Archive for the ‘The Scholar’ Category

December 12th, 2008

Susan Rice for a Change of US Policy?

While the Canadian government is in shambles, Stand’er Ben Fine recently sent me this article about US President-elect Obama’s new choice for UN Ambassador. Like Clinton, it is expected that Obama will make this position a Cabinet-level position, critical to making foreign policy decisions.

This could very seriously represent a change of US policy when it comes to Darfur or response to genocide. As the VOA article mentions, Rice gained some notoriety when she called upon the US to use force against the Sudanese government to end the crisis in Darfur. Here is an op-ed she wrote in the Washington Post outlining her policy recommendations. The basic outline of her argument is that the US should not be afraid to bomb Sudanese military targets or blockade Sudan from oil exports in order to enforce compliance with UN resolutions.

Clearly, this is a very controversial stance and built upon the US actions against Serb targets in the late 1990s in response to Milosevic’s campaign of ethnic cleansing in Kosovo. Would force end up making the situation worse? Could it empower an even more radical elite within the National Congress Party (NCP) that currently rules Sudan? Could it unravel the fragile north-south peace treaty and plunge the country back into a larger civil war, even as (supposedly) the possibility of elections approaches for next year? Would it make the UN peacekeepers currently deployed sitting ducks for government retaliation? In that case, there could be a very serious escalation in which US ground troops would have to get involved eventually. And with military interventions, it is almost inevitable that some civilians will be killed…

On the other hand, I would welcome an Obama presidency that made it clear from the outset what sort of actions it would accept and wouldn’t accept, while at the same time ensuring that the US complies with international law to maintain its own moral legitimacy. The Bush Administration, despite forceful action to bring about the end of the North-South civil war, has had its hands tied on Darfur, partly because of Iraq, the war on terror, and the loss of legitimacy due to Gunatanamo Bay and Abu Ghraib. I think Obama might have a little more leeway because of the street cred he already seems to have in the rest of the world.

So basically, it would be great to see Susan Rice and Obama outline a strategy from day one that is both consistent and coherent. There will be much more international support for the use of force in Sudan if it is clear that other steps have been taken and the Sudanese Government has clearly violated resolutions or agreements. I also believe that other countries would jump behind the US if they seriously took the lead on pushing for peace negotiations.

At the very least, I think we can be fairly confident that Rice will keep the issue of Darfur on the agenda, as well as other possible scenarios of genocide, considering her research interest in failed states and responsibility to protect.

If only we had some similar hope in Canada right now…

Posted in The Politician, The Scholar | No Comments »

November 25th, 2008

The Problems of Peacekeepers

To pick up on an interesting discussion that was happening earlier on this blog, I’d like to point out an interview with Alan Doss, the head of MONUC, the peacekeeping force in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), in TIME Magazine. Here are some excerpts:

What implications does the success or failure of MONUC have for other peacekeeping operations?
Every case is different. Darfur is very different. Every time a U.N. peacekeeping force deploys, it raises lots of questions. But yes, there are issues raised by our experience that will have a long-term effect. There is a very fine line between peacekeeping and peace enforcement. Our mission was equipped for peacekeeping. And as one of my officers says, you don’t go to war in blue helmets and white tanks. When we shift from a monitoring group to one that takes on military elements, we have to change the way we operate…But I think that one should not forget that there have been a lot of achievements. Three to four years ago, the country was dividing into three parts. That was overcome. Most of the country now has peace. This is a country that is literally back from the dead. There is progress…

One important point to take from this statement is the fact that peacekeeping has to be adapted to every scenario. There are distinctions to be made between peacekeeping – the monitoring of a peace agreement; peace enforcement – the enforcing of a peace agreement through force; and peace making – the imposition of peace through the use of force. It is generally agreed that the UN is only capable of peacekeeping because of its lack of resources, confused command structure, inability to make quick decisions, and other challenges. Peacekeeping, however, in its traditional form is meant to be a symbolic protection force more than anything else – a way to overcome the security dilemma whereby neither side will disarm for fear that the other side will not disarm. They deployed to countries that have recently had a peace agreement and allow the rival factions to disarm without losing face while also holding them to their agreements. A more recent version of traditional peacekeepers, like those in Congo or Darfur, are able to use violence to protect civilians or themselves but are still not meant to be actual “peace enforcers”. The fact that peacekeeping works in certain scenarios is evident in the progress that has been made in other parts of the Congo.

