Photo: Joao Silva for The New York Times

Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili recently described the Russian invasion and occupation of his country as an example of "21st Century barbarism".

http://www.state.gov/secretary/rm/2008/08/108289.htm

Unfortunately it appears that the term would apply even more broadly than intended, and that this conflict, like most, has no clearly discernible "good and bad guys". What this means is that resolution of the conflict cannot begin by choosing sides, but by understanding the principles that are being called upon by all sides and identifying the contradictions that occur within them. At the root of so-called barbarism is an inability to make this imaginative leap, understanding others not simply as creatures of instinct and interests (so as to ask- What will they do next?) but as intelligent and ethical creatures like ourselves.

This is not to say that all of us are incapable of irrational or unethical behaviour. One can point to barbaric acts on all sides in the context of this particular conflict: a Georgian offensive on an ethnic enclave while the world's attention was turned to the Olympics; a Russian counter-offensive intended at least partly for national aggrandizement; a push on the part of America and NATO in Eastern Europe and the Caucasus to pen in other powers with advanced (though unproven) missile defence technologies and military alliances; and the ethnic cleansing being carried out by militias, mercenaries and perhaps government forces also.

All have their excuses to fight. What are the reasons for peaceful settlement?

At root in this conflict is a contradiction between two essentially incompatible principles. On the one hand there is the claim to national, territorial sovereignty and to the rightness of the use of force to secure this interest. All of the parties involved, incredibly also including the United States in its missile defence shields, invoke this notion as their principle of right. On the other hand is the right and responsibility of international intervention in situations where governments are guilty of abusing or neglecting their populations, or the so-called Responsibility to Protect (R2P). What is contradictory is the alignment of sovereign interests and intervention on ethical grounds. So for Russian forces to simultaneously claim the rights to assert its sovereignty and to invade and occupy Georgian territory on ethical grounds makes a mockery of those ethical principles. It is clear that humanitarian interventions must be carried out by neutral parties, if their purposes aren't to be called into disrepute as masks of underlying interests. The escalation of this particular conflict and the breakdown of earlier UN moderated peace agreements demonstrates the urgent need for UN peace-keepers responsible to higher principles than the interests of one particular state or group.

It is equally clear that the ethical principles of the R2P are crucial justifications, otherwise, if it were simply a matter of sovereignty and achieving a monopoly on the use of organized violence, great powers and separatist groups would have nothing more to do than to fight it out. Perceived legitimacy is essential in an interconnected world. Sovereignty is not the inviolable given that it once was. It is time to accept the reality that in a world of overlapping interests the most solid basis for establishing political legitimacy is through open dialogue and appeals to a rational, universal ethic. What is barbaric is clinging to the gun as the ultima ratio and cause of peace at a time when universal rights speak much louder.

Dr. Toivo Koivukoski, Political Science, Nipissing University

A petition is available here:

Excellent reporting from David Axe in The American Prospect.

As has been reported elsewhere and is given further proof from Axe's reporting, the militia-ization of Sudan/Chad continues apace. It is fragmenting along ethnic, tribal lines. There are criminal gang militias, government sponsored militias (the janjaweed), rebel militias with human atrocities/violations committed on all sides---rebel groups are taking child soldiers to fight the genocide-sponsoring Khartoum government for example.

Axe:

The U.N. says that the war shows no signs of ending anytime soon and that more aid will be needed. But based on conversations with sources at Iridimi and elsewhere in eastern Chad, it's possible that the largely Western-funded humanitarian effort to "save Darfur" is actually prolonging the conflict by providing a safe haven in Chad for the rebel groups fighting Khartoum and its janjaweed militia proxies. The rebels have become so empowered that they declined to attend Libyan-sponsored, U.S.-supported peace talks last year.

With both US prez candidates talking about intervening in Darfur, some sober reflection is required. Obama's plan for Darfur can be found here (scroll down the page). It involves a no fly zone, tougher sanctions on the Khartoum government, and more support for the African Union.

But that plan it would seem fails to take into account the rebel movement and its own human rights violations. [One of the key platforms of Obama's FP influenced by Samantha Power is ending Genocide. Her classic text on the subject, here]. It also in other words fits a basic template of Clintonian-Blairian-Powell Doctrine liberal humanitarianism. Sanctions, no fly zones, etc a la Iraq policy during the 90s or African policy in the 90s (Liberia, SIerra Leone).

I checked John McCain's website and (not surprisingly) there is nothing about Darfur/African policy. [Sidenote: Unbelievably (and to my horror) there is nothing under the Issues Frame about Afghanistan and Pakistan. It's all Iraq. But there is talk of missile defense!!! See here.]

I did find this Washington Post op-ed McCain co-authored with Bob Dole in 2006 on Darfur. It's basically the same plan as Obama's: keep the AU troops in, financial sanctions on Khartoum, no fly zone, and intelligence sharing].

Interesting this regard that McCain compares the situation to the Balkans given the recent declaration of independence by Kosovo. On this trend line, it would seem Sudan could headed for breakup. That could be the first (along with Somalia and Congo) in a trajectory of deconstruction/recreation of African states.

On the priority list of Afghanistan-Pakistan, Iraq, Iran, Darfur it obviously comes in a distant fourth. But given the post Obama presidency (assuming he has an 8 year run let's say) will be increasingly focused on African policy and our relationship with China (given China essentially is building Africa brick by brick). This is one to keep on the horizon. As Thomas Barnett I think correctly predicted years ago, Africa, particularly middle zone Africa, will be the next major staging ground of al-Qaeda like jihadism. It is unclear if the stationing of foreign troops in Sudan/Chad will later (a la Bin Laden's anger over US stationing of troops in Saudi Arabia during Gulf War I) be used as rallying cry for such movements.

]]> http://markdowe.wordpress.com/?p=521 Thu, 10 Jul 2008 21:21:47 +0000 markdowe http://markdowe.wordpress.com/?p=521 A NEED FOR CHANGE

THE EMERGENCE of new superstates and rising countries is a growing threat to the pre-eminence of post-war global institutions. But, who is running the world?

Powerful countries not only tend to write history but they seize the seats at the top tables, from the Security Council of the United Nations to the boardrooms of the big international conglomerates and financial institutions. Collusion and nepotism are often common traits and they decide, behind the secrecy of closed doors, who is permitted in joining their comfortable fraternity. It is done in the expectation that the rest of the world will obey the instructions being handed down.

