Vietnam: From the Sixth to the Seventh National Party Congress

This paper will address itself to political change in Vietnam between the sixth and seventh national party congresses before turning to a discussion of the seventh national congress itself

The origins of the National Front for the liberation of South Viet-Nam

Any examination of the origins of the National Front for the Liberation of South Viet-Nam must give prominence to the role of the Viet-Nam Workers' Party. During the period 1954-60 the VWP was enveloped in a continuing debate over how to achieve national unification. In 1954, despite disagreement within the VWP's Central Committee, it was decided to accept a negotiated settlement to the war. Accordingly the Party set out a two-year policy of political struggle synchronized with the various provisions of the Geneva Agreements. The VWP saw its tasks in each zone as being fundamentally different: priority was given to socialist construction in the north, while cadres in the south were expected to carry out a people's national democratic revolution. Implementation of this new policy in the south was hampered by the growing strength of the Diem government, and by the failure of VWP diplomacy to secure either French or Russian commitment to general elections. The failure to hold consultations in July 1955 led to growing southern disenchantment. In September 1955 the Fatherland Front was created. Its program in effect recognized the need for a policy of political struggle based on something other than the Geneva Agreements. This policy proved difficult to implement. Although alliances of convenience were forged with the armed forces of the dissident sects, the Diem regime proved successful in meeting and overcoming this challenge. By late 1956 southern pressures for increased use of revolutionary violence coincided with failures in conducting land reform in the north. These circumstances led to leadership changes in which the southern lobby was given an increased voice. The immediate result was the drafting of another long-range policy. Political struggle was given renewed emphasis but a limited policy of "extermination of traitors" was permitted. The prime task was to rebuild the Party organization. This policy was carried out during 1957-58 at which time great efforts were made to consolidate the north and to win international sympathy and support. In 1959 the southern lobby argued convincingly for a new policy sanctioning reunification "by all appropriate means". This meant the use of armed forces. This new policy of combining political and armed struggle was ratified at the VWP's 3rd National Congress in September 1960. The growing influence of the southerners was evident in leadership appointments to the Politburo, Secretariat and Central Committee. Le Duan, the outspoken advocate for armed struggle, became the Party's First Secretary. The 3rd National Congress committed the entire VWP to carrying out the people's national democratic revolution in the south. Southern cadres set about creating a national united front and regroupees in the north began returning south. In December 1960 an organizing committee met and proclaimed the formation of the NFLSVN. Over a year later, after much organizational work, the First Congress of the NFLSVN was held. The origins of this Front lie both in the interaction between contending factions within the VWP leadership and the interaction between the VWP and various southern social forces and personalities on the one hand, and the Diem regime and its American backers on the other

China's crisis: the international implications

China has always been important to countries in the Asia/Pacific region, whether as a vortex of disarray and discontent or - as it has appeared to be, particularly over the last decade - as a modernising great Asian power. In this latter context, China was increasingly accepted as a responsible participant in regional and global affairs. Although China's military capabilities and its political ambitions were regarded with residual distrust by some neighbouring countries, such misgivings were increasingly overshadowed by expectations of a new China possessing the largest potential market remaining in the world today. The Tiananmen affair, as it is now known, seemed to shatter any assumptions about China's stability, its economic potential and certainly some of the illusions about China's political system. This unique collection of papers begins with an analysis of the political situation in China, as seen from Beijing and Canberra. It provides detailed assessments of the way in which countries throughout the Asia/Pacific region, including Australia, responded or did not respond. There is an overview on Hong Kong and its governability and extensive discussion on the strategic and economic implications, if any, for China and for neighbouring and regional states, of events in Beijing in June 1989

Finishing the euchromatic sequence of the human genome

The sequence of the human genome encodes the genetic instructions for human physiology, as well as rich information about human evolution. In 2001, the International Human Genome Sequencing Consortium reported a draft sequence of the euchromatic portion of the human genome. Since then, the international collaboration has worked to convert this draft into a genome sequence with high accuracy and nearly complete coverage. Here, we report the result of this finishing process. The current genome sequence (Build 35) contains 2.85 billion nucleotides interrupted by only 341 gaps. It covers ∼99% of the euchromatic genome and is accurate to an error rate of ∼1 event per 100,000 bases. Many of the remaining euchromatic gaps are associated with segmental duplications and will require focused work with new methods. The near-complete sequence, the first for a vertebrate, greatly improves the precision of biological analyses of the human genome including studies of gene number, birth and death. Notably, the human enome seems to encode only 20,000-25,000 protein-coding genes. The genome sequence reported here should serve as a firm foundation for biomedical research in the decades ahead

Chinese Assertiveness in the South China Sea and Southeast Asian Responses

This article reviews Chinese assertive behaviour towards the Philippines and Vietnam over South China Sea issues in 2011. The article compares and contrasts Chinese diplomatic behaviour in the period before and after the adoption by ASEAN member states and China of Guidelines for the Implementation the Declaration on Conduct of Parties in the South China Sea in July. In the first period China aggressively asserted its claims to sovereignty by interfering with commercial fishing and oil exploration activities of vessels operating in the Exclusive Economic Zones of Vietnam and the Philippines. Both states resisted Chinese actions. The Philippines allocated increased funding for defence modernization, lobbied ASEAN states and shored up its alliance with the United States. Vietnam too protested Chinese action and undertook symbolic steps to defend national sovereignty. In the second period all states moved to contain South China Sea tensions from affecting their larger bilateral relations. It remains to be seen, however, if proposed confidence building measures will ameliorate Chinese assertiveness