The Security Council’s African crisis

On 1 January 2013 South Africa will relinquish control of the African seat on the UN Security Council. For human rights activists around the world it’s presence won’t be missed.

Perhaps prior to the collapse of Apartheid, the prospect of an ANC man sitting at the table and influencing international response to conflict and humanitarian situations across the globe, would have been the ultimate dream. The reality however has been both sordid and abusive.

For South Africa has consistently used its position to back oppressors; from blocking condemnation of ethnic cleansing in Burma, to undermining pressure on Bashar al-Assad as he butchers his own people. Closer to home, successive ANC administrations have supported Robert Mugabe in Zimbabwe and the indicted War Criminal Omar al-Bashir in Sudan. And when it comes to China and its occupied territories, the decision to deny the Dalai Lama a visa on two separate occasions aptly spelt out the South African government’s unfortunate stance.

It is little wonder therefore that leaders such as Aung San Suu Kyi and Archbishop Desmond Tutu have openly criticised the state’s leaders for facilitating and protecting the kind of tyranny they once suffered themselves. Unfortunately, South Africa’s replacement on the council – Rwanda, is unlikely to improve matters.

Paul Kagame’s RPF regime is widely accorded international sympathy, stemming from its role in halting the 1994 genocide, and Foreign Minister Louise Mushikiwabo has suggested that the slaughter will allow Rwanda to bring a “unique perspective” on conflict to the council However, the RPF’s appalling record on human rights and perhaps more significantly on backing brutal rebel groups in the neighbouring DRC, is already raising serious concerns about how Rwandan influence will be used in practice.

Most pressing is a report leaked just twenty-four hours before Rwanda was elected to the seat, confirming that not only equipment and support but direct orders are being given by Kagame’s officials to Bosco Ntaganda’s notorious M23 Rebels. This group is currently destabilising swathes of the DRC through an orgy of massacres, rapes and child soldier recruitment. Now Human Rights Watch has voiced fears that Rwanda’s new position will simply allow the RPF to prevent any sanctions that it may have faced as a result of.its involvement.

The end of South Africa’s poor showing at the council is no bad thing…but the new set up is unlikely to be any better at all.

Technorati Tags: Bosco Ntaganda,M23,Rwanda,Rwanda Patriotic Front,RPF,Paul Kagame,South Africa,Tibet,Burma,Sudan,Bashar al-Assad,Omar al-Bashir,UN,United Nations,UNSC,United Nations Security Council,DRC,Democratic Republic of Congongo,Human rights

North Korea- a monumental task…and a duty to act

Mass concentration camps where thousands are tortured, executed or worked to death are almost invariably associated with the Nazis and a bygone period of gross inhumanity unsurpassed ever since.  Yet away from the eyes, and all to often the attention, of the international community, such camps exist at this very moment – in North Korea.

The similarities between the regimes of Kim Jong-Il and Adolf Hitler are in fact far closer than many world leaders would be comfortable to admit: even gas chambers and human experimentation have been documented by defectors.  And the scale of the atrocities is almost incomprehensible: satellite photographs obtained by Amnesty International earlier this year reveal a network of camps estimated to hold as many as two hundred thousand detainees.

These people are often held for crimes that were committed by family members, sometimes before they themselves were even born.  In North Korea, guilt by association is built into the oppressive legal system and falling foul of the regime is enough to condemn a family for three generations; as a consequence many of those detained are just children- forced to undertake gruelling manual labour and held in inhumane conditions.  One report describes a child thrown into a tiny cell, too small to stand up or lie down in, for a period of eight months.  Like the adult detainees they regularly risk starvation or freezing to death without clothes or shelter in the gruelling winters.

But despite the extent of this barbarity, governments and even major human rights organisations have been reluctant to tackle it head on.  Their reasons are clear: the issue of nuclear weapons, which overshadows all dealings with North Korea; Kim Jong-Il’s proximity to China, and the diplomatic protection that brings; the difficulty of obtaining information about such a secretive state from which escape is so rare; and the overwhelming pessimism of ever achieving real progress.

Yet all of this is about to change.

Over the past week more than thirty human rights organisations have come together to form The International Coalition to Stop Crimes Against Humanity in North Korea.  The magnitude of this is dramatic: North Korean defectors and refugees, joining with veterans of freedom struggles around the world and experienced organisations to take on the regime in an unprecedented manner.