This is the very perception, that outsiders - not just in the poor developing world - have seen the G8 summit just finished in Japan, which ran from the 7^th to the 9^th July. This is the closest the world currently has to an informal and self-appointed steering group. The leaders of the world's seven richest democracies, plus oil wealthy Russia, gathered in Hokkaido (northern Japan) in ruminating on climate change, rising food and energy prices, and how best to tackle global scourges from widespread disease to the proliferation of nuclear arms.

In an age and era, though, when people, money and goods move around the globe as never before, G8 no longer commands the dominion of the global economy and the world's financial system as the core G7 used to do when their small, purposeful meetings first got going in the 1970s. Then, it was to do with the consenting capitalists of the democratic world. Today, global summits produce lengthy communiqués and media photo-opportunities. Despite Russia's front, its slide from democracy into state-sponsored capitalism has diluted the political tone.

G8 knows it has to change. The inferences have been around for a while now, as they were in Germany last year, with leaders from five "outreach countries" - Brazil, China, India Mexico and South Africa - invited for political discussion. The old world order needs new ideas in adapting to what the world is now faced with.

Commonly held perceptions are that a gathering of just 8 countries is not enough in how global policies are formulated. Might the world be better managed through a G13, G15 or G16 by including representatives of Islamic states, too? Or, in preserving the group's initial steering purpose, by a G12 of the world's biggest economies? In the meantime, global institutions that were set up after the end of WWII have to look hard at their own futures. Whereas the G8 takes on a bit of everything, these other institutions fundamentally divide into two types: economic and financial, and political.

At the apex of global political management, but looking more antiquated and increasingly anachronistic, is the United Nations Security Council. Five permanent members, who wield vetoes - The US, Russia, China, Britain and France - in general terms, are the victors of the last long-ago world war. Ten other members rotate at the whim of the various UN regional groupings. The United Nations is presided over by a Secretary-General, currently Ban Ki-Moon from South Korea. Moreover, though, the UN is a vast bureaucracy, splintering into hundreds of specialised agencies with various differing remits and spheres of activity: an attempt was made, too, in saving the world not just from another war, but from a repeat of the Great Depression of the 1930s. That job was granted to another plethora of institutions such as the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund (IMF) (known jointly as the ‘Bretton Woods' institutions after its place of origin) the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), a rich country think-tank set up in 1961 and, others, like the World Trade Organisation (WTO) formerly known as GATT.

Most global institutions, if not all, have at some stage in the recent past been buttressed by conventions, court declarations, mandates and the changing terms of treaties governing almost every aspect of what affects its people and the world - from human rights to the environment.

The whole elaborate and intricate architecture of so many world governing bodies has, too, had extra underpinning from strong and powerful regional organisations, such as the European Union, and less elaborate ones like the African Union (AU) or the various talking-shops of Latin America, the Arab and Asian world, as well as under-pressure alliances such as NATO. Beneficially, such a numerous spray of institutions avoided any repeat of the disastrous global conflicts that the world experienced in the first half of the 20^th century.

Yet, that epitome of success has become a powerful pressure, amongst others, to adjust the way in which the world is now run, as economic winners demand a greater say.

OTHER PRESSURES

PRESSURE FOR CHANGE has also stemmed from intensifying resentment, antipathy and frustration. Despite a whole realm of ringing declarations on human rights against genocide and crimes against humanity, and even after the promises pledged by the UN summit in 2005 in having a "responsibility to protect", the United Nations Security Council still finds itself unable to acquiesce in doing much to protect the innocent people of Darfur, Zimbabwe and Myanmar from the murderous and brutal contempt of their rulers - just as in the 1990s when the UN failed the innocent victims of genocide capitulated in Rwanda.

Philosophically, if the Security Council commissioned with such high principles shows such weakness in the face of tyrants and despots - or by showing scant regard to those who flagrantly flout nuclear treaties, for instance - doesn't such an organisation deserve to be bypassed? As mentioned recently, on Mark Dowe's wordpress, John McCain, the Republican candidate for President of the United States, is a keen proponent in the creation of a new ‘League of Democracies' which, given the level of support such a league would have, would not only acquire moral legitimacy but also having the will to effectively right the world's wrongs, as and when it might be needed.

Another impetus and thrust in rejigging the way the modern world organises itself is a dawning realisation on the parts of national governments, both rich and poor. The biggest challenges shaping their futures - climate change, the forces of globalisation, resource scarcity, state failures, terrorism and the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction - often need global, not just national or regional solutions. The shifting of economic power, in this the 21^st century is justification enough in rebalancing influence and how decisions should be arrived at.

After decades of separating the world into the rich and powerful West and the developing (or emerging) ‘rest', China's rapid economic growth and dynamism of East Asia has led to the possibility of a new "Pacific" century well before the old "Atlantic" one has ended. Given present trends, it is reckoned that by 2030 three of the world's four largest economies will be from Asia. China is expected to top the global league ahead of the United States. India and Japan remain determined in gaining permanent seats on the UN Security Council.

MULTIPOLAR

When for former Soviet Union collapsed, America's dominance of the world was clear for all to see but, as Russia has recovered it has been joined by a rising and emerging powerful China and others such as Europe and Japan in a new assemblage of big powers that is based on far more than just old-rocket counts of the cold war. Introduce India, too, and you capture 54% of the global population and 70% of GDP. Such a ‘multipolar' world cannot be ignored by those who continue to wrestle and hold onto power as if nothing has changed.

The effects of globalisation - the increasingly unfettered flow of information, technology, capital, services and people - have created a vast platform of opportunity and influence far and wide. In addition to the pace being set by both China and Russia, add not just India and Brazil but Mexico, South Africa, Saudi Arabia, South Korea and Australia, new world winners as money changes hands that has led to a faster turning world. 

A modern day map of power and influence should also include essential ingredients such as the Internet, a powerful transformational tool; manipulators from lobbying NGOs to the effects that ‘terrorism' has had on the world; capitalist profit-takers such as those vast global conglomerates and corporations; and the unpredictable forces at work in the world such as global financial flows which due to their volatility can added significant risk to how eventual decisions are arrived at.

Dozens of influences and players, exercising different kinds of power, interact in a complex web that is vastly complicated in an effort to find a better balance of influence and responsibility. But, an excuse of ‘complexity' is no answer to the demand for equity and fairness in a multipolar world. World bodies and institutions have to change and reform to reflect the ambitions and concerns of the world as it evolves in new directions.

China, itself, ignited afresh as it ditched Marxism, Lenin and Mao. Its reformers were able to tap the liberal rules-based system for new ideas codified in the rules of the IMF and World Bank. China rejoined the World Bank in 1980, just as its new reforms were seeking a new economic start. Paradoxically, Communist-run China has since been one of the system's biggest beneficiaries. It is by no means the only one. Despite world stock-market volatility, dips and credit squeezes, world income per head has increased by more over the last five years than during any other similar period on record.

