INL Nov 1 2019 Digital Edition

14
NOVEMBER 1, 2019
Businesslink
For Simon, it is the glasshouse sort of thing
Attacking without thinking can stir the hornet’s nest
Jane Patterson
Immigration Minister Iain Lees-Galloway and National Leader Simon Bridges
(RNZ Picture by Dorn Thomas)
National’s misfire over
the latest immigration
kerfuffle is a salutary
lesson in first doing
one’s homework.
The opposition came out
swinging against a ministerial
decision to grant a recidivist
drunk-driver residence,
but it quickly became apparent
National had also allowed
the man to stay in New Zealand
while it was in government.
It’s left National with some egg
on its face, but it will be banking
on the public reading the damning
headlines and ignoring the
finer nuances of a complicated
case.
The Karel Sroubek Case
After a media firestorm last
year, Immigration Minister Iain
Lees-Galloway reversed his decision
to grant Czech drug-smuggler
Karel Sroubek residence,
but the decision is still causing a
headache.
Not only is the Sroubrek case
still under appeal, it has also
made any subsequent call by the
Minister more vulnerable to opposition
attacks.
The latest relates to a man
whose identity, circumstances
and country of origin all remain
under strict legal confidentiality.
We do know he was granted
“Protected Person” status in
2012 and so can not be deported.
He has eight convictions - six for
drunk driving - but none since
2012.
Simon says without studying
National leader Simon Bridges
claimed the government had
granted the man the “keys to the
kingdom” with increasing access
to a range of entitlements.
“[The Minister] says, ‘here
mate... stay here as long as you
want. You want to go on a benefit,
you feel free to. You want
to vote at our elections, you feel
free to’.”
But the argument holds little
water given National’s prior
dealings with the case - something
that clearly came as news
to Mr Bridges.
When questioned by reporters,
Mr Bridges said he had no
knowledge of National’s involvement,
he wasn’t Party Leader at
the time, and any questions were
for Mr Lees-Galloway to answer,
not him.
The problem for National is
that as Minister in 2013, Michael
Woodhouse granted a temporary
work visa to the man and, according
to a statement from Mr
Lees-Galloway, made it clear that
would be rolled over.
Protected Person
Immigration New Zealand did
just that in 2016, approving a
second temporary work visa.
Under that kind of visa, a
Protected Person can work in
New Zealand and access publicly-funded
healthcare and welfare.
You could argue that the man had
already been given the “keys to
the kingdom” by the then-National
government.
Residence does grant the man
one key advantage: the assurance
he can stay here long-term and
the ability to apply for citizenship.
But that’s not too far different
from an ever-rolling-status of temporary
visas.
Mr Woodhouse says he cannot
remember the case coming across
his desk or granting the temporary
visa, which is odd given it is
the sort of file that would likely set
off alarm bells.
Interesting precedent
And there’s an interesting precedent
that occurred under Mr
Woodhouse’s watch: a self confessed
member of Mugabe’s secret
police, William Nduku, is also a
“Protected Person.”
In 2017, the Minister refused to
grant him a temporary work visa
and Nduku ended up leaving the
country of his own volition.
That raises a valid question for
the current Minister.
The drunk-driver cannot be deported
under the Convention of
Torture, but there is no ministerial
obligation to grant him residence,
or in fact any kind of visa.
Killing of Baghdadi does not guarantee a safer world
Greg Barton
bad man”
has been killed
and “the world is
now a much safer
“Avery
place.”
The sentiment behind US President
Donald Trump’s announcement
of the death of Islamic State
(IS) leader Abu Bakr Al Baghdadi
is difficult to argue with.
Baghdadi was certainly a very
bad man. And under his decade-long
leadership of the Islamic
State (IS) movement, many thousands
of people in the Middle East
and around the world suffered
terrible brutality or death.
Common sense would suggest
the world is indeed now a much
safer place with Baghdadi’s passing.
Unfortunately, however, there
is no guarantee this will prove to
be true in practice.
Global war on terror
The 18 year-long so-called
Global War on Terror in the
wake of the September 11 (2001)
attacks, the international military
campaign to fight Al Qaeda, and
then IS, has been almost entirely
reactive and tactical.
It has lacked any consistent
strategic purpose, whether in
Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria, Somalia,
the Philippines or anywhere else.
The strongest military coalitions
the world has ever seen have
fought the largest and most
powerful terror networks that
have ever existed. And this has
led, directly and indirectly, to
hundreds of thousands of lives
lost, trillions of dollars spent and
remarkably little progress overall.
Abu Bakr Al Baghdadi (AAP/EPA/Al Furqan ISIS Media Wing handout
The special forces raids targeting
Baghdadi, in Idlib, and his deputy,
IS spokesperson Abul Hasan Al
Muhajir in Aleppo, were undoubtedly
significant achievements
representing tactical victories of
great consequence.
Impact unclear
IS has been dealt an enormous
blow. But just how long its impact
will last is not clear. The lessons of
the past two decades make it clear
this will certainly not have been a
fatal blow.
