Nuclear Age Peace Foundation

Tag: human rights

  • US Can Help End Darfur Genocide

    The time is long overdue, but not too late, to stop the active genocide in Sudan. What can we do as Americans?

    The Darfur region of Sudan is in flames. For nearly two years cynical leaders in Khartoum have been seeking to enhance their power by using the country’s armed forces and local militia to suppress the local non-Arab population. They have driven a million and a half people from their homes, holding them in concentration camps and denying them access to adequate food, water, and shelter. More than 30,000 have been killed, and a range of crimes against humanity have been committed, including the mass rape of women and the systematic destruction of villages, livestock, and crops.

    If nothing is done, US officials predict that 350,000 people could be dead of starvation, disease, or murder by the end of this year.

    Does all this sound familiar? Yes – it also happened in Rwanda , Bosnia , and Kosovo. An international convention drafted in 1948 after the Holocaust and ratified by the United States and other countries commits the world “to undertake to prevent” the crime of genocide. Shamefully, in Rwanda that commitment rang hollow in 1994 when 800,000 people were slaughtered in less than three months. In Bosnia and Kosovo the lesson of Rwanda was remembered, although too late for many victims. Intensive diplomatic and military efforts were organized within a UN framework by the United States and other countries in 1995 and 1999. These efforts saved hundreds of thousands of lives and established under international law a new doctrine of humanitarian intervention to stop a genocide in progress.

    What can Americans do to save lives in Sudan?

    First, we must put aside domestic politics. The growing genocide in Darfur is not a partisan issue but one that reaches across a broad range of constituencies, including religious, human rights, humanitarian, medical, and legal communities, among others, all of which are advocating an aggressive international response to the crisis. Many organizations with a conservative bent, particularly within the religious community, have been at the forefront of advocacy for the people of Sudan ; others have been hesitant to link up with them.

    These groups must put aside their differences and join forces to increase pressure to move Sudan to the top of the international agenda. They can do this by stimulating more media coverage, organizing grassroots contacts with members of Congress, seeking support for urgent action from both presidential candidates, and connecting with counterparts in other countries.

    Second, a new push for international action can be mounted on the recent visits to Sudan by Secretary of State Colin Powell and UN Secretary General Kofi Annan. Powell now “owns” the issue in the Bush administration, and he should be urged to exercise strong leadership on Darfur both in the administration and in the UN Security Council.

    The council must immediately adopt a resolution authorizing much stronger sanctions against the Sudanese leaders if they fail to carry out their commitment to Powell to disarm the militias.

    The resolution should also create the authority for a multinational military force to secure access by the people of Darfur to the humanitarian relief that the government has blocked. Third, the intervention in Darfur should be built on African support, with logistical, financial, and personnel assistance from the United States and European countries. The African Union , a coalition of African countries, recently sent a small group of observers to monitor the tenuous cease-fire in the civil war in southern Sudan . This initial commitment gives the African Union a stake in resolving the crisis and provides legitimacy to an international presence in Sudan . To be effective, however, the intervention will require a large military force to provide security both to the monitors and, more important, to the massive humanitarian relief operation needed to prevent starvation, disease, and ethnic cleansing from claiming hundreds of thousands of lives in the coming months. That force should be assembled from African countries with US and other backing.

    Finally, we should recognize this as an opportunity for the United States to begin to reestablish its role in the world as a defender of human rights. As a result of the disastrous intervention in Iraq , the scandal over prisoner abuses, and unconstrained US unilateralism, American credibility on the world stage has sunk to its lowest point in a generation. In addition, a decade ago we looked the other way and did nothing as genocide swept through Rwanda . Actions, not words, are now needed to restore our human rights credentials. That’s why the United States should act now within an international framework to help rescue the people of Darfur before it’s too late for them, and for us.

    John Shattuck, author of “Freedom on Fire: Human Rights Wars and America ‘s Response”, is CEO of the John F. Kennedy Library Foundation.

    Originally published in the Boston Globe

  • So Much for Democracy: Iraqis Plan For Introduction of Martial Law

    Seventeen months after the Anglo-American invasion in which President George Bush promised to bring democracy to Iraq, the country’s American-approved Prime Minister, Iyad Allawi, yesterday introduced legislation allowing the Iraqi authorities to impose martial law, curfews, a ban on demonstrations, the restriction of movement, phone-tapping, the opening of mail and the freezing of bank accounts.