Their first goal- to achieve a U.N. Commission of Inquiry on crimes against humanity in North Korea, is certainly an achievable one.  With some twenty-two thousand North Korean refugees in South Korea alone there is a huge pool of potential evidence, even if Kim Jon-Il’s regime expectedly refuse to allow access to a UN Rapporteur.  The organisations involved also have the resources to support an investigation – which owing the scale and nature of the atrocities in question would be hard for UN member states to block, even with China seeking to protect its client.

Of course many will ask what such an inquiry will actually achieve?  Certainly it will not bring instant respite for the those trapped in North Korea’s modern day Birkenaus; but it will reflect an historic step forward in the struggle for human rights there.  Ha Tae Keung, President of Open North Korea points out that the new coalition will ”help move human rights to centre stage in all of the international community’s interactions with North Korea” –something that will inevitably be bolstered if the Commission of Inquiry is secured.  States will no longer be able to side-line the concentration camps, torture and execution as they discuss nuclear and security issues, shifting the plight of those suffering to the highest diplomatic levels.

It will also present a further obstacle to China’s appalling deportations of those who manage to cross the border.  For over a decade the international community has protested against Chinese authorities returning refugees to face death or a life of torture, so far with little success.  A formal Commission of Inquiry, will at least be harder to flagrantly violate, perhaps protecting some escapees from the horrors that would await their return.  Even that would make it worthwhile.

Perhaps most importantly of all though; this is the start of a concerted fight-back against atrocities that the world has ignored for too long.  With a leadership handover looming, and the recent illustrations that even the most entrenched regimes can come crashing down, this could be the opportune moment.  Those involved in the International Coalition to Stop Crimes Against Humanity in North Korea have a monumental task ahead of them.  They need, and deserve, all of our support.

Technorati Tags: International Coalition to Stop Crimes Against Humanity in North Korea,North Korea,Kim Jong-Il,concentration camps,torture,United Nations,execution,human experimentation,human rights

Not a drop to drink?

We can provide half a billion people with safe drinking water, in the next four years, for just 0.16% of world GDP.

Three things make it enormously difficult to grasp the enormity of that statement-one of the conclusions of the new UN Green Economy Report:

Firstly we have to comprehend half a billion human beings: more than the total population of the USA and about the same as the entirety of the European Union. 

Secondly we have to truly realise the importance of safe drinking water; a hard task for those of us in the developed world who take it for granted that we can turn on the tap or get a bottle from the fridge, rather than face the choice of dying from thirst or walking miles for a bucket of rancid, disease-ridden water that will leave us bed ridden with parasites, or worse still, cause our child to die of cholera, dysentery or diarrhoea.

Thirdly we need to ask how, with the potential to change so many lives with such a marginal redirection of national funds, we have not already ended water poverty.

One billion people go without clean water - every single day.  Four thousand children die because of this- every single day.  And for less that one quarter of one percent of spending by developed nations, we can halve these statistics by halfway through the decade.

If giving people this lifeline isn’t enough in itself, the knock-on benefits for health, food and economies are tremendous.  Vast burdens will be lifted off rudimentary healthcare systems, more water will be available for growing crops and far more people will be well enough to work.  A recent parliamentary motion led by the campaign group Water Aid notes that investment in clean water provides an eightfold return.

And all this at a drastically low cost for developed states.  In fact, the majority of the capital needed could be encompassed in the 0.7% overseas aid commitment at the heart of the Millennium Development Goals.  As things currently stand five nations have already met this target, and eleven more are formally dedicated to achieving it by 2015  or earlier.

Still, things aren’t all positive.  Of these eleven several are unlikely to reach the 2015 target in practice, whilst numerous others including the USA, Japan, Canada, Australia and New Zealand have not yet set formal schedules to do so.  There are also signs of states shirking their global responsibilities when it comes to clean water: whilst a recent UN General Assembly vote recognised clean water and sanitation as human rights, forty-one states including the UK and USA voted against it, preventing any obligations on their part under existing human rights commitments.

There is clearly much work to be done.  But in can be done.  Indeed, similar feats have been achieved before: between 1990 and 2008, international development secured access to improved drinking water for 1.8 billion people -raising access rates in Asia from 69% to 86%, and doubling the number of those with access in Sub-Saharan Africa.

