The Red Folder

Archived from July 29, 2024.

Key stories for the week, brought to you by Lindsey Zhao and the Red Folder team.

Reading for the sake of reading sucks. Telling yourself to read to win a round is nice but ineffective. This condensed news brief helps you understand current domestic and international issues, analyze the news, and gives you opportunities to read more.

Publishing since January 2024.

International Stories

4 key international stories for the week:

1) Ugandans’ Right to Protest: a Tale of Yore Boyana Nikolova

If you were to ask Ugandan president Yoweri Musevini about the state of his government, he’d likely tell you that the country has never been doing better. Ask any other Ugandan, however, and you would hear an entirely different story.

With a 2023 rating of 26 out of 100 on Transparency International’s annual corruption index, Uganda’s struggle with corruption is one well worthy of a nation’s anger. Elite power circles and the embezzlement of public money have become normalized under the example set by the government, public services and the country’s health sector taking major blows as a result. Despite this, officials have only responded harshly to protests against government fraud.

This week, after hundreds gathered in the capital to resist an official ban on anti-corruption protests, more than one hundred Ugandans were illegally detained, with police only threatening to take further action. The protestors, inspired by similar rallies in Kenya, were attempting to walk to the Ugandan parliament building in defiance of the very anti-protesting laws that put many of them behind bars. Now, the world is asking whether this could be an infringement on every Ugandan citizen’s natural obligation to take a stand against the unjust. Lamentably, it is, and even more regrettably, this is far from the first instance of Ugandans being denied the essential right to protest.

For example, this January, Uganda upheld a draconian anti-LGBTQ law, which proclaimed homosexuality a crime punishable by life imprisonment or even death. In response, Ugandan activists and allies mobilized nationwide protests, during which dozens were arrested in the span of months. The justification behind these arrests was the enforcing of a vague law that requires all protests to be government-approved. While at first glance this sounds like a well-intentioned order, it essentially means that any protests the Ugandan parliament disagrees with will be banned. Just as this rule has prohibited human rights advocates from defending Ugandans against the cruel and inhumane Anti-Homosexuality Act, anti-corruption advocates are now face to face with the same barrier.

But laws alone aren’t stopping protesters. Organizing, attending, or even being associated with a demonstration comes with a certain level of danger involved. Cases of police (often unlawfully) detaining protesters have always been a common occurrence, even before the government’s current crackdown on demonstrations. Earlier this year, eleven environmental defenders publicly described the brutal treatment they faced after being arrested for peacefully protesting a controversial pipeline installment. Just two days ago, a similar situation took place with anti-corruption demonstrations. Naturally, reports from last year suggest that the criminal justice system alone isn’t responsible for this. Rather, widespread cases of brutality and corruption among police have normalized and excused this violence, meaning punishment of any sort is rare.

It would seem more intuitive at this point to just stay at home instead of risking it all at a protest. Still, Ugandans are persisting, with the hopes of dethroning corruption once and for all. So, with protests rising in number, why is this an issue people are putting everything on the line for?

Uganda’s corruption problem has almost wholly been caused by a skewed distribution of power: those in greater positions of power have little to no means of being held accountable, enabling embezzlement and bribery to run rampant. The result has been the formation of an unreliable government and an even more undependable public sector. Social development in Uganda has also been severely stunted: essential services are usually only accessed through the payment of bribes, contributing to crippling poverty, and investment in said services continues to reach new lows. The total cost, across all fronts, stands at an estimated $2.5 billion, a whopping 44% of what the government's total revenue was in 2019.

Currently, no serious anti-corruption measures are being taken or even considered. The ongoing protest movement, which has greatly expanded in just the last few months, may be one of the only hopes for Uganda’s decade-long problem. Unfortunately, if the right to protest continues to be so grossly threatened, the movement could die out as easily as it proliferated. Laws that unfairly limit demonstrations based on their cause and cases of excessive police violence are both factors as to why protesters could now be leaning towards compliance.

Uganda is in deep danger, but if all sources of advocacy are removed, it will only fall deeper.

2) Kenya’s Gen-Z Protests Against Ruto and the IMF Justin Palazzolo

Corruption is no laughing matter.

Among graft scandals, the headlines often conceal the suffering of those who are denied welfare, investment, or direct aid amidst crisis simply because of politicians who wish to enrich themselves.

However, sometimes one can only laugh at politicians who come along and pull the most hair-brained and absurd schemes to rob their people. Take William Ruto for example, a man accused of having his administration embezzle millions through a mosquito net program and who was involved in a scandal regarding the theft of 1,000 metric tonnes of brown sugar. Despite the comical nature of these acts, this is, once again, no laughing matter, because William Ruto is the president of Kenya, a nation of 54 million people.

Naturally with a leader like Ruto, Kenya would quickly find itself in crisis. Starting pre-pandemic, Kenya launched billions of dollars in infrastructural development such as airports, roads, and rail expansions. However, institutionalized corruption in Ruto’s administration ballooned costs significantly. The 4.7 billion dollar rail program was riddled with accusations of nepotism, bribery, and embezzlement.

Corruption turned these investments into a financial nightmare with 30% of Kenyan government expenditures lost to embezzlement and other forms of corruption. The added financial weight of corruption in addition to the price of infrastructure to sustain Kenya’s economic growth pushed the government to go into significant debt of 80 billion dollars.

Unfortunately, Kenya also picked the worst possible time to go into significant debt. Following the post-pandemic inflation spike that encompassed the globe, central banks globally raised interest rates to deal with inflation. With an effective interest rate of over 10% Kenya's interest payments on its debt rose significantly, with 60% of the government's revenues going to service the debt, decking poverty reduction and infrastructure programs.