Practical institutions such as the IMF and the World Bank, have adapted, through fits and starts, which other world bodies should look upon in understanding how change can be made when it is needed. For example, just this year the IMF reformed the rather odd formula by which it allocates votes and financial contributions according to economic size and reserves. China's share of votes will increase to 3.81%, but this still falls far short when considering its weight in the world economy. Problems are still inherent because the World Bank is run by an American, the IMF by a European - many still ask what the relevance is for either organisation to continue. The IMF, for example, was initially set-up to follow and track exchange rate movements, a remit that has now been surpassed. The IMF could better serve as a monitoring institution for world bodies in so many other ways.

Until the late 1990s the IMF, monitor of exchange rates and lender of last resort to struggling governments, had plenty of work. But, the tides have turned. Emerging economies, once the IMF's chief clients and source of its earnings in repaid interest and loans, are these days aplenty with their own cash.

Earlier this year, too, the IMF Board voted to cut its staff and by agreeing to sell an eighth of its gold reserves, in expectation of future funding shortfalls. Again, with the IMF having no obvious role in coping with the aftermath of the recent banking and stock-market turbulence, its future role seems more relevant by acting in a fiduciary capacity as expert economic adviser.

There is a concern, though, that the world may still need a lender of last resort. Whilst critics think the IMF's days should be numbered and its remaining reserves put to better use for economic development around the world, others muse that what is needed is a World Investment Organisation, which sets basic and fundamental rules whilst being able to track more efficiently the huge and complex movements of cash within hedge funds, sovereign wealth funds, banks and financial markets.

The World Bank, on the other hand, appears, even now, to have more of a certain future. But, it has to take stock just the same. Competition, for example, has stiffened from accessing private capital markets. Governments around the world that once needed the bank's help for dams and major road building projects are earning substantial sums from the sale of their own raw materials. In Africa, for instance, the willingness of both China and India to spend liberally without strings attached in pursuit of oil and mineral extracts means that Sudan and countries within the Congo can take the bank's cash without any conditions attached.

The World Bank still has a future in lending to unfashionable causes, or countries which donors simply neglect. Its future might well extend into providing global public goods such as funding energy infrastructure and climate-change projects.

REMAINING EQUAL

The World Trade Organisation (WTO), though relying on a representative alliance of states in forging deals, is an institution that belongs to all its members. During the Doha round of talks, for instance, both India and Brazil are very much central to proceedings. This is in stark contrast to how both the World Bank and the IMF are governed; both steered by their biggest stakeholders.

The premise of the WTO is based on egalitarianism, or social equality and classlessness. Such a basis, whilst having weaknesses, carries with it great strengths.

Beneficial, at least in legal terms, is the 60,000 pages of jurisprudence that govern the workings of the WTO dispute mechanism. The WTO ensures that members do not discriminate amongst each other - a deal which is extended to all of its members. Such an underpinning has certainly helped expand world trade. Russia is not part of the WTO, but that is its choice.

Conversely, those countries wishing to join by making application in becoming a member of the WTO must strike deals with each of the existing members - presently totalling 152. The ubiquitous nature of requiring consensus means that the Doha development rounds are often bogged down in disputes between developed and developing countries over complex, reciprocal cuts in agricultural subsidies and tariff barriers. Slow progress often results in bilateral and regional deals. Moreover, if the Doha round fails completely, the recriminations can run far and wide - threatening any attempts, for example, in gaining agreement between the developed and developing world on new mechanisms needed in dealing with the threats of climate change.

Contentiously, and most bitterly contested, is membership of the UN Security Council which has the right in deciding what constitutes a threat to world peace and security, and what it intends to do about it when such a threat arises. The UN's other big decision-making institution, the General Assembly, is where the entire world can have its say, and does. Here, though, outsiders tend to make their resentments known: a group of mostly developing countries (known as the G77 - but comprising 130 members including China) tends to dominate Assembly gatherings by employing the filibuster tactic (delaying or preventing the passage of legislation by making long, irrelevant speeches).

Alleviating resentment and improving the effectiveness of the United Nations, particularly the Council's authority, might be assuaged if America, Britain, France, Russia and China considered giving up their veto and, by inviting others in joining them as permanent members. When the P5 first took up the most powerful seats, the United Nations had just 51 members. Decades of decolonisation, the UN now has 192 countries as part of its membership. Obstacles preventing reform remains a serious hindrance.

The latest attempt in making reform of the UN came from a concerted effort by Brazil, Germany, India and Japan to join the council as permanent members. A combination of jealously, argumentative debates and stiff-arming thwarted any fruitful realisation of that from happening. African countries, for instance, argued which of their several aspirants should be eligible in joining the bid. Regional rivals lobbied in blocking the front-runners. China made it clear it would veto Japan; arguments between Argentina and Mexico; Pakistan making its weight felt; America, supporting only Japan.

Introducing new and additional permanent members would widen the regional balance. Undoubtedly, that would add authority and legitimacy to the decisions being made by the council. Diversity is required if the credibility of the United Nations Security Council is to be restored. Bringing in nuclear-armed India, along with soft-powered Japan, for instance, would bring a considerable degree of depth to the council.

For those who argue against enlargement of a more permanent and diverse council concerns are centred on the issue of how shared responsibility would be effective. For instance, once difficult outsiders gained a permanent footing under the table, would this top them from protecting bad elements, as South Africa has been doing with Zimbabwe. It would appear, in part, anyway, that such dissent is done merely in defying the permanent five.

And, prising the P5 from their permanent vetoes, too, might also have adverse effects. Wasn't it dependable veto power that ensured vital interests were not overridden that kept both the US and Russia talking at the United Nations during the Cold War? Russia will hardly forget the mistake of the brief Soviet boycott that led to force being authorised in repelling North Korea at the start of Korean War in 1950. Would it ever be likely that China would show clear signs of self-effacement?

Staying at the table doesn't guarantee agreement. The United Nations is an organisation of different states, and nations differ for reasons good and bad. President George W Bush went to war in Iraq without explicit backing from the Security Council; NATO went to war in ending ethnic cleansing in Kosovo, despite Russia's almost certain right of veto had the issue been brought before the council. Whilst Bush's usurping of the UN Security Council will probably go down in history as the event that severely weakened the council's authority and standing, it is worth noting that, on many contentious issues, the council's divisions have not prevented responsible stewardship elsewhere. A Security Council summit in 1992, for example, agreed that the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction was a "threat to peace and security" that should be dealt with forcibly if the need arises. In addition, after the terrorist attacks of 9/11, new Security Council resolutions were passed in curbing terrorists' financing networks and by strictly controlling, with more diligence, the use of nuclear, biological and chemical weapons.

