Greece’s Golden Dawn Ruled a Criminal Organization

Here is today’s Foreign Policy brief: Golden Dawn’s leadership is convicted of operating the party as a criminal organization, Mike Pence and Kamala Harris spar over foreign policy, and Kuwait’s new leader appoints a new heir apparent.

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The leaders of Greece’s Golden Dawn political party were found guilty on Wednesday of a range of criminal activity, including using the party as cover to run a criminal organization. A court in Athens ruled that acts of violence committed by members of Golden Dawn against migrants and left-wing activists were consciously planned and executed by the party leadership as a way of eliminating perceived threats.

The ruling followed a trial that lasted five-and-a-half years. Several dozen party members and associates, including 18 former lawmakers and party leader Nikos Michaloliakos, were found guilty on a variety of charges, including murder, attempted murder, assault, and possession of weapons.

Greek Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis said in response to the ruling that “as prime minister, I consciously refrain from commenting on court decisions. As a Greek citizen, however, I share the universal satisfaction for the recognition of its criminal character.”

National celebration. Tens of thousands of people gathered outside the courthouse to await the verdict. When the news came, the crowds erupted in applause and cheers. “The mood here today is resonant of the celebrations we saw with the liberation of Athens from the Nazis. It’s a great day,” said Petros Constantinou, a leading anti-racism activist.

Victory over the far-right. For proponents of liberal democracy, the ruling represents a significant victory over what was once considered one of Europe’s most prominent far-right forces. Golden Dawn was formed as an ultranationalist neo-Nazi organization in the 1980s, but rose to national prominence in the early 2010s in the aftermath of the Great Recession. It won 21 seats in the country’s parliament after the 2012 elections and largely maintained that support until getting swept at the polls in elections last year.

New beginning. Wednesday’s ruling combined with the victory of the center-right New Democracy party over the left-wing populist Syriza in last year’s elections reflects the remarkable stabilization of Greece’s political system just a few years after it appeared to be on the verge of total collapse. Although most other far-right parties in Europe distanced themselves from Golden Dawn, Greece’s experience could offer important lessons to other European leaders battling neo-fascists within their own borders.

VP candidates talk foreign policy. In a presidential campaign that has been dominated by domestic issues, U.S. Vice President Mike Pence and Democratic VP candidate Kamala Harris broke the mold by spending an extensive portion of Wednesday night’s vice presidential debate discussing foreign policy. Harris reiterated Democratic nominee Joe Biden’s commitment to restoring the United States’ relationships with its most trusted allies abroad. “Foreign policy is about relationships,” she said. “You gotta keep your word to your friends. You gotta be loyal to your friends … But what we have seen with [President Donald] Trump is that he has betrayed our friends and embraced dictators around the world.”

Pence, for his part, touted some of Trump’s notable foreign-policy achievements, including the assassination of Iranian Maj. Gen. Qassem Suleimani, the killing of Islamic State leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, and the supposed defeat of the Islamic State itself. But when the question of China came up, neither Pence nor Harris were willing to clarify their views on Beijing. As Foreign Policy’s Michael Hirsh wrote, “both of them gingerly avoided [debate moderator Susan] Page’s question about whether Beijing was an adversary or competitor.”

The debate left other important questions unanswered as well. Pence deflected questions about Trump’s record on the coronavirus pandemic, blaming China for causing the outbreak and promising a vaccine in the near future; Harris refused to answer a question from Pence about whether Biden would appoint additional justices to the Supreme Court if Trump nominee Amy Coney Barrett is confirmed by the Senate.

New Kuwaiti crown prince. Kuwait’s Emir Sheikh Nawaf al-Ahmad al-Sabah has named Sheikh Meshal al-Ahmad al-Jaber al-Sabah crown prince, ending speculation over who the country’s new leader would appoint as his heir apparent. Meshal is the deputy head of the country’s National Guard and was the oldest candidate under consideration for the post. The decision is a sign that Kuwait’s new leadership’s approach to foreign and domestic policy will change little from that of Nawaf’s half-brother and predecessor, Sheikh Sabah Al-Ahmad Al-Jaber Al-Sabah, who died last week.