    Military leaders may be appointed to rule parts of Iraq. A temporary reinstatement of Saddam Hussein’s death penalty is also now probable. Already, therefore, Iraq has begun to look just like any other Arab country. But the insurgency, which the laws are supposedly intended to break, exploded in gunfire in the very centre of Baghdad just as the new legislation was announced.

    Incredibly, the fighting broke out in Haifa Street, in one of the busiest streets next to the Tigris river, as gunmen attacked Iraqi police and troops.

    US helicopter gunships at roof-top height could be seen firing rockets at a building in the street which burst into flames. Bullets hissed across the Tigris and at least three soldiers, all believed to be Iraqis, were killed near the river bank.

    The violence in the capital yesterday was impossible to avoid. It began with mortar attacks on the walled-off area where government officials live under American protection, one of the mortars falling close to Mr. Allawi’s home, another exploding beside a medical clinic close to his party headquarters. The explosions echoed over the city.

    A bomb in a van, packed with shrapnel and artillery shells, was defused close to the government headquarters during the morning. Driving out of Baghdad at 11am, I saw another tremendous explosion blasting smoke and debris into the air close to an American convoy. US troops closed all highway bridges in the area in a desperate attempt to protect a long convoy of trucks and supplies moving into the city from the west. Traffic jams trailed for miles across Baghdad in 150F heat.

    Many Iraqis may initially welcome the new laws. Security – or rather the lack of it – has been their greatest fear since the American military allowed thousands of looters to ransack Baghdad after last year’s invasion. They have, anyway, lived under harsh “security” laws for more than two decades under Saddam. But the new legislation may be too late to save Mr. Allawi’s “new” Iraq.

    For large areas of the country – including at least four major cities – are in the hands of insurgents. Hundreds of gunmen are believed to control Samara north of Baghdad; Fallujah and Ramadi – where four more US Marines were killed on Tuesday – are now virtually autonomous republics.

    Bakhityar Amin, Iraq’s new “minister of justice and human rights”, a combination of roles unheard of anywhere else in the world, was chosen to announce the martial-law legislation. “The lives of the Iraqi people are in danger, in danger from evil forces, from gangs and from terrorists,” he said. “We realise this law might restrict some liberties, but there are a number of guarantees. We have tried to guarantee justice and human rights.”

    The legislation was necessary to fight insurgents who were “preventing government employees from attending their jobs, preventing foreign workers from entering the country to help rebuild Iraq and … to derail general elections.”

    Iraq therefore entered into another fatal chapter of its history yesterday, and it didn’t look much like democracy.

    Originally published in the Independent UK on July 8, 2004

  • Bremer Knew, Minister Claims

    Iraq’s first human rights minister launched a blistering attack yesterday on America’s chief administrator in Iraq, Paul Bremer, saying that he had warned him repeatedly last year that US soldiers were abusing Iraqi detainees.

    In an exclusive interview with the Guardian, Abdel Bassat Turki, who resigned a month ago, said he informed Mr Bremer last November and again in December of the rampant abuse in US military prisons. “He listened very well. But that was all he did,” he added.

    Dr Turki also claimed that he had received “information” of abuses committed against prisoners “just this week”, but refused to give details.

    Following allegations of abuse, he said, he had asked for permission to visit Abu Ghraib prison last November – the month the photos were taken of US guards abusing naked Iraqi inmates. But Mr Bremer refused his request.

    In December, a month before the US military set up its own secret inquiry into Abu Ghraib, he telephoned Mr Bremer to complain about the treatment of female detainees.

    “They had been denied medical treatment. They had no proper toilet. They had only been given one blanket, even though it was winter,” he said.

    Dr Turki’s claims heap embarrassment on the US-led coalition and the Pentagon, and suggest both had been aware of the widespread abuse much earlier than previously admitted. Dan Senor, Paul Bremer’s spokesman, told the Guardian that Mr Bremer only found out about the “humiliation” of prisoners in January.

    Yesterday Dr Turki said that in March he and other US-appointed ministers had demanded an investigation after a US soldier raped a woman prisoner, documented by Major General Antonio Taguba in his report on Abu Ghraib.

    “We were told this matter would be dealt with in secret, and with only Americans attending,” he said.

    Originally published in The Guardian

  • What is a Nation? What is a State? Exploring Minority Rights and their Limits

    (April 9-10, City College of Santa Barbara, “Tribes, Sects, Cultures, & Sovereign States: Group/Minority Rights or Individual Rights, of Both?”)