We all have a part to play, be it lobbying our governments or by putting our own money up front and donating 0.16% to Water Aid or one of the other NGOs dedicated to bringing this basic necessity to those who are currently dying without it.

Together we can halve the number of people without safe drinking water by 2015….beyond that who knows what is possible?

   

Technorati Tags: water,water rights,developming world,Millenium Development Goals,United Nations,Green Economy Report,Africa,Asia,poverty,sanitation,aid,international development,spending

Somalia and a mission on the rocks

The UN-mandated African Union peacekeeping force in Somalia has long seemed inadequate considering the enormous significance of the situation for the region, the continent and the wider international community. In recent years the Somali conflict has risked spilling over into neighbouring states, stoked fears of a new base of operations for Islamist terror groups and given rise to an endemic piracy problem. However, whilst on one level the force deployed there presents an optimistic sign of African nations helping to stabilise others nearby, the real picture is unstable, unpredictable and this weeks events would suggest - unsustainable.

Set up in 2007 to support the transitional government, the peacekeeping force consists almost solely of Ugandan and Burundian troops. The involvement of these states has come at a significant cost- loosing soldiers on the ground and facing retribution at home. Yet it is highly unlikely that such sacrifices are being made in the name of altruism, stability or horror at the human rights abuses committed by the Islamist militias they are taking on. It is far more probable that the real motivation lies in a combination of politicking and gain - one which is currently beginning to unravel in dramatic fashion.

Uganda's contribution has long provided despot Yoweri Museveni with a means of diverting attention away from his own horrific human rights abuses and destabilising role in Central Africa. The likes of the USA and UK are determined to prevent militant Islamists from gaining control of Somali yet are understandably reluctant to become physically embroiled on the basis of public pressure, over-stretched resources and psychological scars from previous US intervention. American bombing raids during 2008 were as far as any 'Western' power was prepared to go - so Museveni's willingness to 'put troops on the ground' was naturally seen in Washington and London as a golden opportunity- not to be jeopardised by condemning his authoritarian rule.

However, in the face of increased public and political opposition to his rule at home, continued losses of troops and open criticism from the international community regarding his government's barbaric treatment of homosexuals - Museveni is faltering. His threat this week to pull Ugandan forces out if the UN-mandate of the transitional government is not extended, undoubtedly comes less from concern for Somalia's stable development and more from a calculated desire to create a feasible exit strategy whilst sending a message to the world about the dangers in discontinuing appeasement of his regime.

And whilst the complex and cynical politics of Museveni begin to play out- all is not well amongst the Burundian part of the force. Troops claim that they have not been paid for some five months, underscoring the greed and corruption of President Pierre Nkurunziza's administration whilst giving credence to long-standing fears that Burundi's involvement was only ever a method for the political elite to cream off money from the UN (as well as arms from donor nations). With no sign of urgent rectification forthcoming, the potential for Burundian troops to withdraw, desert or even mutiny is by no means off the cards.

Ominously as Uganda and Burundi commit roughly 50% of the force each- neither could feasibly continue the mission without the other- meaning that if either of these situations develops into withdrawal, the whole peacekeeping venture will be likely to collapse.

It is widely agreed that productive, well-executed peacekeeping and stabilisation now is infinitely preferable to further breakdown of order, regional warfare or full scale US intervention at a later date- all of which are conceivable possibilities. However, the execution of the mission so far has been carried out by corrupt and authoritarian governments, fulfilling a good mandate for personal gain. That set-up is now starting to show signs of breaking apart...it is essential that something much better replaces it.

Mladic's legacy

The arrest of Ratko Mladic last week - some sixteen years after the Bosnian War ended and ten years after he went into hiding following the detention of Slobodan Milosevic - was a truly historic event. Now, as he sits aged and defeated in a Belgrade jail cell awaiting deportation to the Hague we can truly realise the full legacy of his abhorrent actions and the responses to them....

For International Justice

Despite protestations that he is "too ill to travel" (sickeningly ironic coming from a man who arranged for thousands of young, old and ill refugees to be forcefully marched to their execution sites) Mladic will inevitably be transported to the International Tribunal for Former Yugoslavia (ICTY) at some point in the coming days.

The Tribunal has already yielded significant results: all those idicted, with the exception of Croation-Serb politician Goran Hadzic, have now been detained, sixty-four have been sentenced and another thirty-three are at some stage of trial. A successful conviction of Mladic will raise the standard higher still, demonstrating that even the most senior, well protected and elusive war criminals can be brought to justice.

