Trivia: Give two repercussions of the UN’s impending withdrawal from Eastern DRC.

Why is the UN considering pulling out of DRC?

What are the likely immediate effects of their withdrawal on the civilian population?

Will the UN’s withdrawal necessarily point DRC in a direction to peace?

Earlier this year, President Joseph Kabila called on the 20,000 UN troops in Eastern Congo to withdraw and let the country ‘fly with its own wings’. The UN mission, code named MONUC, has operated in Eastern Congo since 1999 with the aim of protecting civilians and enforcing the cease fires between the government army and rebel groups.

Kabila’s desire is that MONUC leaves by June 30^th 2011, but negotiations with the MONUC chief Alain Le Roy yielded an extension to August 2011. The UN secretary general Ban Ki-moon doesn’t endorse this move, arguing that MONUC needs to remain in the fragile regions like Kivu until enough national army units have been trained well enough to take over from where MONUC will leave off.

• Started in 1999 to enforce a cease fire between the government forces and rebel groups, during the 1998 – 2002 round of conflict
• Supported DRC’s reunification and its 2006 democratic elections which Kabila won
• Has since worked on training some units of the national army, FARDC, and integrating disarmed rebels in the same
• In January 2009 joined forces with FARDC to make a final assault (Operation Kimia II) on the FDLR
• MONUC soldiers can be given credit for protection of a good number of civilians whose lives might have been in more danger in the absence of MOUC
• But MONUC has also been blamed for supporting a faulty national army which preys on civilians through rape and robbery like the rebels, and for provoking (through Kimia II) a harsh wave of violence from the FDLR which sent 800,000 people into flight by August 2009
• Read more about MONUC here.

• DRC’s sovereignty vs civilian safety, if it is deemed that MONUC has indeed achieved a considerable level of security in Eastern Congo
• Could the UN’s withdrawal mean the beginning of another dreaded wave of violence, death and flight, or is DRC ready to take on the task?

-Sharon Muhwezi, National Congo Education Coordinator

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This week’s trivia and discussion focused on what happens after genocide–focusing particularly on Rwanda.

Trivia:
While the UN established the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR), the national courts in Rwanda were unable to process the large number of cases of accused perpetrators that remained. In light of this, the government adapted the pre-colonial, traditional gacaca courts to handle the remaining cases.

Discussion:
There may not be words enough to describe the immense challenges faced by the Rwandan people following the 1994 genocide. Nearly one million Tutsi and their Hutu sympathizers were killed, devastating a population. Considering that so many were killed n the short 100 day time frame, there must have been a large number of killers. Immediately after the genocide ended, more than 120,000 were arrested as suspects of having perpetrated genocide. So many were arrested that there was not even enough room in the prisons to house them. Not only was Rwanda’s population as a whole decimated, but the judicial system also was incredibly impacted. Many of the judges were either killed or were killers themselves in the genocide, making trials of accused perpetrators very difficult. Estimates say that with the ICTR and the national courts, trials would continue for maybe more than 100 years. As they say, justice delayed is justice denied.

Upon establishing the adapted version of gacaca, the government hoped to speed the trials, bringing truth, justice, and reconciliation to the Rwandan population. While the ICTR is able to process only a small number of elite criminals, gacaca handles the remaining trials. While many praise the ability of the courts to speed trials and bring justice to Rwanda in a traditional way, there are several challenges the court faced.

One difficulty faced by the courts regards the safety and integrity of the inyangamugayo, or judges. In some areas where there are few survivors, it is possible for the judges, selected by the community, to be perpetrators. Even those who did not commit genocide may run a trial of a friend or relative. In addition, since they do not receive a salary for their work, they are susceptible to bribes, and hence trials may result in unfair and untruthful judgments; innocent ruled guilty, and guilty ruled innocent. Their security may also be a problem; they may face intimidation and may even possibly be killed by those who wish them to rule in a particular way.