Over the past 15 years, there has been a huge increase in the numbers of ‘blue helmets' deployed, currently around 100,000 soldiers and police in various political hotspots around the world. A presence that has helped in reducing the number of conflicts between warring states, as well as calming civil disorders from Bosnia to Haiti, from the African Congo to the Lebanon, and from Cambodia to the Sudan. An acceptance, by the UN, that has converged towards a political ‘responsibility to protect'. This has taken the council towards new territory and unchartered waters which, earlier this decade, it would never have contemplated even discussing. The creation, too, of an International Criminal Court (ICC) which is separate from the UN, but able to take referrals, ready and willing to prosecute the worst crimes.

Yet, despite these developments, continued wrangling and divisions among the permanent members have often slowed down deployment of UN peacekeepers where they are most needed, the war-torn provinces of Darfur a good example. With China and Russia being arch-defenders of the Westphalia principles (that state sovereignty trumps all), pessimists believe that neither country will ever seriously contemplate authorising a forceful intervention, even in ending genocide. The new UN Human Rights Council has yet to prove that it can bring brutal and tyrannical governments to account.

China, for years, has been reluctant in condemning Kim Jong Il's North Korean nuclear proliferation and bomb testing, disapproving of the Security Council passing judgement on it.  Furthermore, despite the P5 plus Germany having worked together over the past three years by imposing a series of UN resolutions on the Iranian regime - in defiance of the NPT through its alleged nuclear work and testing - both Russia and China have, repeatedly, and doggedly, watered down each proposed resolution, virtually line by line.

Autonomy

Regardless of the push for reform, there will always be so much that the UN Security Council will never be able to do, irrespective of who holds the most influential seats on the council in the future. The Internet, for instance, is becoming a powerful and effective medium by which campaigners on human rights, as on other issues, are disseminating their messages around the world. China, too, whilst being stung by constant exposure over its policies in Sudan and Darfur, appointed a special envoy and has, to some extent, shifted ground on the urgency of providing a UN force, even though such a deployment is painfully slow.

In some instances, regional organisations are better equipped in dealing with the strain. The stabilising of borderlands throughout the EU has been helped both through enlargement of the Union, through additional members being admitted, and the strengthening of NATO through additional European troops and police throughout the Balkans. Russia might well protest, but the western frontier has never been more peaceful.

Africa is another good example in how self-determination and help (of their own problems) might be more effective than relying on decisions from the UN that might never materialise. African solutions to African problems, through the African Union, such as how it has been able to deploy troops in Sudan in dealing with a critical crisis should not be under-emphasised in the ability of the AU to act, when it is needed. Devolving some areas, whilst beneficial, other areas require caution such as security. The AU delegated the problem of what to do with Zimbabwe to a southern African group (SADC), who then left it to Thabo Mbeki, who refrained from acting. Zimbabwe, and the people of that torn land, are still awaiting relief. 

Other alliances are also opening-up. The Association of South-East Asian Nations (ASEAN), a well constructed regional forum has drawn in not only China, Japan and Korea, but the US, Russia and European countries. Diversity around the concept of ASEAN has led to other summits involving only regional rivals, such as the axis between China-Japan-Korea. A new East Asian Summit, too, excludes the US but incorporates India and Australia. Americans themselves naturally prefer in boosting the Asia-Pacific Economic Co-operation forum (APEC). Russia, China and their Central Asian neighbours have been instrumental in the founding of the Shanghai Co-operation Organisation, in part to counter Western influence in the region as NATO continues with its strategic objectives in Afghanistan.

Autonomous problem-solving groups, separate from the UN, come in various shapes and sizes in an attempt to resolve disputes; quartets such as those in existence in promoting Middle Eastern peace or in attempting to settle the future of Kosovo. Some 80-countries are part of the Proliferation Security Initiative, who exchanges information by blocking illegal shipments of nuclear or weapons building materials. Like the P5 + Germany talks on Iran, there are also six-party talks hosted by China on the future of North Korea, a consortium that includes America, South Korea, Japan and Russia, which, saliently, could yet evolve into a formal north-east Asian security forum.

China, India and Russia meet from time to time in a reaffirmation of multipolarity allegiance. They may have little more in common than an overriding eagerness in relegating Europe and America into the shade, but meetings between all economic and finance ministers will likely become a sign of how things are changing. With a wary eye on China's growing economic and military weight, the US has formed additional pacts with Australia and Japan.

Idiosyncratic but recognisable world organisations includes those patchwork of institutions throughout the Commonwealth, territory that knits together former British colonies; the Non-Aligned Movement, a membership of 116 countries bound-over from the cold war that produces communiqués for the elimination of prejudice.

League of Democracies

The idea of creating a ‘league of democracies' isn't new. An attempt was made in 2000 by the United States in creating a ‘Community of Democracies'. In-principle, it is perfectly acceptable for freedom-loving governments to speak-up and defend democracy. However, there are issues required to be borne-out.

For instance, friends of America might not necessarily all be democrats and, because of this, the US might find it hard to say no over critical areas of difference that may arise between nations. John McCain's League of Democracies is certainly due to be framed around exacting rules for countries entering or leaving, a Concert which could be viewed as an alternative source of legitimacy, should the Security Council be hopelessly divided on issues of the day. A league that would seek two-thirds majority of the 60 countries in authorising the use of force to deal with threats to peace or in upholding the guiding principle of having a "responsibility to protect".

Contentiously, though, would a group of countries that span continents from Botswana to Chile, and Israel to the Philippines, ever manage to strike accord? Some may argue that a democratic caucus at the UN has achieved very little and by simply dividing the world along different lines, again, might seem a backwards step. Would such a league be in a position to solve pressing global problems? Coping with climate change and the effects of global warming, for example, requires China and India, as active members in any settlement; energy security needs the co-operation of both Saudi Arabia and Russia.

© Mark Dowe 2008: all rights protected

Related:

• Jonathan Fenby, "The G8 is becoming increasingly irrelevant"

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2008/jul/11/g8

One of his main points seems to be that there is a "law of unintended consequences" operating when a country or set of countries decide to intervene in another on humanitarian grounds. Regime change is never just that - it comes with baggage and unforseen challenges that the intervening country/countries have historically seemed ill equipped to handle. Case in point - Iraq.