Although Nawaf has spent several decades in leadership positions, he is known for his low public profile, leading many observers to speculate that his crown prince would take on an outsized role in domestic and international politics.

Disarray in Kyrgyzstan. The opposition in Kyrgyzstan can’t agree on a way forward after toppling the government of Prime Minister Kubatbek Boronov on Tuesday. Under immense pressure to resign, President Sooronbay Jeenbekov called for all-party talks to hammer out a resolution. He met with the representatives of eight opposition parties on Wednesday, though several important parties were left out of the mix. Two rival candidates for the premiership emerged during the talks, emphasizing the differences that still remain.

The unrest gripping Kyrgyzstan has drawn comparisons to crises in other post-Soviet republics, but as Colleen Wood argues in Foreign Policy, the situation in Kyrgyzstan is driven by internal factors and focusing on the wider international dimension is misplaced.

Unrest in Indonesia over new labor law. Hundreds of people were arrested in Indonesia during protests against a controversial new labor law passed by the government on Monday. Demonstrations were reported in at least 12 locations on Wednesday, and police resorted to tear gas and water cannons to disperse protesters. The legislation has been championed by President Joko Widodo who argues that it is key to deregulating the country’s economy and opening it to foreign investment. Labor unions were angered by the passage of the law, however, arguing that it favors business and negatively impacts both workers and the environment.

EU to consider sanctions on Russia. Germany and France will propose to the European Union a new round of sanctions on Russian individuals who are known to be involved in developing nerve agents like Novichok in response to the poisoning of Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny last month. “No credible explanation has been provided by Russia so far. In this context, we consider that there is no other plausible explanation for Mr Navalny’s poisoning than a Russian involvement and responsibility,” Foreign Ministers Jean-Yves Le Drian and Heiko Maas said in a joint statement.

Since leaving the German hospital where he was being treated last month, Navalny has struck out against the Russian government and, in particular, President Vladimir Putin for the attack. “I assert that Putin is behind this act, I don’t see any other explanation,” he said in an interview last week.

QAnon online crackdown. Facebook has banned groups, pages, and accounts propagating the QAnon conspiracy theory on its platforms on Wednesday, representing one of the strongest efforts by the tech giant to crack down on individuals and groups linked to the conspiracy theory. “Starting today, we will remove any Facebook Pages, Groups and Instagram accounts representing QAnon, even if they contain no violent content,” it said in a statement.

QAnon believers insist that the U.S. federal government is controlled by an ultra elite consisting of child sex traffickers, and that only Trump can uncover and defeat it. As Justin Ling wrote in Foreign Policy, QAnon is a powerful cult-like conspiracy theory rooted in decades of right-wing ideas about power, government, and society.

Renewed clashes in Yemen port city. Violent clashes between the Yemeni government and Houthi rebels continued in the port city of Hodeida for the fifth straight day on Wednesday, representing the city’s worst round of violence between the two sides in months. The fighting left 52 people dead and 70 more wounded, including dozens of civilian casualties. Violence has taken place in Hodeida and the surrounding area as Houthi rebels attempt to break a siege on the town of Durayhimi.

On Monday, the United Nations urged both sides to “immediately stop the fighting and return to the joint mechanisms established over the last two years so as not to put the population at further risk and jeopardize the delivery of humanitarian assistance.”

Mark Ruffalo, Sarah Silverman, and several other celebrities made the rounds on Twitter on Wednesday after appearing in a video urging U.S. citizens to check the rules around mail-in voting in their states. The twist—they were all naked. The video was mocked as crude and indecent by right-wing commentators, but it created a buzz among left-wing social media users who considered it a creative way to draw attention to serious issues around mail-in voting.

That’s it for today.

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