Along with Randovan Karadzic, who was arrested in 2008, and Slobodan Milosevic, who died before his trial was completed, Mladic is the most high-profile and culpable suspect who will appear in the ICTY courtroom. Should the prosecutors manage to put him behind bars for the rest of his life (as appears likely considering the overwhelming evidence of his atrocities) the success of the Tribunal will be beyond doubt, marking a key milestone in the incredible recent development of international justice -on a par with the founding of the International Criminal Court (ICC) and the ongoing trial of Charles Taylor at the UN Special Court for Sierra Leone.

For Humanitarian Intervention

Ten years after Mladic's forces systematically slaughtered 8000 Bosniak men and boys at Srebrenica, UN Secretary General Kofi Annan recognised that whilst "the blame lies, first and foremost, with those who planned and carried out the massacre...we cannot evade our own share of responsibility." He was referring of course, to the failure of the international community to prevent genocide in Europe, just one year after it had failed to prevent genocide in Rwanda.

Srebrenica was a designated 'safe haven' protected by six-hundred-strong Dutch battalion of the UN Peacekeeping force, under the command of Colonel Thom Karremans. However a series of inexcusable errors allowed the worst war crimes in Europe since World War II to unfold as they looked on helplessly. UN Refusal to return confiscated weapons to Bosniak troops rendered them unable to defend their countrymen, whilst Karreman's request for NATO air-strikes on Mladic's advancing forces was rejected for being submitted on the wrong form. Fear for the lives of captured French and Dutch soldiers left the Colonel floundering in negotiations as Mladic entered Srebrenica - so he drank a toast with the Serb criminal and stepped aside as the massacres commenced.

Those events have haunted governments, individuals and the United Nations ever since, reviving the 'never again' mentality that followed the Holocaust and the Rwandan genocide; and spurring successful humanitarian intervention in Kosovo and Sierra Leone. Today's intervention in Liyba - despite the muddled protestations of far left and anti-war groups - has its roots in Mladic's butchery, the world's failure to prevent it and determination that the same should not unfold on the streets of Misrata and Benghazi.

For Serbia

Failure to detain Mladic long presented Serbia's greatest obstacle to EU accession, to closer relations with neighbours and to breaking with the past. His arrest and imminent deportation will now open new doors, bring new opportunities and allow the country to truly move on from this darkest period of its history.

Protests against Mladic's arrest did attract some ten thousand in Belgrade and several thousand in other cities - demonstrating the ever present and un-ignorable factor of ultra-nationalists who still regard the criminal as a hero - yet these people are in the minority. The swift response of police to the protests and the determination of Boris Tadic's government to secure an extradition to the Hague reflect Serbia's progression away from the man who has so long blighted its image and name.

What now for Côte d'Ivoire?

More than four months after Laurent Gbagbo lost the Côte d'Ivoire Presidential election yet chose to hold onto power through violence, the UN peacekeeping force stationed in the country is finally taking physical steps to dislodge him.  Of course their strikes on military bases and Gbagbo’s own compound are formally a response to the massacres of civilians and the shooting of eleven peacekeepers by Gbagbo’s troops over the past week (regime change is not within the force’s mandate), but no one is in any doubt that they are intended to assist the troops of democratically elected and internationally recognised President Alassane Ouattara – who claim to be just hours away from taking the main city of Abidjan.

Sadly this is in many ways too little too late.  Back in November 2010, as soon as Gbagbo’s plans to extend his decade long rule through the barrel of a gun became clear, there were widespread calls for international intervention.  Yet the African Union – still relatively week and weighed down with fighting in Somalia, was nowhere to be seen.  The regional Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) was left largely impotent by its most powerful member- Nigeria- being in the midst of its own election campaigns.  And the broader international community, still pre-occupied with Iraq, Afghanistan and later the Arab Revolutions, was reluctant to bolster the existing UN force or strengthen its mandate.

The result was a long stand-off peppered with death squads, shootings and an outflow of refugees that eventually hit crisis level.  Then, seemingly left without any other recourse, Ouattara’s troops began a rapid military advance to take control of the country once and for all.  The North-South civil war that the election was meant to mark a final break from virtually reignited; racial and religious divisions continued to meld with the political ones; and on Saturday some one thousand people were slaughtered in the town of Duekoue.       