Read the full article here.

--Divya

For background on the principle of "R2P" see the website of the newly-created Global Centre for the Responsibility to Protect at the Ralphe Bunche Institute for International Studies at the CUNY Graduate Center.

The French Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner first raised the question with respect to Burma  earlier this month.

The BBC's Laura Trevelyan touched on the issue yesterday on The World.

Samantha Power and Fred Hiatt discussed the issue last week on NPR.

Aside from the question of whether R2P is relevant to Burma, there's been a heated debate about its merits with respect to Darfur. Advocates of R2P see Darfur as a test case. Critics say R2P is just a slogan and a false promise. 

Gareth Evans makes the case FOR.

Alex de Waal makes the case AGAINST.

Part of the disagreement hinges on whether you think R2P is synonymous with military intervention or not.

Lots of food for thought.

Of course, killing fields are all too common so this line of questioning is pointless.

Cambodia, Rwanda, Dar Fur, the Congo.  All have witnessed "the treatment", international hand-wringing and the occasional hiccup of half-hearted measures to stem the dreadful tide of death.  History repeats itself, especially in this fashion, early and often.

Burma seems destined to join these ranks.  Credible reports of aid theft, continued obstruction and delay of accepting the necessary aid workers and whispered observations of ethnic minorities getting nothing intentionally (we call that ethnic cleansing in some places) mean nothing to the world at large.

 What then could be done?

Military intervention is highly unlikely and probably not advisable. 

Inaction is preferable to most but morally repugnant.

Begging the junta publicly and privately to accept aid is disgraceful.

Once again, the US finds itself in a position where it could influence events but cannot because it lacks the capacity in most instances to operate on multiple levels of policy and activity.  The crisis develops to America's policymakers as an either/or fallacy, either intervention or nothing, or like Dar Fur, intervention or half-hearted measures.

There is more to the picture. The following are examples of other measures that could be explored, some in tandem, some obviously cancel the other out.

- The US could dangle the prospect of a lifting of sanctions against Burma in exchange for a firm agreement to allow aid and (perhaps) engage in a real dialogue with China, India, Thailand and ASEAN or the UN present with regime opponents. The sanctions have a symbolic effect but little else in a country where the above countries enjoy far greater influence and economic pull than we do.

- The US could muster the "democracies" as John McCain and Robert Kagan are fond of claiming can be "aligned" and push at the UN and through the global media for an ICC related indictment of the junta as war criminals (Crimes against humanity, to include ethnic cleansing).  Even if the Chinese and Russians veto it, push and push harder until the Olympic Games are set to begin.  Control the narrative of the global media by influencing events relentlessly that builds up pressure on more affected parties like India, Singapore and Thailand.  Failure is still likely but lessons learned from this may come in handy in future potential disasters like Bangladesh, North Korea, Laos, Cambodia, etc.

- Find an answer to the question of how influential are the Chinese in Burma? How many of the officers in the junta are in their pocket?  What it would take if the possibility existed for China to support a coup in Burma? How could the US push this forward? 

- Start arming the rebels in abundance. Such a tactic may be morally dubious at worst (though given the ruthless assault on ethnic minorities via rapine, aerial bombardment, murder of children, food weaponization and enslavement by the regime it isn't that repugnant) but it will be China, Thailand & India's mess to clean up after the failed state finally totters over.  Their choice to worship the false deity of "Burmese stability" that supporting the generals represents is tantamount to that of an accessory to mass murder.  

Is anything else available? Perhaps a long-term goal of opening the regime through trade (again, the lifting of useless sanctions) is the best option to be explored, though its also the most unlikely due to the idea of sanctions being a sanctified sacred cow in bipartisan American foreign policy.

Note none of these require an intervention by the US military.  Just as a variety of diplomatic possibilities were not explored before and during Dar Fur, failure to identify the RPF as preferential to Hutu Power (Or even jamming the Hutu Power radio signals) and how realpolitik trumped humanity (supporting the ghastly Khmer Rouge versus the Vietnamese), matters are regularly portrayed in Washington as "either-or" and actual understanding of the problem at hand (and the opportunities open to explore) suffers greatly as a result.

Above all else, the world today and in the near to mid future will likely be as hostile and unpromising to the application of American military power to address such tragedies. The need for potential alternatives besides doing nothing will only increase.  

This blogger is not egotistical enough to believe the ideas presented here are the best alternatives for Burma, yet considers the need for options beyond "just do something" or "do nothing" imperative to having a fighting chance at achieving some measure of our goals for Burma and respond to the enormous injustice regularly inflicted upon the many Burmese peoples in the future.

* Besides, stunned silence in the face of such depravity and craven shortsightedness from the generals and politicians in Asian and Western capitals is too much to bear without at least one more post about this.

Sources/Influential Posts:

"Is Armed Humanitarian Intervention The Answer In Burma?" @ New Yorker In DC
"Yes We Can" @ Coming Anarchy
Jim Hoagland, Washington Post: "Murder In The Name Of Sovereignty"

Dawn of the philistines
From Question Period to the Portrait Gallery to Peter Worthington's desk, it has been another unedifying week in Canadian politics.

Jeffrey Simpson owes us a beer for reading past the first eight words of today's effort: "In the centre of the Australian capital, Canberra…" (For the uninitiated, The Globe and Mail's eminence grise went walkabout last year, and it eventually became… insufferable.) We are, however, sympathetic to his point, namely, that it's "sheer grubbiness and … intellectual tawdriness" to "farm out" the National Portrait Gallery to a city other than Ottawa, and to shoehorn it into some kind of "mixed-use development" wherever it's eventually built.

In the Toronto Star, Chantal Hébert attempts to figure out how a party (i.e., Reform) that "provided a lot of the policy impetus of the last Liberal era, notably on the fiscal, justice and unity fronts," merged with the remnants of another big-idea party (i.e., the Progressive Conservatives), won an election, and produced a government with "a chronic deficit of policy ambition"—not to mention a parliamentary dynamic in which the level of "animosity … is inversely proportional to the issues that are at stake," and a Prime Minister who won't change strategic tack even as he fails to make up ground against a hobbled and poorly-led opposition. We're not sure she succeeds, but she lays out the problem beautifully.