But what happens when a peace agreement doesn’t hold and complex violence breaks out as in Darfur or Congo? There is still no real agreement on what is to be done when the situation is not amenable to peacekeeping. The peacekeepers surely can’t start attacking government troops who are committing atrocities because they will be attacked or kicked out of the country. Furthermore, as we’ve all heard in both Darfur and Congo, they don’t have enough troops or resources to effectively “wage war” against violent elements that may be targeting or attacking civilians.

Unfortunately, I don’t know how to make peacekeepers better. When it comes down to it, people need to start discussing the practicalities of these scenarios. How do you adapt different mandates to different environments? Is peace enforcement by the UN possible or even desirable? What is clear is that peacekeepers on their own are not able to be the “solution” to a civil war, whether in Darfur or Congo.

I’ll end this post with Mr. Doss’s quote about R2P, which I think supports this discussion nicely.

The Responsibility to Protect [or R2P, a concept of humanitarian intervention] was only adopted by the U.N. in 2005. How much is MONUC feeling its way here? Is MONUC an experiment?
R2P is a huge step forward … But the question remains: How do we actually do it? We have come up against the sharp end of R2P. We can claim that responsibility, but actually doing that in North Kivu, with a collapsing army, a resurgence of ethnic groups — well, that raises fundamental questions. When we make these statements, we have to be careful that we have the means to match our mandate.

Posted in The Reporter, The Scholar | 1 Comment »

November 13th, 2008

What does it all mean?

The comments below do not reflect the official position of Stand, but are intended to start a discussion:

While governments, groups and individuals are issuing statements left, right and center about the announcement of a ceasefire by the Government of Sudan, it is sometimes difficult for us concerned to really have any idea what it means. Let’s try to look at this move with a little perspective.

First off, the number of ceasefires that the government of Sudan has violated in the past is uncomfortably large. No one is denying this. A ceasefire is very tentative measure that can be overturned on a dime, and is often no more than an excuse to regroup, rearm, and redeploy. As Alex de Waal points out, the Government and government-supported militias have undoubtedly broken more ceasefires than the rebels over the past year. So you can’t blame the rebels for being skeptical.

There are reasons to be positive about this effort, however. Partly, because there has been no real peace process for a year or so now, and partly because the ceasefire comes after a “peace conference” with no rebels but a few opposition voices, including the Southern SPLM and the Umma Party. In fact, the recommendations of the conference offer some really interesting criticisms of the government, including calling on them to release Darfuris who may be arbitrarily detained, establish a fund to help internally displaced persons and refugees return home safely (and voluntarily!), and create a new Vice-President position in the government for someone from Darfur. Those are some solid, good ideas that, if truthful, could lead to good negotiations.

Finally, from our point of view, I’m glad the UN and Canadian Government are issuing statements of encouragement, but seriously, is that all that’s going to happen? If this ceasefire is really to be turned into an opportunity, a few things need to happen on our end.

1. UN mediators (or a Canadian Envoy….hint hint…) need to sit down with the rebels and discover what sort of monitoring methods would convince them of the government’s commitment to this initiative, and then set up those mechanisms. It is not implausible to me that the Canadian government would set up some sort of benchmarks that the government of Sudan would need to meet step-by-step to prove their commitment. The US did precisely that during the negotiations for the North-South Comprehensive Peace Agreement, responding to the attainment of a benchmark with rewards and the failure with punishment. Such benchmarks could include allowing UN troops access to places they have otherwise had trouble monitoring, disarming the Janjaweed militias, setting up real trials for crimes and providing compensation to victims, or allowing unfettered humanitarian access to the entire region. Halting bombing campaigns is assumed also….

2. UNAMID (the joint African Union-UN peacekeeping force) needs to focus on verifying the implementation of the ceasefire and needs to yell really loudly if it is broken.

3. As already mentioned, the rebels need to be brought on board. Discussions about a Qatar-backed peace conference are already circulating. The UN and/or Canada et al. need to meet with Qataris, government and rebels and reach a compromise about how such a conference would take place and where. While I’m glad to see that the peace process is slowly getting started, it won’t be a peace process for long if the rebels don’t jump on board at some point.