Security of survivors is also a problem. Though security has improved in recent years, a few years ago it was not uncommon to hear of survivors being killed after giving testimony accusing members in the community of committing genocide. Such cases not only impact the survivor targeted, but also create a climate of fear among the survivor population which may be hesitant to offer testimonies as a result. In addition, it may even be possible for survivors to succumb to corruption, lying in testimony to create a desired outcome of the one who offered bribes.

Prisoners and those who defend them may also not be secure. While prisoners have safety in the prison for the most part, they may feel intimidated by other prisoners or perpetrators who remain outside prison. If prisoners give true testimonies and accuse them, they may fear being attacked by those they accused. Those who defend prisoners may feel intimidated to do so. Also, some do not trust the prisoners’ testimony in general, for they may wish to hide what they have done to protect themselves. They may speak the truth or a partial truth, as doing so, and asking for pardon, can decrease their punishments. It is unclear whether prisoners repent from the heart or in the interest of being released from prison. 

Regardless, trials are expected to conclude this June, and presidential elections will occur this August. There are widespread allegations of suppression of opposition candidates and parties, and two of the country’s independent newspapers have been suspended. Rwanda has come a long way since 1994, but rebuilding after genocide is never easy, and challenges remain to be overcome.

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Trivia Answers: 149 Afghan civilians were killed by NATO airstrikes in 2009.  

Discussion: How do airstrikes and drone strikes affect conflict in Afghanistan and Pakistan? Are either types of strike legal?  

Air strikes and drone strikes are two of the most controversial subjects in the conflicts in Afghanistan and Pakistan. In Afghanistan, air strikes are utilized by NATO forces to target militants or provide air support when troops are in battle with insurgents. They are used infrequently and have led to many civilian casualties, prompting several inquiries into the nature of their use. New strict guidelines, put in place by Gen. McChrystal, commander of the joint NATO and U.S. forces in Afghanistan, have attempted to stomp out this problem by limiting when air strikes may be called. Meanwhile, in Pakistan, drone strikes are used by the U.S. government to assassinate Taliban and al Qaeda militants and batter their hideouts. They have been relatively successful at eliminating mid-level targets and forcing the Taliban in North Waziristan to seek refuge deeper underground or in vast caves. The United States has found drone strikes such an effective tool that the frequency of their use has spiked from several per month to almost one each day.   

As tools of war, air and drone strikes affect the conflicts in different ways. Because the Pakistani government has not given the United States explicit permission to use drone strikes in its territory, the practice has been heavily criticized as illegal and few have deemed it a legitimate use of force. Pakistan’s government says the United States is infringing on its sovereignty by conducting drone strikes without seeking its consent, but other government officials say Pakistan’s intelligence agency has helped the United States locate terrorists to strike, thus delegitimizing Pakistan’s claims. Nevertheless, the Pakistani population views the drone strikes as an arrogant abuse of power by the United States and a violation of Pakistan’s sovereignty and has protested that the strikes kill civilians as often as militants. Pakistan has requested drone technology from the United States in order to develop its drone capacities to strike militants on its own, but while the United States has offered to share some information, it has refused to give Pakistan the technology for unmanned strikes.  

The success of drone strikes in Pakistan has also brought an unexpected danger to civilians: as more militants are killed by the strikes, those that survive have begun using civilian homes as shields to drone attacks. If the attack still occurs, scores of civilians can be killed.  

Yet the Obama administration has found the drone strikes to be legal and has strived to distinguish them from assassination, which is illegal. The Justice Department’s top lawyer has said that because the strikes are proportionate, targeted killings of militants planning terrorist attacks against the United States, they are permissible under international law. Other countries have been reluctant to recognize this principle, and many scholars argue that the strikes are ethically indefensible, especially when they have a chance of killing civilians instead of militants.  