    I welcome this opportunity to participate in a conference devoted to what has become one of the two most tormented arenas of political violence in the world today. The two arenas are significantly interrelated. Our focus during these two days on the dynamics of various forms of fragmentation internal to the sovereign state, can be understood as a fundamental challenge to the normative program of establishing an effective human rights regime applicable to all persons. The resulting tension is generating multiple crises of identity, authority, and loyalty that can often not be resolved peacefully. Of course, the second arena of challenge is associated with issues posed by 9/11 and the American recourse to a “Great Terror War” as an inevitable response, the chief characteristics of which is to define “terror” to encompass all anti-state political violence and to include a strategy of regime change to promote the project of global domination under the anti-terrorist banner.

    The Iraq War dramatically highlights the interaction between domestic fragmentation in the aftermath of authoritarian rule with the political impossibilities of imposed democracy as the solution for nation and state in Iraq as a member of international society. With deep irony, the American project of regime change in Iraq has turned a previously Draconian Iraqi state into a scene of multiple terrorism, associated with religious extremism, national resistance, and the state terrorism of the occupiers. The most likely futures for Iraq under these circumstances are the resumption in some form of Sunni authoritarianism, the outbreak of civil war, the emergence of a Shi’ia Islamic Republic, or a prolonged and bloody American occupation that is likely to exert unpredictable shocks here in the United States, making the tumult of the Vietnam Era seem mild by comparison. In other words, this conference is addressing issues that are already shaking the foundations of world order in a manner that I would argue are more profound than anything that has happened for several hundred years (with the possible exception of the advent of nuclear weaponry). We lack an appropriate political language to understand and a political leadership with the capacity for creative and constructive response. We confront a dire set of circumstances in Iraq that do not contain credible positive options for a favorable end game at present.

    But even before this lethal brew arising out of 9/11 and its misguided plunge into a cycle of perpetual warfare, the issues associated with the conference were made highly relevant by several prominent developments in the 1990s: the ending of the cold war, which gave rise to a new surge of nationalism that had been previously largely concealed within the sinews of authoritarian states. This was especially the case in the former Soviet Union and Yugoslavia. In the Soviet instance, the collapse of Soviet control over its internal empire of republics containing a variety of minority peoples was essentially unopposed, but political violence erupted at the next lower level of political organization, and persists in a variety of settings, including Georgia, Azerbaijan, Uzbekistan, and elsewhere in Central Asia. In the Yugoslav instance, the tension between a normative order premised on the territorial unity of the state and an emergent set of normative claims associated with the application of the right of self-determination in non-colonial settings produced a series of severe ethnic wars during the 1990s with extensive killing fields, mixed outcomes, persisting turmoil.

    The normative debate surrounding Kosovo discloses some of the larger issues at stake, as well as suggesting the elusiveness of solutions dependent on outside intervention and subsequent occupation under international auspices. In this instance, under the combined authority of the NATO KFOR peacekeeping presence and the United Nations post-conflict administrative control over political and economic reconstruction of a Kosovo, producing a continuously tense condition of de facto independence. It will be recalled that back in 1999 the justification for the Kosovo War, conducted without any proper prior authorization by the UNSC, was the protection of the Albanian majority population from oppressive Serbian domination, which included a variety of allegation of serious human rights abuses, and the expectation that far worse was in the offing, designed at the very least to induce coercively a proportion of the Albanian population to flee the country.

    There were many ambiguities associated with this NATO undertaking, especially the irony of embracing the KLA, which in the subsequent Bush/Sharon period would qualify without doubt as a “terrorist organization.” But there were other disturbing aspects of recourse to war in Kosovo: deep suspicions that the US Government was not interested in achieving a diplomatic solution, indications of mixed motives in Washington, including finding a role for NATO in the period after the cold war, and assurances that the US would stay involved in European affairs. Beyond this, the conduct of the Kosovo War by its reliance on high-altitude bombing, the extension of the target list to include civilian targets in Belgrade, the provocative bombing of the Chinese Embassy, the use of depleted uranium ordinance, the absence of any combat casualties on the NATO side were among the elements that cast a long dark shadow across the humanitarian pretensions of the operation.

