by Daniel Korski | Jul 21, 2008 | Conflict and security, Cooperation and coherence, Europe and Central Asia
As Richard’s reported, former Bosnian Serb leader Radovan Karadzic, accused of being responsible for the massacre of more than 100.000 Bosnian Muslims during the Bosnian War in the late 1990s, has finally been captured by Serb forces after 13 years on the run.
This is nothing short of a momentous day for international justice and therefore deserves a double blog-entry. ICTY Prosecutor Serge Brammertz, who will prosecute Dr. K – as he was known – summed it up:
This is a very important day for the victims who have waited for this arrest for over a decade. It is also an important day for international justice because it clearly demonstrates that nobody is beyond the reach of the law and that sooner or later all fugitives will be brought to justice.
The date of Radovan Karadži?’s transfer into the Tribunal’s custody will be determined in due course, but the capture comes at a key moment, with ICTY’s sister court, the International Criminal Court, coming under fire for having indicted the Sudanese President Umar al-Bashir for war crimes in Darfur.
As readers of the blog will know, only a few weeks ago I voiced concerns about ICTY, pointing out that two key fugitives – Radovan Karadzic and Ratko Mladic – were on the loose. Now I feel a lot better.
For the Serbian goverment too, this is crucial moment allowing President Boris Tadic to begin his country’s road towards European integration that was cruelly stopped when Prime Minister Zoran Dindic was killed.
by Richard Gowan | Jul 17, 2008 | Africa, Conflict and security, Cooperation and coherence, Economics and development, Influence and networks
It’s ten days since seven UN troops were killed in Darfur – today, one more has been killed. In between, there have been a series of events that raise big questions about the UN’s future in Africa. First, there was the defeat of the US-UK effort to slap arms sanctions on Zimbabwe in the Security Council – notable less for China and Russia’s vetoes than the African Council members’ (pace Burkina Faso) rejection of the resolution. Then there was the ICC decision to charge Sudan’s President Bashir with genocide in Darfur – again, the most striking part of the international response has been the level of African opposition, with the AU’s “Panel of the Wise” announcing the charges could “lead to a lot of danger”.
The convergence of these events may mark a turning-point in how Africa fits into the international system. African leaders are setting limits on global governance.
For most of the last decade, the continent has been a laboratory for international institutions: it has hosted the bulk of UN peacekeepers; been the testing-ground of the Millennium Development Goals (and so the G8’s efforts to hang with Bono); and was the ICC’s focus even before the Bashir indictment. The AU has emerged as everyone’s favorite new regional institution, not least for taking on Darfur.
For quite a few commentators, myself included, it has been almost axiomatic over the last few years that better international institutions mean a better Africa. But we mostly missed the politics of institution-building: the interests and ideologies of African governments, and the limits on their desire to be subsumed into supranational organizations (hey there, EU specialists, does this ring a bell with you?). There’s been lots of talk of “African ownership” over all this institution-building, but it’s all too often hollow. In May, I was at a seminar in Berlin at which the African participants gave the phrase a kicking (check out the event report).
It was never going to be possible to keep on piling international institution on international institution in Africa. I wrote a short piece in October 2006 arguing that the UN might find itself “Out of Africa” sooner than expected – that looked silly as the Security Council went on to mandate blue helmets for Darfur, and mused about sending them to Somalia. But I may not have been so wrong. It’s too early to know whether July 2008 is a turning-point or a blip in international engagement (or interference, depending on your perspective) in Africa. But it should be the moment we start thinking what “African ownership” really means.
by Richard Gowan | Jun 18, 2008 | Africa, Climate and resource scarcity, Conflict and security, Cooperation and coherence, Europe and Central Asia, Global system
The sense of chaos surrounding the EU Force in Chad grows by the day. After rebel groups praised an Irish contingent’s refusal to get involved in fighting and the government condemned their passivity, Javier Solana intervened yesterday to say that the peacekeepers are doing a “fantastic job” and can’t be blamed for anything. Right on cue, the spokesperson for the UN Refugees agency (UNHCR) in Chad blamed the EU Force (Eufor) for failing to protect its staff – which coincides with the government version of events. Here’s the UNHCR account of what happened:
Irish troops were fired at on Saturday while observing clashes between the Chadian army and 800 heavily-armed rebels just outside the eastern Chad town of Goz Beida, about three miles from where 430 Irish troops are based. The Irish fired warning shots. They then took up a defensive position around the refugee camps and internally displaced persons (IDPs) camps they are responsible for protecting.