Against all the laws of probability and logic, Susan Riley's one-column-a-week schedule seems to have made her even more quixotic than before. In today's Ottawa Citizen, she suggests Canada's "non-Conservatives" need to "reclaim the language of political discourse" from the Tories, "substituting optimism, scrupulous fairness and tolerance of other views for the strident, fear-based, divisive dialogue Harper has used so effectively." We still don't understand why people believe Dion to be capable of such things. And "reclaim," last we checked, means "to claim again." At what point in the Liberal party's past—or any political party's, for that matter—should we start looking for this "scrupulous fairness and tolerance of other views"?

Peter Worthington offers Toronto Sun readers a big load of drivel about Roméo Dallaire and how his "abysmal failure in protecting human rights when he was a general in command of the UN mission in Rwanda in 1994" make him ill-suited to "lecture others"—i.e., the Commons Subcommittee on International Human Rights, which presumably invited him to appear—on what should be done with Omar Khadr, two words that instantly short-circuit Worthington's brain. "Khadr had little choice but become what his father and family made him," he writes. And then, six sentences later, "he knowingly made his choice, as many underage Canadians did when they joined the army in World War II."

Somewhat less negative news about politics
The Vancouver Sun's Barbara Yaffe reads all five articles in the current issue of Policy Options about the Liberals' woes, so you don't have to! It's like Megapundit within Megapundit, complete with a musty platitude from L. Ian MacDonald (in Yaffe's words): "Ontarians won't vote for a candidate who fails to pass muster in Quebec."

L. Ian MacDonald himself, meanwhile, attends a roundtable of "nearly 30 members of Quebec's political intelligentsia" on "federalism and the future of the Canadian federation" and reports in the National Post of an unprecedented consensus—that the sovereignty battle has been replaced, in the words of Mel Cappe, with an "outward-looking nationalism" that pushes for Quebec's interest within the federation.

Lorne Gunter, writing in the Edmonton Journal, looks back on all the times Stéphane Dion dissed carbon taxes and pledged never to campaign for one as Liberal leader. Given this rather remarkable about-face, and "the long tradition among Liberal leaders" of giving Alberta the shaft, Gunter asks why on earth he should believe Dion now when he says the new tax will be revenue neutral.

The Citizen's Dan Gardner appreciates Graham Fraser's opinion, in response to an earlier column, that since "members of visible minority groups are just as bilingual (English-French) as Canadians whose mother tongue is English," official bilingualism doesn't impede the establishment of a talented and suitably diverse civil service. The problem with that argument, Gardner writes, is that "the rate [of bilingualism] among anglophones is abysmal" in the first place. "Roughly nine in 10 cannot speak French." Meanwhile, Statistics Canada tells him, just 5.4 and 4.2 per cent of the visible minority populations in Toronto and Vancouver, respectively, can speak both official languages. How, he asks, does that not constitute "a barrier to recruitment"?

The poor, poor polar bears
The Calgary Herald's Don Martin finds it ironic that the mighty (and mighty cute!) polar bear, designated a "threatened" species by the Americans this week, "has a particular culinary affinity for" for the adorable seal pup," which "it grabs by the head and chews." This is especially relevant, he argues, since the climate change-related panic over ursus maritimus, like the anti-seal hunt rigmarole, is itself predicated so much on symbolism—"only two of the 13 pockets of population [are] experiencing any decline and the rest [are] enjoying a boom," he notes. (For our part, we continue to find it ironic that many Canadians seem to want to save the planet as much for the benefit of man-eating bears as for their own. But we're among the philistines, clearly.)

Colby Cosh, writing in the Post, finds it odd that outifts like the David Suzuki Foundation are taking the Bush administration's word on polar bears and demanding that Canada immediately follow suit, effectively overruling the month-old recommendations of the Committee on the Status of Endangered Wildlife in Canada. "Any claim by an observer of the polar bear issue that future global warming is purely hypothetical and not yet predictable with confidence would be met with shrieks of rage against 'climate deniers,'" Cosh writes. "But these same acolytes of the Holy Temple of Science are now urging John Baird, the Environment Minister, to trash the [month-old] recommendations of his own scientific committee." Indeed, the hypocrisy stinks like… well, like a polar bear.

From Kabul to Rangoon
"The burqa remains stubbornly ubiquitous" even in Kabul, the Star's Rosie DiManno reports from Afghanistan, noting that women who ditched them after the Taliban were deposed "now wear skirts that cover nearly as much leg and long-sleeved tops no matter how hot the weather." DiManno then takes us inside the fascinating world of burqa production, including a visit to a home business where children pleat material using "what looks like a medieval torture apparatus" and "ancient irons … heated on a propane flame."

"The shambles in Iraq … has had a deeply sobering effect on public and governmental attitudes" since the "responsibility to protect" doctrine was agreed to by UN member nations, Richard Gwyn argues in the Star. And the United States—a necessary partner in any intervention in Burma or anywhere else—"has lost its international moral authority." The very predictable danger with each crisis in which the doctrine isn't invoked, Gwyn argues, is that "a mood, if not of indifference then of helplessness, and so of an emotional distancing may now begin to take hold."

To wit: Lloyd Axworthy's plan for helping the citizens of Burma amounts to "a massive amphibious assault on a steaming, immense, swampy river delta half-way around the world," in John Robson's estimation, which is "about the level of practicality one had come to expect from him." The fact is, he argues in the Citizen, we basically "have no options" when it comes to "inflicting aid on Burma by force." It's just "a bunch of politicians yakking" about the "responsibility to protect" doctrine—or, in Axworthy's case, an ex-politician who "spent years [in Liberal government] bloviating about [it] while signally neglecting its practical counterpart, the ability to do so."

Daniel Schorr had a point yesterday, when he suggested on NPR that there might be a case for foreign intervention in Myanmar. The UN now has a "Responsibility to Protect" doctrine on the books, so it could deliver aid to the Burmese without the permission of their government, if it could find the political backbone to do so. I don't know anything about Burma's domestic political situation, so I cannot say if such a potentially destabilizing action would cause more harm than good, but it seems to me that we definitely need to work with the Security Council to put further pressure on the government of Myanmar and perhaps deliver aid without its permission. But how much more time do the Burmese people have?