    Since the end of the active hostilities, there have been a series of difficulties, but most relevant for our purposes, has been a pattern of what has been called “reverse ethnic cleansing” in which the new category of victims have become the remnants of the Serb minority that continues to live in Kosovo, and were ethnically identified with the former perpetrators. The persistence of de facto independence for Kosovo also seems to violate an earlier UN pledge that its engagement with Kosovo would not challenge the sovereign unity of Serbia, which had been the lead republic in the former federated state of Yugoslavia. Kosovo is an example of third-order self-determination claims, considering movements against alien or colonial rule as first-order claims, independence for the autonomous units in a federal state as second-order claims, and positing sovereignty claims by indigenous peoples as fourth-order claims. Although it is dangerous to be dogmatic, and not sensitive to context, third-order self-determination claims seem to be fraught with difficulties, especially if the proposed independent territorial community includes an important minority that is ethnically or religiously associated with the former sovereign state.

    The conceptual issue can be understood as follows: when does ‘a minority’ qualify as ‘a nation’ or ‘a people’ (the language used to designate the holder of the right of self-determination in international law) and when should ‘a nation’ be entitled to form ‘a state’ even at the cost of fragmenting a former state? And there is the related issue posed relating to humanitarian intervention or, as the International Commission on Intervention and State Sovereignty, phrased it, an exercise of “The Responsibility to Protect” by the organized international community, that is, the United Nations? Kosovo illuminates the dilemmas

    associated with this theme of nationhood verse statehood as the basis of political community. If a minority feels beleaguered and discriminated against, and does not succumb to assimilation, it will often tend to form a defensive nationalism as a mode of cultural survival. This is especially true if the minority is geographically distinct, speaks a separate language, adheres to a different religion, and has sufficient numbers to consider itself capable of becoming a viable independent political entity. Under these circumstances, the unity of the state is likely to be drawn into question, and the dominant elites will be inclined to tighten their control over such a restive minority, which in turn radicalizes still further separatist tendencies. As a result, quite often armed struggles occur, which can produce prolonged political violence with much suffering and bloodshed. Looking around the world at places such as Sudan, Kashmir, Sri Lanka, Colombia, parts of Indonesia, to mention a few of the more prominent instances, it is obvious that this tension between national consciousness and state unity is one of the great divisive forces active in the world with no happy ending in sight.

    Whether the engagement of the international community is a plus or minus depends on the circumstances. There seems to be little doubt that from an Albanian perspective, the NATO intervention was welcome, ending the Serb oppressive rule, attracting back almost all of the hundreds of thousands of Albania refugees who had fled the country, producing a UN presence that created space in Kosovo for a potential economic recovery and the possible construction of a political democracy. To date, these hopes have not been realized. Further, even if the record in Kosovo after the intervention had been more encouraging we need to pose a decisive question from the perspective of shaping global policy: did the Kosovo War produce a precedent that can give rise, with adjustments for circumstances, to a principled framework that would operate in other roughly comparable settings?

    This past week was the tenth anniversary of the terrible genocide that took as many as 800,000 mainly Tutsi lives in Rwanda while an authorized UN protective presence stood by paralyzed and unaugmented, despite strong advance warnings of what was being contemplated by the Hutu rulers. It is well-documented that the great champions of humanitarian intervention earlier in the Balkans and more recently in Iraq, Great Britain and the United States, used the full extent of their political leverage to inhibit a UN protective role in Rwanda as the genocidal pattern started to unfold back in 1994. In this respect, the Rwandan case stands out as the clearest case where there existed an international responsibility to protect, a duty to respond to imminent humanitarian emergencies, if at all possible, on the basis of a proper mandate from the UN Security Council. As a practical matter, to avoid the Kosovo dilemma, it would be a beneficial reform in such situations in the future, if the Permanent Members of the UN Security Council, would formally, or at least informally, waive their right of veto in circumstances of humanitarian emergency. Of course, there is an inevitable gray area. Opponents of the Kosovo intervention argue to this day that no such humanitarian emergency existed at the time, that the allegations of atrocity were partially fabricated, and that diplomatic options had not been tried with due diligence by the US Government, which evidence shows was hell bent on war.