As de Waal mentions, we should all encourage and support a “homegrown” Sudanese solution to Sudanese problems; that said, the international community now needs to help make sure those solutions are actually carried out. Luckily for us, this is something we CAN do (unlike so many of the prescriptions that have been passed around over the past five years), through monitoring and verification, trust-building exercises, mediation, diplomacy and public statements, neutral locations for peace conferences, providing peacekeepers as a way to break the security dilemma, and more such “soft-power” actions of referee-ing. So let’s get on it.

A whole other question arises should it prove that the ceasefire is merely dead air…

As always, I welcome thoughts and comments.

Posted in The Politician, The Scholar | 2 Comments »

November 4th, 2008

Standing up to John Bolton

Stand’s Scott Fenwick recently sent around an article that has been generating some discussion on email so I thought I would transfer it to the blog where everyone can pipe in. The article is written by a Mr. John Bolton, who if you haven’t yet heard of him, is famous for being the only US Ambassador to the UN who wanted to get rid of the UN entirely. He is a notoriously polarizing figure in the neo-conservative vein whose period as the Ambassador to the UN was never approved by the rest of the government and was marked by an intimidation-heavy approach to diplomacy.

That said, his article in the Globe and Mail does have some interesting points. It’s about “humanitarian intervention,” that nebulous concept that is firmly embedded in our work and appears often in the world of international politics. Below I relate the main “points” in the discussion:

Scott Fenwick: “Although the topic is on “humanitarian intervention,” it wrongly suggests that the only way to end war/rights abuses is to send in the troops. Bolton’s article doesn’t even suggest using diplomatic action as an alternative.”

Josh Scheinert: “I don’t think there’s anything wrong with this article. In fact, I think it’s very well done and presents real challenges for the human rights/ngo/r2p community that we need to be able to meet. His goal wasn’t to talk about tough diplomacy, sanctions or anything else. Merely to give a defence of realpolitik in the face of a subject largely premised on idealism…

“at the end of the day, Americans, Canadians, and the citizens of other signatories to R2P (Responsibility to Protect), aren’t convinced “why the should put their sons and daughters…. where there are no vital interests (humanitarian aside – because I’ll put myself in the category that does feel situations like these affect the national interest). So then the second challenge, is making people understand that this is part of the vital interest. But as of now, it’s not and people don’t consider it to be. So with that void looming and crippling our ability to act, like Bolton says, “we have to be able to explain…..”.

Evan Cinq-Mars: “While I do agree that Bolton’s article articulates very well the challenges on intervention posed by domestic opposition and realpolitik, there is a portion of his article that I find must be addressed:

“And as tragic as the situation is in Darfur, in a democracy we have to be able to explain to American citizens why they should put their sons and daughters at risk, in an area of undoubted humanitarian tragedy, but where there are no vital US interests.”

During conscience-shocking situations – like we are experiencing in Darfur – it is this ideology that has allowed atrocity to continue… The pursuit of national self-interest has already crippled the attempts at collective action to protect the people of Darfur (As Bolton points out with China, Russia and the veto). How will responding to genocide become “easy” if the ‘vital interests’ of a nation condemn it from acting, whether it be the US, Canada, Indonesia, Fiji, etc…

There must be a shift towards an ideology where the responsibility to protect ciitizens from genocide is synthesized with the ‘vital interests’ of a nation.

While aspirations don’t make foreign policy, aspirations are all these people have. Aspirations empower us to make responding to genocide a cornerstone of Canadian policy.”

These guys are smart. Those are some really well-articulated arguments and questions: what is “intervention,” merely military or military, diplomacy and other? what defines our national interests? What does the responsibility to protect doctrine refer to? How do you reconcile idealism with reality? What is the future of sovereignty? I feel that everyone should weigh in on these questions.

As for myself, I tend to believe that the phrase “humanitarian intervention” is a bit of fallacy, or maybe just poorly defined. Am I an “interventionist,” as Bolton claims, because I want my government to take action on Darfur? What if the actions I’m calling on my government to take are diplomatic, not military? Basically, as Scott mentions, there are a whole range of “intervening” tools in a government’s handbook and any one of them may work better or worse at different times.