The rebels advanced into Goz Beida and looted a UNHCR compound and house. Items were stolen including satellite telephones and fuel. Some of the staff were threatened at gunpoint and shots were discharged, destroying computers. UNHCR spokesperson Annette Rehrl said the UNHCR staff were left traumatised.
“The Irish troops in Goz Beida were not able to protect [UN staff] or prevent the looting because they simply were not there. They are here to protect us but they didn’t protect anything. There was shooting going on and they did not appear. Their mandate is to protect refugees, displaced persons and humanitarian staff, including the UN.” The UNHCR has now suspended its activities in eastern Chad due to the deteriorating security situation.
Well, that was yesterday. But here’s news just in from Irish broadcaster RTE:
Speaking on RTÉ Radio’s Morning Ireland, Irish Defence Minister Willie O’Dea said the Defence Forces had acted when they were informed of the incident and moved more than 200 humanitarian staff to their base, Camp Ciara. He said he had received thanks from UN staff on the ground and, this morning, also received an apology for the criticism that had been levelled at the Defence Forces from the UNHCR spokeswoman.
So that’s all good, although Mr. O’Dea has had to cancel a tour of the refugee camps due to the security situation. Whatever the truth of this episode, it demonstrates the gaps that still exist between peacekeepers and humanitarians in crisis-spots – gaps that the UN has tried to address through its “integrated missions” concept, but are bound to be exacerbated when you add other organizations like the EU to the mix. But as trenchant Africa expert Alex de Waal points out to the BBC, this isn’t a situation that can be resolved through better doctrine. With Chad accusing Sudan of assisting the rebels, he’s calling this an “international war”:
“The European Union force in Chad has been caught in a bit of a trap – most of the troop contributing countries do not want to get involved in a shooting war; they don’t want to be partisan. Trying to keep the peace when there’s no peace to keep is actually an impossible mandate, so the European Union troops have essentially decided to keep their heads down and stay out of the war as it begins to unfold.”
The troops may be keeping their heads down, but many European politicians – caught up with the “crisis” of the Lisbon Treaty – will want to bury their heads in the sand on this one. The EU is in a war and it doesn’t even know it yet.
by David Steven | Jun 12, 2008 | Global system, South Asia
Last week, I gave a talk at the Defence Academy on the new public diplomacy, focusing in particular on its implications for Afghanistan.
The full text is after the jump or read it as a pdf.
(more…)
by Daniel Korski | Jun 9, 2008 | Conflict and security, Influence and networks
Simon Jenkins has a good piece in the Sunday Times about the decreasing willingness to contemplate humanitarian intervention. The humanitarian creed, he says:
can no longer override considerations of state sovereignty and the natural caution of diplomats and generals.
While opposing every intervention known to man, Jenkins goes on to lament:
This noble cause has vanished in the wind. Almost before it is put to the test it is gone. The failure to intervene in Darfur and the deference shown to the dictators of Burma and Zimbabwe indicate a pendulum swinging fast in the other direction.
It is not hard to see why the negativity. The West has failed to intervene in Burma and ships are now being forced to return after waiting in vain. The EU military mission in Chad was originally conceived by French Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner as a repeat of the U.S safe zone created in the Kurdish areas in Iraq. But instead of a mandate to go into Sudan, it has had to sit on the Chadian side of the border. Problems, of course, plague missions in Iraq and Afghanistan while Kosovo refuses to solve itself.
But Ivo Daalder and Robert Kagan argued against this pessimism in the Washington Post last year.
America has frequently used force on behalf of principles and tangible interests, and that is not likely to change.
The duo behind the League of Democracies, remind readers that the U.S has intervened between 1989 and 2001 with significant military force on eight occasions — once every 18 months. This interventionism, they go on, has been bipartisan — four interventions were launched by Republican administrations, four by Democratic administrations. The implication: interventionism is here to stay. It is as much a part of international politics as state sovereignty.
I have to say I agree with Daalder and Kagan. The West is only temporarily numbed by recent failures, as well as being logistically constrained because of troop overstretch. True, in Europe few governments seem willing to spend the necessary funds on the required military and civilian capability. True, the U.S electorate is in a particularly sour mood, to the extent that more Europeans now support democracy-promotion than Americans.
But this will pass. And once a new U.S president begins a draw-down in Iraq – a policy I expect from both Senators McCain and Obama – and surge in Afghanistan – again something to expect form both – the balance of sentiment will be re-calibrated in favour of intervention.
However, we need a re-definition of interventionism, a Chicago speech for the new post-Iraq millennium. And David Milliband is the man to give it, in my view.