    It is also important to mention the case of Somalia, where a humanitarian undertaking, with UN backing, was quickly terminated in 1993 when a firefight in Mogadishu cost 18 American lives. In that instance, the American-led peacekeepers had initially been welcomed by the people of the country when it appeared that the UN mission was to bring food and medicine to a suffering population in what was then described as “a failed state.” Failed or not, when the Clinton presidency expanded the original mission undertaken two years earlier by Bush, Sr. to include state-building, which meant choosing political leaders. The unresolved struggle for power in Somalia among the ethnic factions that suddenly felt marginalized and threatened quickly morphed into a frenzy of opposition against the international presence recast as “intruders.” At the time, American officials tried to invalidate this opposition by calling the resistance to the US-led presence as the work of corrupt and greedy “war lords,” which seemed a way of denying the people of Somalia first-order self-determination in the face of chaotic circumstances. Interestingly, in the setting of Iraq we seek increasingly to invalidate the growing resistance by describing its partisans as “remnants of the Baathist regime,” “dead-enders,” “thugs and criminals,” and whatever other delegitimizing labels our leaders can conjure up to justify the persistence of an occupation that is more and more deeply resented by all sectors of Iraqi society, with the possible exception of the Kurds.

    It is not plausible to discuss this range of concerns without a few comments on the Israel/Palestine conflict, whose persistence has for so longer challenged the conscience of humanity. From the perspective of the conceptual concerns of this essay the conflict passed through a series of phases, omitting any discussion of its deeper historical roots that stretch back to biblical times, yet give resonance to conflicting present expectations of the right to the contested land. The present shape of the struggle evolved out of a period following World War I when Palestine was a Mandate of the League of Nations, administered as a unified territory under British administrative control in their role as Mandatory authority. Within the mandate, there lived a Palestinian nation and a rather small Jewish minority, aspiring to become a ‘homeland’ for world Jewry in accordance with the promise given by the Balfour Declaration to the world Zionist movement in 1917. In 1948, amid growing tensions between the two peoples, greatly aggravated by the spillover into Palestine of the wider effects of The Holocaust, the United Nations decreed a partition of Palestine that would have provided two states for the two nations. This plan was repudiated by the Arab governments that launched a war designed to resist Israeli statehood, but leading to an Israeli victory and the expulsion from a large part of the Palestinian territory of its Palestinian residents, producing a huge refugee population. In this period, the Palestinians lived in the area of the West Bank under Jordanian administrative control, in effect, a captive nation, with a residual number of Palestinians living as a minority in Israel.

    Since 1967, the Palestinian nation in the West Bank and Gaza has been living under harsh conditions of a prolonged occupation, agitated by the two intifadas and the Israeli repressive responses. From time to time a “peace process” has been initiated, most notably for seven years during the 1990s, with the aim of producing, or in effect, resurrecting the two-state solution proposed decades earlier by the UN, but now confining the Palestinian state to some 22% of the original mandatory territory, restricting drastically the rights of Palestinian refugees, and sustaining the great majority of Israeli settlements established in occupied Palestine in violation of international humanitarian law. In these circumstances, a two-state solution does not offer the Palestinians a fair solution. The alternative that has been discussed at various points has been the establishment of a single, secular bi-national state covering the entire territory of Palestine as it existed under the mandate. Israel refuses to consider such an outcome, both because it would mean the end of the Zionist conception of a Jewish state, and because it would cede too much authority to the Palestinians, especially in view of their demographic majority.

    The outside role of the United States has been decisive, but not helpful from the perspective of finding a sustainable peace. The US approach, rooted as much in domestic ethnic politics as in grand strategy, has accentuated the disparity in power between the two parties, and has made it seem unnecessary for Israel to base peace on the ‘rights’ of the Palestinians under international law rather than on ‘the facts on the ground’ and their military superiority and diplomatic leverage. The ordeal of this unresolved conflict underscores the dependence of global justice on geopolitical circumstances.
    What stands out from a review of these instances is precisely the primacy of geopolitics, by which is meant the way in which the particular struggle relates to the strategic designs of major political actors. In a unipolar world, geopolitics has become virtually indistinguishable from US foreign policy. Somalia was of marginal or no strategic interest, and the intervention was hence very shallow, and easily reversed in the face of national resistance. Rwanda, even more so, was not viewed as strategically relevant, and against the background of the Somalia experience of a year earlier, all the incentives were to turn aside the humanitarian emergency. Kosovo was, as earlier suggested, a mixed case, with strategic incentives sufficient to provide a realist underpinning to what was proclaimed to be a humanitarian intervention. At the time, a critic such as Noam Chomsky voiced his dissent by repudiating the humanitarian rationale, calling the operation “military humanism,” arguing that if the humanitarian motivations were genuine then the US would have flexed its muscles with respect to the embattled Kurdish minority in Turkey, and elsewhere.