In Afghanistan, air strikes have killed hundreds of non-combatants, generating widespread outrage at their use. Such strikes have previously turned the tide of popular opinion heavily against NATO forces – so much that when mistakes have occurred and air strikes have accidentally killed civilians, Gen. McChrystal has offered his personal apologies to the Afghan government and population. These strikes, however, are legal since U.S. forces are actively engaged in war in Afghanistan (whereas they are not in Pakistan; the United States considers Pakistan a friendly, relatively stable government). Their unpopularity among the Afghan population has also been used by the Taliban as a recruiting tool – militants seek out the families of air strike victims and persuade them to join the fight against pro-government and foreign forces. This in turn puts more civilians in danger of insurgents’ attacks.  

For the most part, airstrikes in Afghanistan and drone strikes in Pakistan have negatively affected civilian populations suffering from conflicts in those regions, increasing the number of casualties and leading many to support militant groups. As long as these methods remain legally questionable and unpopular with the civilian populations of the countries in which they are used, they will delegitimize U.S. efforts to bring peace to the regions and bring further death and destruction to innocent non-combatants. 

-Carolina Chacon, National Conflicts of Concern Education Coordinator

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With only one more day of polling to go, Sudanese citizens have been flocking to the polls. However, many officials still site chaos, claiming that very few people who actually registered to vote made it to their designated site. For example, in South Sudan, 1,323 voters were registered for a specific site, but only 29 (or 2%) successfully made it to the poll on the first day. Some of the ballots have errors, creating confusion in the voting process. Fortunately, there has not been as much violence as was anticipated after the pre-election political turmoil that occurred less than two weeks ago. However, opposition candidates and supporters report intimidation and harassment.

      The Sudanese have been granted two extra days to get to the polls so that problems may be corrected. The polling booths will now close today, Thursday, April 15, 2010. Even though there has not been any substantial violence reported, four UNAMID peacekeepers have been kidnapped in Darfur, demonstrating how incredibly unstable and violent the situation in Darfur is right now. In addition, tensions mounted on Thursday as Sudan’s ruling party reported that the southern army had killed nine people, including five NCP officials. South Sudan’s army claims that it was an individual "crime of passion" after one soldier found a NCP official in bed with his wife.

      Current President Omar al-Bashir is so confident at this moment of a victory for himself and his party, the National Congress Party, that he has asked opposition parties to join the NCP.

       In response to criticisms of the decision to support the elections, Former U.S. President Jimmy Carter, who is heading the Carter Center election observation mission, said, “We want to see CPA (Comprehensive Peace Agreement) implementation continue on schedule. This election is part of that process. …Ultimately, we think there’s value in giving the people of Sudan an opportunity to participate in a broader political process for the first time in a quarter century. That has value."

After discussing genocide prevention and leadership, early warning, early prevention, preventive diplomacy, military options, and international action and the Genocide Prevention Task Force (GPTF) Report, we took a step back to discuss theories of genocide. If we are going to discuss how to prevent genocide, how do we understand it? What is genocide? How does it happen?

In 1943 Raphael Lemkin coined the term genocide, which the UN defines as: “Any of the following acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group, as such:

• Killing members of the group;
• Causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group;
• Deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its
  physical destruction in whole or in part;
• Imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group;
• …Forcibly transferring children of the group to another group."

 How do ethnic groups move into conflict? Why? Are there common threads seen across cultures in various conflicts which can serve as a blueprint for understanding conflict itself? Is conflict a unique phenomenon that is always specific to the place it happens, or are there themes and concepts which are applicable to many or most cases? Gaining an understanding of the process of groups entering conflict can then serve as a foundation for developing an early warning system and prevention mechanisms to deter violence and to save lives.

          Democracy, some say, is a way to deter violence from breaking out. Stanton says that “…structural factors such as totalitarian or autocratic government or minority rule correlate substantially with the incidence of genocide” (Stanton, Early Warning 318). Fein writes that while the Democratic Peace Theory might be accurate in saying that democratic governments won’t enter into external war with democracies, this theory has nothing to say about internal wars and genocide within national boundaries (Fein 322).