With the situation becoming unsustainable Ruto allowed for Kenya’s to be refinanced through the International Monetary Fund (IMF) allowing for 4.4 billion dollars worth of debt relief. However, in exchange for the debt relief the IMF implemented strict austerity programs that mandated the Kenyan government put the squeeze on their budget to consolidate spending and balance the books.

To produce the money needed to meet austerity programs and balance the budget the burden unequivocally fell on the Kenyan people. Cuts to government spending included healthcare, education, sanitation, and social spending. Meanwhile, in exchange for reduced spending, the people had to face a tax-based cost of living crisis. Instead of building asset or wealth taxes, the Kenyan government looked to a series of regressive taxes and duties on basic commodities.

It started when the Kenyan government lifted price caps on fuel which had been maintained through subsidy spending and raised the tax on fuel causing an energy cost crisis for the Kenyan people. This was followed by the most offensive propositions by parliament including a 16% duty on bread and a 25% duty on cooking oil, taxes that almost focused their impact on the poor of the country. Though Ruto would quickly backtrack and reverse the bread and oil taxes the damage had been done and people were taking to the streets.

In 35/47 of Kenya’s counties, thousands of young and angry protestors stormed the streets. The protests are the culmination of a discontent Kenyan Gen-Z population that has faced economic struggles, particularly for young people. A job crisis has caused Kenyan graduates to not be able to find jobs causing skyrocketing youth poverty and unemployment, amidst rampant government nepotism, distrust and anger at the government has grown.

The additional burden of the IMF austerity programs triggered this wave of youth discontent over their unusual position in the economic system in a ‘developing’ country. The ire of the protests is directed at Ruto for his history of corruption and the subsequent taxes, as well as the IMF which is accused of placing the financial burden at the hands of the people through taxes instead of corrupt officials who procured borrowing in the first place.

The suppression of the protests has been swift and brutal. 39 protestors have been killed along with 32 cases of forced abduction with allegations of torture as well. While the protests have pushed Ruto to revise the new programs Ruto remains committed to his current strategy even while authorizing 1.3 billion dollars in new borrowing.

Overall Kenya and the IMF’s action will lead to the expansion of poverty. IMF austerity programs have historically raised poverty and wealth inequality through regressive taxes in exchange for debt relief. Kenya will be no different as expenditures on social spending will be far below the standard nation threshold. The expanded programs that ended in 2019 helped reduce poverty by 13% over a decade. Under IMF austerity the programs wouldn’t just be killed but their progress could be reversed.

The IMF and Ruto have trapped Kenya in an international dine-and-dash scheme. Kenya’s politicians and the IMF incur the cost of taxation and corruption but only Kenya’s taxpayers are left to flip the bill.

Read more here:

4) Venezuela Rigs an Election Paul Robinson

The charade of the election has become an art in the South American nation of Venezuela. The country ranks 147th on the democracy index, a fact visibly evident in the celebrations that followed the announcement that Nicholas Maduro had won a third term in office. Immediately after the announcement was made, fireworks were set off all over the capital city of Caracas and crowds all over the country danced for joy.

It is quite obvious that this is all an act. Venezuela has been in conflicts before over who should lead the country, and with the nation having more oil deposits than anywhere else in the world, those conflicts are of special interest to foreign powers. The United States of America, which maintains close relations with most of Venezuela’s neighbors, has made no secret of the fact that they would like to see a regime change in Venezuela. During the Trump administration they shamelessly supported Juan Guidado in his claims to be the legitimate leader of Venezuela. The Biden administration, for its part, has stated that the US has “serious concerns” about the validity of the election.

There are very good reasons why the US should be concerned. The recent election lacked, among other things, a free chance for all Venezuelans to participate. Polling places were set up inefficiently, to the point where it almost seemed intentional. Large portraits of Mr. Maduro hung over every polling station. International observers were barred from ensuring the election’s validity. This meant that when the government announced that Mr. Maduro had won, many both inside and outside of the country were not so quick to accept the official narrative.

Some clearly are happy to accept a victory by Mr. Maduro. Venezuela’s allies of China, Russia, Cuba, and Iran have all lauded the win and have expressed their hopes to continue to build ties with Mr. Maduro as he begins a third term. Mr. Maduro has done all that he can to ensure that little stands between him and success in that third term. Mr. Guidado, the former opposition leader who was backed by the United States, has now been forced to flee the country. Many other opposition politicians have either disappeared or been forced to follow in Mr. Guidado’s footsteps.

For all his efforts, Mr. Maduro has yet to silence the opposition. Its leader, María Corina Machado, won the primaries in January but was then blocked from running in the general election by the Supreme Court. This act was doubtlessly intended not only to block Ms. Machado from running, but to send the opposition into chaos and prevent them from having any sense of unity in the leadup to the election. The opposition, unwilling to bow to Mr. Maduro’s attempts to silence them, appointed diplomat Edmundo González as the candidate instead. The opposition now claims that Mr. González rightfully won the election, and that Mr. Maduro is trying to hold on to power with an iron fist.

It is altogether too early to know whether Mr. González will pose a serious threat to the rule of Mr. Maduro. But with Venezuelans destitute to the point where illegally fleeing to the United States has become their best option, it is not hard to imagine a world where Mr. González will gain widespread support. This support could even come from foreign powers such as the United States or European Union, as both have expressed concerns over Mr. Maduro’s continuous rule. At the same time, Mr. Maduro’s allies will continue to support him, in pursuit of the vast amounts of wealth which Venezuela’s oil fields provide. Unfortunately for everyone involved, it is hard to see this election being resolved with ballots, as elections should be. Instead, it is far more likely for bullets to become the deciding factor.