    I think an assessment of this pattern of action and inaction is more complicated than Chomsky would have us believe. I would differ from Chomsky on Kosovo, regarding the factual circumstances in Kosovo that existed in 1999, especially against the background of the Bosnian experience culminating in the Srebrenica massacre of 1995, as presenting the international community with a genuine humanitarian emergency. I would further argue, which is admittedly controversial, that the mixed motives associated with American strategic interests in keeping NATO alive and Europe stable, made it more likely that the interventionary undertaking would not be as shallow and fragile as in Somalia and elsewhere in subSaharan Africa, and therefore it had a reasonable prospect of being effective.

    Applying this reasoning to Iraq, we notice, first of all, that there was no current humanitarian emergency, and that the humanitarian rationale was almost entirely a post-hoc effort to divert attention from the false security claims associated with alleged Iraqi possession of illicit stockpiles of WMD. But we further notice that the strategic stakes for the United States in Iraq are huge, and that however formidable the resistance to the American-led occupation has become, it is dismissed as irrelevant to the American engagement. The United States is suffering increasingly heavily casualties, but we have yet to hear a single mainstream voice utter a word in support of a Somalian exit strategy, or even a Vietnam exit strategy based on some sort of negotiated phased withdrawal.

    The aftermath of the Iraq War has brought to the turbulent surface the various tensions that I have been describing and commenting upon. It illustrates the degree to which nationalism under siege from alien sources can produce a strong unifying effect even in the face of deep religious and ethnic cleavages, at least temporarily, among internal groupings that had previously viewed each other as implacable and hostile adversaries. A cartoon in the LA Times by Mike Keefe makes this point rather vividly. The visual parts of the cartoon shows Sunnis and Shiites fighting together against the American occupiers. The caption reads: “Hey, Mission Accomplished..We’ve unified Iraq!” A primary lesson of the Vietnam War, apparently unlearned so far in the Iraq setting, is that whenever a national resistance becomes unified and resolved, it will over time prevail over even a militarily superior and determined intervening great power. Of course, the strategic motives were always suspect in Vietnam, causing leading realists of the day such as Hans Morgenthau and George Kennan to oppose the war from the outset. With respect to Iraq, too, there was a chorus of realist opposition in the period leading up to the Iraq War, but because the strategic consequences are so large, there is a far greater uncertainty at least at this stage as to what to do next. And also, with Vietnam, there was a coherent alternative to the American presence. In Iraq there has been an assumption that any hasty removal of the American presence would lead to a bloody struggle for power that would produce dangerous regional effects.

    In another important respect, the Iraq conflict increasingly illustrates the confusing reality of “nationalism.” If we look at Turkey, we can easily posit the 12 million Kurdish minority as “a captive nation” (especially, the six million or so Kurds living in eastern Anatolia); that is, a nationalism that is suppressed by the state. This reality is somewhat disguised by the misleading juridical claim that the Turkish state confers a Turkish nationalist identity on the entire population regardless of their preferred nationalist and ethnic identity. The great Turkish nation-builder, Kemal Ataturk, insisted in this vein that the Kurds were “mountain Turks,” and should be assimilated into the general population without any deference to autonomy claims or even cultural rights associated with language and traditions. There is thus a tension between nationalist aspirations of minorities and the statist aspirations of Turkish Kemalism. There is some prospect that the current less statist leadership in Turkey, the soft Islamic Ak Party, can revive the Ottoman practices of internal tolerances toward minorities, allowing Kurdish cultural rights to flourish and granting a strong measure of regional autonomy and self-administration in eastern Anatolia where at least half of the Kurdish minority is geographically concentrated.

    But if we now look back at Iraq one last time, we can take some account of the various religious and ethnic factions that supposedly divide the country. Under Saddam Hussein, Iraq was governed as an authoritarian state that oppressed both its Shi’ia majority and its Kurdish and Turkaman minorities. There was surely a Kurdish nationalist tendency seeking a separate political reality or, at minimum, internal self-determination based on an autonomous status, but these aspirations were opposed not only by Baghdad, but by regional forces threatened by Kurdish independence movements. Nationalism as a psycho-political reality was at odds with juridical nationalism handed down from above at the level of the state. Oddly, at this point, in the face of the American occupation, there is the possibility that juridical nationalism will command the loyalties of the entire Iraqi population, with the probable notable exception of the Kurds, and create in Iraq that previously unimaginable stabilizing fusion between the state and the nation at least for as long as the interventionary presence of the United States remains the defining preoccupation of the Iraqi people and their most influential leaders.