Perhaps the greatest tragedy in all of this is that Ouattara’s troops were undoubtedly involved in that massacre (probably as the main perpetrators) as well as numerous other such war crimes.  Thus, even if the UN succeeds in helping to remove Gbagbo – as in now almost inevitable – Ouattara will come to power not on the back of a democratic election, as could have been the case, but on the back of barbarity and murder.  Furthermore, the tensions that have been allowed to build up over the past four months, will almost certainly result in revenge attacks on those who stood by Gbagbo – a situation that, owning to the tribally and religiously tainted politics of Côte d'Ivoire, could rapidly spiral into ethnic cleansing.

It goes without saying that this was never going to be an easy transition and that even if the international community had helped to force Gbagbo out immediately after the election, tensions between the two sides would still have turned violent.  However, the human cost and the country’s future prospects have unarguably been cast far bleaker by the long power struggle that has taken place.

The big issue now is what happens next.  Neighbouring states, most likely swayed by the huge refugee influxes that they are facing, have begun to discuss intervention to aid stabilisation, whilst mass media coverage (and the chilling echoes of Rwanda) have strengthened support for broader international assistance.  However these developments could come in many forms and from many different angles.  It will be tempting to prioritise stability over justice but both will be needed in the long-run.  Individuals and ethnic groups aligned to Gbagbo– whatever their crimes, must not be allowed to become victims of extra-judicial purges; whilst Ouattara, though the democratically elected leader, must be held to account for any war crimes that his troops have committed.  The world must learn from the mistake of giving Paul Kagame a free hand to terrorize Rwanda after his troops liberated the country in 1994; but on the other hand, serving Ouattara with an ICC arrest warrant the day after his inauguration could simply cast Côte d'Ivoire back into further turmoil.

With the peace process clearly in tatters, the old dictator exiting in an orgy of violence and the new leader riding to victory on the back of crimes against humanity the only certainty is that Côte d'Ivoire’s toughest times are still to come.

Technorati Tags: Intervention,Ivory Coast,Côte d'Ivoire,Gbagbo,Ouattara,UN

Western Sahara- a step towards freedom?

Next Tuesday and Wednesday could well become historic days Western Sahara’s half million people. Although there is a chance that the UN-brokered talks due to be held on the country’s future may fail like so many before, there remains hope that they may for once succeed in becoming the first step towards the independence referendum that Western Sahara has been denied since it was occupied by Morocco thirty-five years ago.

Although their plight is often overlooked by the world’s media, the suffering of the Sarahawi people (Western Sahara’s indigenous population) is all too real. In the face of horrendous oppression and human rights abuses by the Moroccan authorities, many have fled their homes over the years and remain stranded in squalid desert refugee camps. The tragedy dates back to 1975 when Morocco amassed troops against what was then called Spanish Sahara, in an attempt to enervate Spain’s colonial power over the region. However, the Moroccan royalty saw fit hold onto the spoils of conflict and themselves became colonists. And despite resistance from the POLISARIO (liberation front) which receives support from neighbouring Algeria, Western Sahara remains under Moroccan control to this day.

Interestingly the situation –which has so often escaped the attention of activists and journalists across the globe – has long been a significant matter for the United Nations. In 1998 it oversaw “settlement proposals” in which Morocco and the POLISARIO agreed on terms for an independence referendum; however subsequent debate over the precise details and Morocco’s reluctance to let go of their colonial possession meant these have not yet been implemented. Since 1991 a civilian UN force has been on the ground to move the process forward, backed by UN military peacekeepers in place to stem the outbursts of violence between the two sides (the UN presence is collectively known as MINURSO – Mission for the Referendum in Western Sahara). Successful progress in next week’s talks would be a victory for the UN on two counts – firstly it would mean tangible results that would politically justify its 19 year commitment in the country and secondly it would raise the prospect of –in the foreseeable future- being able to scale back the vast funds and resources dedicated to MINURSO (something that member states are always keen to monitor).

These could therefore be fundamentally important days for the UN as well as the Sarahawi people. Of course – were the referendum to be secured – that would provide an even more significant milestone for both. For the UN it could bring back some of the respect and euphoria that surrounded its successful (if belated) facilitation of East Timor’s return to independence in 2002; and for the Sarahawi people it could mean freedom….at long last.