            Another such theory involves the concept of modernization. In a contemporary society in which developed nations have industrialized and modernized, there is pressure on the developing world to catch up and to compete in this new world. States which are too far behind to be competitive, but which are not so far behind that they are disinterested, are susceptible to internal conflict. In a state’s frantic and frenzied attempt to “attain the unattainable” (Levene 275), a state is likely to engage in policies like genocide.

  Not having the essentials of daily living, anxieties and frustrations amongst individuals cause people to identify more strongly with the group. In times of hardship, it is through this support that people can cope. When there are difficult life conditions, and when leaders and institutions are not effectively in place to help people cope with the stress and psychological affects of deprivation, individuals will turn to radical leadership (Staub 104). Staub notes that material life conditions are not enough to provoke genocide, but that they create an atmosphere which, with other important factors in place like leadership, can explode into violence.

            Horowitz, criticizing economic theory, notes that it does not provide an adequate explanation as to why there is such strong antipathy in ethnic conflict. Economic hardship does not explain the strong sentiment behind the call to war or the call to commit genocide, nor does it explain why the masses would follow the leaders in that call to war. There must be a theory, Horowitz writes, which notes “the sheer passion expended in pursuing ethnic conflict” and which “does justice to the realm of feelings” (Horowitz 139). This fundamentally subjective quality, of what it feels like to be a member of an ethnic group engaged in conflict, is one whose importance is agreed upon by several scholars of conflict and genocide. The concepts of group sentiment, categorical identities, legitimacy, and survival in a world fearful of extermination are of utmost importance in the theory of group entitlement.

            The power of group sentiment must not be underestimated. Staub says, “because people define themselves to a significant degree by their membership in a group, for most people a positive view of their group is essential in individual self-esteem—especially in difficult times” (Staub 99). It is this idea of belonging to a group, of gaining a feeling of worth and value from group membership, that provides a foundation for understanding why ethnic groups enter into conflict.

            Further, when discussing post-colonial societies, which, it may be argued, are more susceptible to internal ethnic conflict than other societies, the importance of imposed colonial identity and categorization is extremely relevant in the discussion about conflict. Horowitz discusses the idea of “advanced” and “backward” groups. Colonial powers, favoring one group, deems the seemingly more educated, refined, and modern group advanced and treats the group differently. The backward group is the one in which members are seemingly barbaric, uneducated, indigenous. In colonial times, when advanced groups receive disproportionate colonial attention, backward groups of course feel threatened, less worthy. Even in non-colonized societies, the concepts of backward and advanced groups have a powerful hold on states.

            Finally, when considering group entitlement, the notion of survival and fear of extinction is perhaps the most powerful concept to consider. The competitive, discriminatory nature of the simple act of division into groups paired with the insecurity of the challenge of more “advanced” groups, which might not even be legitimated with the land, can fuel anxiety and desire for homogeneity. This desire becomes a projection; a group’s desire to create a homogenous society by any means becomes a fear that other groups have the desire for homogeneity. From this a group derives a fear of extinction (Horowitz 180). Levene notes similarities between the Rwandan genocide and the Holocaust by citing the same fear and anxiety that “the state itself was on the brink of destruction” (Levene 288). The state in this context includes the group with legitimacy rooted in the land. The others, after all, have seemingly no claim to the territory, and are therefore outsiders, invaders, and not nationals. Genocide in these two cases was conducted with the belief that the nation and its identity as an Aryan or Hutu society was at risk of extinction. Kiernan also notices this factor in genocide and ethnic conflict. He cites a quote directly from Hitler emphasizing this point. Hitler once said, “‘We are faced with the harsh alternative of striking now or of certain annihilation sooner or later’” (Kiernan 247).

             Because of the monumental importance of emotion and sentiment in ethnic conflict and genocide, it seems as though the theory Horowitz proposes, with which several other scholars are in line, is a more accurate view of ethnic conflict than those based on rational cost and benefit like economic theory. The power of group sentiment when divided into categories, the concepts of advanced and backward groups, legitimacy through association with the soil, and the fear of extinction, make for a deadly combination.

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