    If this fusion should occur, it will convert the Iraq War from its notorious status of last May of “mission accomplished” to a new tragic circumstance from a Washington perspective of “mission impossible.” Whether and how soon the United States discovers the reservoirs of moral and political imagination to extricate itself from this mission impossible remains to be seen. It may in the end depend on the oppositional prudence of the American citizenry rather than upon their elected representatives, who continue to act as sheep, not as responsible upholder of American interests, custodians of constitutional obligations, and promoters of the public good at home and abroad.

    In summary, I would like to offer several briefly stated conclusions:

    (1) It is important to acknowledge that the national aspirations of abused minorities (or in some instances of majorities) will not be realized by the benefits of juridical nationalism conferred on all citizens by the legal fiat of the territorial government;

    (2) The emergence of human rights as a focus of international concern poses a subversive challenge to the territorial supremacy of sovereign states;

    (3) The option of humanitarian intervention on behalf of abused minorities is unlikely to be effectively undertaken in the absence of accompanying strategic interests, and should be endorsed by the United Nations and world public opinion only in extreme cases;

    (4) The main justification for such protective international action should be premised on a condition of a current humanitarian emergency, which is not established by a record of past abuses, even if severe, or by the present fact of dictatorial rule;

    (5) In the absence of such a humanitarian emergency, interventions that claim humanitarian goals are likely to clash with nationalist goals, even those at the level of the state, and provoke nationalist resistance;

    (6) Nationalist resistance, especially if unified and coherently led, is not susceptible to military defeat, although the resisters and the civilian population may endure huge casualties and prolonged suffering;

    (7) The future of democracy and the promotion of individual and collective human rights should depend on the internal political processes of sovereign states, encouraged by educational ‘intervention’ in support of the values of human dignity for the foreseeable future;

    (8) Adherence to the norm of non-intervention, including by regional international institutions and the United Nations, seems desirable outside of the exceptional circumstances of a humanitarian emergency.

  • A Symposium on Genocide and Crimes Against Humanity: The Challenge of Prevention and Enforcement

    Convened by the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation and Simons Centre
    for Peace and Disarmament Studies, December 5-6, 2003

    On 5-6 December 2003, the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation and the Simons Centre for Peace and Disarmament Studies convened a symposium entitled “Genocide and Crimes Against Humanity: The Challenge of Prevention and Enforcement,” enabling constructive dialogue among academics and leaders of civil society organizations about the role of the United Nations in enforcing measures to protect civilians from genocide and other gross violations of human rights.

    Keynote speaker Lloyd Axworthy, Director and CEO of the Liu Institute for Global Studies at the University of British Columbia and former Foreign Minister of Canada (1995-2000), was joined by Richard Falk, professor Emeritus of International Law and Practice at Princeton University and Chair of the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation, and a range of panelists with varying backgrounds in peacekeeping and humanitarian intervention. The resulting discussions were constructive and cutting edge as the participants shared their ideas on how to engage the UN in facing the challenges posed by humanitarian intervention and the responsibility to protect civilians from avoidable catastrophe.

    The Politics of Intervention

    On 5 December, Richard Falk set the tone with his address entitled: “The Politics of Prevention and Enforcement in a Time of Mega-Terrorism” during the public morning session. Professor Falk spoke of the need to learn from past experiences such as Rwanda, East Timor and Kosovo. He then proceeded to describe the present context of intervention as shaped by the selective response of leading states (primarily the US) to humanitarian crises that reflect their political and strategic interests. In order for the international community to effectively and reliably prevent and protect civilians from genocide and crimes against humanity, Falk identified the need for the UN to detach considerations of humanitarian intervention from geo-politics and state interests.

    In highlighting the degree to which state sovereignty can insulate a government from external accountability for human right violations within its national borders, Falk also addressed the need for the UN Security Council to resolve the tension between the protection of human rights and respect for state sovereignty.

    Falk ended his initial remarks by encouraging the resumption of efforts by the global justice movement during the 1990s prior to 9/11. Under the pretext of the “war against terrorism,” the US has imposed its global security interests on the rest of the world, resulting in unilateral action without the consent of the international community. In order to overcome this, Falk called for the establishment of a “necessary and desirable” long-term vision by the global justice community.