Further calls to use the "Responsibility to Protect" doctrine to help the Burmese

• Brown seeks emergency Burma talks, BBC, 5/14/2008
• Force Burmese aid: Canada by Mike Blanchfield, National Post, 5/14/2008
• The UN's responsibility to protect by Ivo Daalder and Paul Stares, International Herald Tribune, 5/13/2008
• The world's responsibility to Burma by Caitlin Wall, Foreign Policy, 5/12/2008
• In Burma, a U.N. Promise Not Kept by Fred Hiatt, The Washington Post, 5/12/2008
• Ruprecht Polenz: UN müssen gegenüber Birma Stellung beziehen, Deutschlandfunk, 5/13/2008
• EU fordert mehr Druck der Uno auf Birma: Zur Not auch gegen den Willen der Junta, tageschau.de, 5/14/2008

More about the "Responsibility to Protect" doctrine

• A Change to Believe In by Roger Cohen, The New York Times, 2/21/2008
• The U.S. Should Reject the U.N. "Responsibility to Protect" Doctrine by Steven Groves, The Heritage Foundation, 5/1/2008
• Responsibility to Protect Coalition
• Responsibility to Protect: Engaging Civil Society

And it's not as if the UN Security Council will easily come to any agreement on R2P either. Further, UN OCHA's head honcho John Holmes earlier this month expressed his scepticism that the Right to Protect would help in any significant way in Myanmar:

In response to a correspondent’s question on the suggestion that the United Nations should invoke “the right to protect” to force the Government to accept international assistance, he stated that he did not think it would help, at the moment, to embark on what could be seen, at least by some people, as being on a confrontational path.  The United Nations was having useful and constructive discussions with the authorities and things were moving in the right direction, even though the United Nations wanted it to move faster.

In any situation like this, the Government, as the sovereign authority, was in charge of the aid efforts, he explained.  What the United Nations tried to do was to support the Government’s aid efforts as much as possible.  The present situation was no different from any other disaster, in that sense.

In an article that dealt with Bernard Kouchner, the French foreign minister's proposal to invoke R2P in Myanmar to grant aid workers access to the country, Gareth Evans says that

The point about "the responsibility to protect" as it was originally conceived, and eventually embraced at the world summit - as I well know, as one of the original architects of the doctrine, having co-chaired the international commission that gave birth to it - is that it is not about human security generally, or protecting people from the impact of natural disasters, or the ravages of HIV-Aids or anything of that kind. Rather, "R2P" is about protecting vulnerable populations from "genocide, war crimes, ethnic cleansing and crimes against humanity" in ways that we have all too miserably often failed to do in the past.

Importantly however, Gareth goes on to note that the case of Myanmar presents a prima facie case for the application of R2P.

If what the generals are now doing, in effectively denying relief to hundreds of thousands of people at real and immediate risk of death, can itself be characterised as a crime against humanity, then the responsibility to protect principle does indeed kick in... There is, as always, lots for the lawyers to argue about in all of this, not least on the question of intent. And there will be lots for the security council to quarrel about as to whether air drops and the like are justified, legally, morally and practically. But when a government default is as grave as the course on which the Burmese generals now seem to be set, there is at least a prima facie case to answer for their intransigence being a crime against humanity - of a kind which would attract the responsibility to protect principle. And that bears thinking about, fast, both by the security council, and the generals.

We may question the moral authority of Gareth to say what he does, given his complicity in propping up Suharto's brutal regime in Indonesia, but the argument he makes is an interesting one. In Burma and the Responsibility to Empower Patrick Meier suggests that "...it is high time we shift to people-centered disaster/conflict early warning & response" but notes accurately that State based disaster mitigation interventions are far from timely and efficient. As a solution, Patrick suggests "more decentralized and tactical approaches to rapid response". I'll be interested to find out what that actually means esp. in a situation like Myanmar. Does a people-centered approach push sovereignty aside? Would tactical responses include hostile air drops over affected areas?

Image from Operation Poomalai  - The Jaffna Food drop

Well over a decade ago, Operation Poomalai smacks of R2P - a hostile air drop by the Indian Air Force into a besieged city in the embattled North of Sri Lanka. Events after the airdrop led to the lifting of the siege onJaffna and the declaration of a cease-fire with the LTTE. However, this led to the disastrous Indian military intervention at the invitation of the Sri Lankan government that ended in their ignoble departure from Sri Lanka, leaving the country no better than when they came in to deal with the terrorist problems that were the cause of many humanitarian crises. 

Point is, even if R2P is invoked and the humanitarian community goes in to Myanmar, there is no guarantee at all that the junta will change. It's also entirely possible that the humanitarian agenda at first leads to a more openly political one very quickly, mirroring then the situation now in Iraq where armed forces that went in on a false premise now can't get out or stay on. Catch 22. In Myanmar this would mean, if the regime is to be changed, possibly billions of dollars of aid over the long term to set up mechanisms of democratic governance including national level ICT infrastructure. 

I wonder if the International Community is up to the task? What if it fails to muster the resources? What happens when the global media moves on, as it invariably will, to the next disaster? What happens to Darfur if resources allocated there are now shifted to Myanmar?

What happens when everyone has moved on and all that a citizen is left in Myanmar is a mobile? Should the legacy of all humanitarian aid be to ensure that communities who can communicate are the best defense against disasters and the strongest bulwark against the erosion of democracy?

From Anthony Mon:

A petition has been started to urge United Nations to apply "responsibility to protect" doctrine to force international aid into Myanmar. Over 4,000 signatures so far.

The R2P was established in 2005 (spearheaded in part by Canada, if memory serves) as a response to the large increase in intrastate conflict since the end of the Cold War. One hope for the doctrine was that the atrocities in places like Rwanda or the former Yugoslavia could be more easily prevented. It has not, unfortunately, been entirely successful, as seen in the lack of response to the situation in Darfur - although this lack of response is also related in part to political agendas, esp. between the UN and the US (I will write a brief post to explain this later, no time now -sorry). It is interesting to me, however, that the R2P does not apply in the situation currently unfolding in Burma.

The latest figures, released by humanitarian agencies working inside Burma, predict that up to 250,000 people may die from lack of available care. Particularly, from cases of illness and disease (such as malaria and cholera) that are predicted to rise dramatically in the poor environment left behind by the recent storm.

250,000 is a big number. If 250,000 people were killed by anything in North America or Europe the shit would hit the fan. We would take to the streets and demand a full response from our governments. Now obviously, the Burmese are not in a position to be demanding much from the junta, but it begs the question - If we would not tolerate our government's inaction, in the face of a potential loss of 250,000 Canadian lives, then we really shouldn't tolerate the same lack of action from the junta. Especially considering that the R2P now gives us the legal right to intervene in cases just like this one.

(By the way, the Responsibility to Protect has already been enacted by the UN in response to Burma's "detention and abuse of political prisoners, ethnic minority women and recruitment of child soldiers." Although, I can't seem to find any evidence of actual intervention beyond political conference and protest.)