The IS insurgency, both on the
ground in Iraq and Syria, and
around the world, was rebuilding
strength before these strikes and
will not be stopped in its tracks by
losing its two most senior public
leaders.
Baghdadi as IS leader
Baghdadi may not be irreplaceable
but in many respects he was
uniquely suited to the times in
which he led. He oversaw the
rebuilding of IS from its previous
low point a decade ago. He played
a key role in expanding into Syria,
replenishing the leadership ranks,
leading a blitzkrieg across northern
Iraq, conquering Mosul and
declaring a caliphate. In the eyes
of his support base, his credibility
as an Islamic scholar and religious
leader will not easily be matched.
He was not a particularly charismatic
leader and was certainly as
a brutal, fundamentalist loner, not
truly inspirational. But he played
his role effectively, backed up by
the largely unseen ranks of former
Iraqi intelligence officers and
military commanders who form
the core of the IS leadership.
He was, in his time, the caliph
the caliphate needed.
In that sense, we will not see his
like again.
Incomprehensible leadership
Incredibly, 15 years after Abu
Musab Al Zarqawi established Al
Qaeda in Iraq and almost ten years
after Baghdadi took charge of the
Islamic State in Iraq, there is so
much about the leadership of IS we
don’t understand.
What is clear is the insurgent
movement benefited enormously
from so-called ‘De-Baathification,’
the ridding of Arab nationalist
ideology, in the wake of the 2003
invasion of Iraq and toppling of the
authoritarian regime of Saddam
Hussein.
The sacking of thousands of
mostly Sunni senior military
leaders and technocrats proved
to be a windfall for the emerging
insurgency.
IS has always been a hybrid
movement. Publicly, it presents
as a fundamentalist religious
movement driven by religious
conviction. Behind the scenes,
however, experienced Baathist
intelligence officers manipulated
religious imagery to construct a
police state, using religious terror
to inspire, intimidate and control.
Mobilising religious sentiment
This is not to say Zarqawi and
Baghdadi were unimportant as
leaders. On the contrary, they were
effective in mobilising religious
sentiment first in the Middle East
and then across the world. In the
process, more than 40,000 people
travelled to join the ranks of IS,
inspired by the utopian ideal of
religious revolution. Baghdadi was
especially effective in playing his
role as religious leader and caliph.
An optimistic take on Baghdadi’s
denouement is that IS will be
set back for many months, and
perhaps even years. It will struggle
to regain the momentum it had
under his leadership.
Realistically, the extent to which
this opportunity can be capitalised
upon turns very much upon the
extent to which the emerging
leaders within the movement
can be tracked down and dealt
with before they have a chance to
establish themselves.
What might happen now?
It would appear IS had identified
the uncontested spaces of
North-Western Syria in Idlib and
Aleppo, outside of the control of
the Assad regime in Damascus, of
the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF)
in Northeast Syria, and beyond
the reach of the Iraqi government
in Baghdad, as territory in which
If left “in limbo” as Simon
Bridges said should have happened,
it is possible he would up
and leave New Zealand himself.
That would relieve New
Zealand of having to keep
him here while technically
not breaching the Convention
through active deportation.
There is another alternative
though: the man could just stay
on in New Zealand and go on
the dole, as he’s entitled to as a
Protected Person.
And how would the taxpayer
feel about that?
Mr Lees-Galloway says that the
man has been in the country for
two decades and has “kept their
nose clean” in recent years.
Reducing bureaucracy
Granting the man residence
would reduce bureaucracy, the
Minister said, and allow him to
settle properly in New Zealand
rather than “kicking the can”
down the road.
There are legitimate questions
as to whether that’s the right decision,
but it’s tough for National
to ask them given the actions it
took when it was power.
Jane Patterson is Political
Editor at Radio New Zealand.
The above Report and Picture
have been published under
a Special Arrangement with
www.rnz.co.nz.
its leadership could relocate and
rebuild.
Continuing the optimistic take,
there is the slim hope that the
success of Sunday’s raids in which
the partnership between US
special forces and the SDF was so
critical will lead to Trump being
persuaded to reverse his decision
to part ways with the SDF and pull
out their special forces partners
on the ground, together with
accompanying air support.
The fact that Baghdadi and
Muhajir were both found within
five kilometres of the Turkish
border suggests Turkish control
of northern Syria is, to say the
least, wholly unequal to the task of
dealing with emerging IS leaders.
Reset of Partnership
A reset to the pattern of partnership
established over the past five
years with the largely Kurdish SDF
forces in north-eastern Syria could
prove critically important in cutting
down new IS leaders as they
emerge. It’s believed the locations
in northern Syria of the handful of
leaders most likely to step into the
void left by Baghdadi’s passing are
well-known.
But even in the best-case scenario,
all that can be realistically
hoped for is slowing the rebuilding
of the IS insurgency, buying time to
rebuild political and social stability
in northern Syria and northern
Iraq.
Greg Barton is Chair in Global
Islamic Politics, Alfred Deakin
Institute for Citizenship and
Globalisation, Deakin University
based in Victoria, Australia. The
above has been published under
Creative Commons Licence.