That said, (though I hate to say it) Bolton is absolutely right that there is much confusion right now over the “responsibility to protect.” Josh and Evan are absolutely right that we no longer know exactly what state interests are. In a globalized world, how is averting a humanitarian disaster that could destabilize the global system (eg Afghanistan, Rwanda) not in our national interests? And then even more importantly, how the heck do we go about that? Someone else smarter than me recently argued with me that the evoking of R2P too often by advocacy groups is delegitimizing the concept for when it is really needed….either way you look at, the modalities are poorly defined, to say the least.

As I have previously on this blog, I would argue that averting humanitarian crises requires forceful, consistent and coherent multilateral actions in a range of areas, diplomatically, economically, and possibly as a last resort militarily. In the case of military action, there is still the most work needed, as Bolton rightly points out, as the road is unclear, the commitments tend to be half-hearted, and the mandates weak (I recommend people interested read Lakhdar Brahimi’s review of the UN Peacekeeping functions….among its proposals are a UN rapid response army, clear mandates, and more preventive actions).

Those are some thoughts to get people going…Please let me know what you are thinking in the comments. Or send me an email to be posted if you have particularly strong opinions…

Posted in The Scholar | 4 Comments »

October 30th, 2008

A Vision of Chaos

I would like to take a moment away from the focus on Darfur to highlight the worrying events of the past week in the Great Lakes Region of Africa. While Stand focuses almost exclusively on Darfur and Sudan in its activities (with good reason), it is important to our fundamental mission of making preventing genocide a cornerstone of Canadian foreign policy to stay informed about all pertinent events in the world.

For those who don’t know, over the past week the eastern region of North Kivu in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) has embarked on a spiraling descent into further violence and chaos. North Kivu is a resource-rich area that has been more or less at the center of the various wars and violent conflicts in the region since the end of the Rwandan genocide in 1994 (many of the Hutus responsible for the Rwandan genocide fled to this region). Last year, a mortality survey conducted by the International Rescue Committee concluded that 5.4 MILLION people have died as a result of war and violence in the DRC since 1998. That’s the most amount of people killed in a conflict since World War II. DRC currently plays host to the largest peacekeeping force in the world, at 17,000.

The most recent bout of fighting began in late August when a peace agreement between the government and a rebel group led by Gen. Laurent Nkunda collapsed. Since then some 250,000 people have been forced to flee their homes.

In the past week the situation has deteriorated dramatically due to a very serious and well-crafted offensive by Nkunda’s rebels. Hundreds of thousands of people have fled their homes, especially around the provincial capital Goma. Many aid agencies including Oxfam, MSF and IRC have suspended their most if not all of their activities and evacuated most of their personnel. The rebels are now besieging Goma, although things have momentarily calmed down following a cease-fire last night. It is yet to be seen whether the cease-fire will hold. Nkunda claims that he is fighting to protect ethnic Tutsi populations and make sure they get a fair share of the region’s resources. Most experts seem to think that he is being supported in some way by the Rwandan government (though of course Rwanda denies this).

Unfortunately, eastern DRC must be one of the most difficult regions in the world to provide minimum standards of protection, with its volatile mix of ex-genocidaires, ethnic tensions, warlords, resources, weak and corrupt government, and interfering neighbors. Outside interference and interventions are difficult enough in a case like Sudan where its more obvious who “the enemy” is. In North Kivu government soldiers have been accused of raping, pillaging and killing civilians as they flee in the face of the better-trained enemy. The rebels also commit horrible acts of violence and are responsible for the majority of the displacement. The UN peacekeeping force (MONUC) has had some notable successes in the past, including by enforcing agreements with gunships at times, an approach to peacekeeping that would more accurately be called “peacemaking” or “peace enforcing” and is controversial to say the least.

So what can we do? Not much, unfortunately. The first thing I would recommend to everybody is to get informed. Do some research, find out about the situation, ask your professors about it. Also, a letter to a newspaper or politician is never a bad idea when trying to bring attention to a bad situation. Getting attention to the conflict is definitely the first step.

I would welcome anybody else’s thoughts in the comments section about what we can do to help settle the conflict and prevent the deadly violence that seems all too often to consume the DRC.

Posted in The Reporter, The Scholar | 1 Comment »

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