If people in Burma are in dire need of help, we need to lend a hand. The junta cannot help its own citizens and it is killing people with its inaction. Fuck that. According to the R2P when a government will not stop abuses against its own people, the outside world has the right to act. So put some boots on the ground and lets give these people some help. I don't see a debate

Small rant aside, I realize that my armchair politics doesn't lend itself to the actual political situation on the ground. Sad, but true. Even if we do have a responsibility to protect, where will the resources come from? At this time there is no international standing army reserved for this sort of operation. If the junta decided to stop aid shipments and aid work by force, there is little (outside of protests) that the international community could (or maybe would is a better word) do about it. And as long as no political will exists, will that would actually stand tall against agressive regimes like the junta, then situations like the one in Burma can never improve. Sad, but true.

Despite the disaster, the junta said it was pressing ahead with a vote on a new constitution designed to maintain its grip on power. All but the worst affected regions will be balloted tomorrow.

In a television message, citizens were urged to do their patriotic duty and vote. The message did not mention the suffering caused by the cyclone.

The question that the world has to answer is what to do about this? Do we allow the generals to attempt to reinforce their grip on power as their people are dying in their thousands, or do we, as the French are advocating at the UN, bypass the Burmese government and distribute by air anyway? I'm not sure anyone in the blogosphere has answers to these difficult questions and I don't want to waste time starting a debate.

Instead donate £10 to the DEC here

We all did it for the tsunami, and must do it again.

If you have any questions about the DEC, or anything about this cyclone and its terrible aftermath just ask. But give anything you can. The agencies partnered with the DEC know what they're doing and aren't affiliated with national governments in any way. They just need money and the freedom to get on with what they're good at.

The lack of outrage evinced by the world in the face of the regime sentencing hundreds of thousands of its own people to death by famine and pestilence should act as a bitter pill for those who foolishly believe a "responsibility to protect" is a viable doctrine now or in the near future.

The junta's bankroller, China, sees no need as of now to get involved.  There is no coming out for Chinese power in the region, not even a half-hearted attempt at choreographing Chinese soldiers rushing into action to assist their beleaguered ally in its time of trouble with relief aid.  

Those wishing to do something about this nightmare would be advised of one viable option to yet save the lives of nearly a million Burmese.  

A worldwide fundraising effort to handsomely monetarily reward the mid-grade and junior Burmese officers who rise up and slaughter their senior leaders (in as slow and painful as possible a manner) to assume control of the country and admit international relief agencies (or at least the Chinese & Thai equivalents).

Barring this dream scenario, is it possible for the United States, Japan, India and others to get together, speak with China, and organize a coup d' teat this week?  

Even more seriously, in all honesty, can the US at least make a fuss at the Security Council over this?  How is this behavior not richly belonging in the highest coda of "crimes against humanity"?  

This regime just marched past North Korea's in the odious line, blew a kiss to the rotting stack of thousands of tortured, murdered Buddhist monks from last year and dived straight into the greatest pool of blood from mass murder since Rwanda.  The screams for help won't be heard this time though, the victims will be too weak from dysentery, cholera and malnutrition to offer up too much of a struggle. 

In the fight to eliminate genocide and crimes against humanity from the face of the earth, we cannot rely on ad hoc responses based on the whims of political will every time a crisis erupts around the globe.  At some point, there must be some measure of automaticity associated with our response, built solidly upon principles of international law and hard-earned lessons from previous efforts.  To that end, the world has recently seen the birth of two essential pillars in that foundation:  the International Criminal Court and the doctrine of the "Responsibility to Protect."

Looking at Northern Uganda, Eastern Congo, and Sudan as case studies, the paper sets forth steps that should be taken by the international community and advocated by the anti-genocide constituency.  It highlights the importance of the ICC and R2P but emphasizes that without them, stopping atrocities is near to impossible.

The New York Times recently ran an article as its cover story in the world section concerning the epidemic of rape in the Congo. Brutality towards women in this conflict-ridden area has become almost "normal". André Bourque, a Canadian consultant who works with aid groups in eastern Congo, is quoted: “Sexual violence in Congo reaches a level never reached anywhere else. It is even worse than in Rwanda during the genocide.”

After returning from a trip to the Congo in 2003, John Prendergast penned a journal entry:

It has become a cliché over the past half century that women bear the brunt of war. That would be an understatement in Congo. Rape has become a routine tactic of war and instrument of violence in Congo. Gross atrocities are routinely committed in the context of mass rape. Lately, there are reports of atrocities and deliberate acts of mutilation committed in the context of mass rape. Brutal rape, kidnapping of women, and forced concubinage have become war behaviors. The brutality of rape appears to be unprecedented globally, and certainly without historical precedent in Congo. The ages of rape victims range from 4 to 80.

At a recent conference hosted by the Genocide Intervention Network, I sat in on a panel discussion with Colin Thomas-Jensen, policy adviser for the ENOUGH project and co-author of the report Averting the Nightmare Scenario in the Eastern Congo. He briefed our group on the current situation in East Congo and expounded on four major reasons why the DRC is a qualifying candidate for the Responsibility to Protect (R2P) doctrine (Member nations at the UN World Summitt in 2005, agreed to the Responsibility to Protect doctrine which states that when a government is unable or unwilling to protect its citizens from mass atrocities, the international community must take responsibility). The second qualification provided by Thomas-Jensen--following the declaration that the DRC has the highest death rate in the world--is that the crisis in East Congo is a full-scale war against women. “There is no worse place in the world to be a woman”, said Thomas-Jensen, conceding that the panel was not the appropriate forum to detail the horrific violations systematically taking place against females there.

Prendergast asserts that an end to the suffering in the Congo depends on the international’s community’s responsibility to protect those being adversely affected: “That responsibility to protect means a number of things. It means providing much more humanitarian aid. It means giving much more support for UN troops to protect civilians. It means becoming much more serious about disarming the predatory militias. It means engaging in much more diplomacy aimed at healing regional and internal rifts. And it means providing much more support to the new Congolese government.”

GET EDUCATED! To learn more about the conflict in Eastern Congo visit the ENOUGH Project.

TAKE ACTION! Learn more about actions you can take against genocide by visiting the Genocide Intervention Network.

BECOME PART OF THE ANTI-GENOCIDE CONSTITUENCY! Call 1-800-GENOCIDE to find out how to talk to your congressional representative.

Responsibility to Protect,
Katie Orlemanski


Our mission is to stop and prevent genocide and mass atrocities by promoting Peace, providing Protection, and Punishing the perpetrators. We use field and policy analysis and strong policy advocacy to empower a growing activist movement for change.

Our mission is to empower individuals and communities with the tools to prevent and stop genocide.