    Saul Mendlovitz, co-founder of Global Action to Prevent War, commented on Falk’s remarks by drawing a parallel between the challenges addressed by the symposium and South Africa’s success in abolishing both the apartheid and nuclear weapons, which illustrated the ability of the global social justice movement to influence normative shift in social paradigms. Similarly, the establishment of the Ottawa Landmine Treaty and the International Criminal Court were achieved over time through successful cooperation within the global civil society. Mendlovitz concluded by recognizing the current state of the political climate as timely for mobilizing the global justice movement to develop standing forces to prevent genocide and crimes against humanity.
    Options for a Prevention and Enforcement Force

    Peter Langille, Senior Research Associate and Human Security Fellow at the Center for Global Studies, University of Victoria, discussed “Options for a United Nations Prevention and Enforcement Force.” Langille provided a historical review of lessons learned from previous attempts and diverse proposals to develop a dedicated UN mechanism for diverse peace operations. He supported the need for the UN to develop a suitable mechanism for securing present and future generations from genocide and crimes against humanity. In the event of a crisis, Langille highlighted the need for the immediate deployment of a UN emergency service. This would serve to prevent further atrocities during the four to six months when the UN encounters difficulties deploying multinational contingents.

    Langille shared his thoughts on workable rapid deployment proposals. First, he argued for a multi-dimensional and multi-functional capability, including military, police and civilian services. This sophisticated and comprehensive approach would provide a combination of promising incentives and disincentives to deter violence and promote peace. Langille’s second argument was that any new UN emergency service should not be confined solely to preventing genocide and crimes against humanity, to attract wider support it should also be able to promptly manage diverse assigned tasks in preventing armed conflict, protecting civilians and providing robust peace operations, including those that entail modest enforcement. Third, Langille warned against the failures of overly ambitious proposals in the past, calling instead for a more focused approach.

    Langille also discussed the current efforts of the multinational ‘Stand-by’ Readiness Brigade. (SHIRBRIG), and called for the establishment of a “UN Emergency Service,” consisting of independently recruited volunteers comprised of 13,200 individuals, a static headquarters, and two mobile units.

    Commenting on Langille’s proposal, Professor Robert Johansen, Senior Fellow and Professor of Political Science at the Kroc Center at Notre Dame University, reminded the audience that positive institutional changes occurred slowly throughout history. He cited the normative shift on racial discrimination and equality, which occurred during the period between the drafting of the charters by the League of Nations after World War I and the UN after World War II. Furthermore, Johansen remarked on the reluctance of many governments to embrace past proposals due to issues related to costs, intervention and control over the UN. In order to overcome this reluctance, Johansen proposed an initial capability with limited intervention powers, a narrow political agenda and uncontroversial laws. Johansen stated that Langille’s proposal was the most sophisticated to date. He left the audience with several questions to ponder: Should the proposal address terrorists? What is the potential for the abuse of power of a UN Force?
    The Responsibility to Protect

    In his keynote address, Lloyd Axworthy spoke of his involvement in “The Responsibility to Protect: A Report of the International Commission on Intervention and State Sovereignty.”
    In addressing the challenges of humanitarian intervention, the report wrestled with issues concerning state sovereignty, the duty to protect civilians against human rights violations and the current opposition to providing the UN with the autonomy and resources to act in the interest of preventing genocide and crimes against humanity.

    In its recommendations, the report proposed to establish the principle of humanitarian intervention on the basis of international law and to redefine state sovereignty through its right to national security and defense as well as its responsibility to protect its civilians. The failure of any state in fulfilling its obligations to protect its citizens would trigger international action for intervention. The decision to intervene should not rely on decisions from elite states but should instead be based on established procedures that determine whether the violation of human rights would justify intervention. With the primary objective of preventing and stopping genocide and crimes against humanity, humanitarian intervention should, therefore, not necessarily include regime change and/or winning a war.

    In recognizing the failure of current efforts in protecting civilian security, Axworthy spoke of the need to reestablish the integrity of the international community and to reform the UN and its decision making procedures in the Security Council. This can be achieved by enabling progressive voices to formulate, disseminate and elaborate an effective prescription to generate global public support, as well as by empowering the younger generation with the ability to bring the issue to the fore of the international arena.
    Global or Regional?

    Bill Pace, Executive Director of the World Federalist Movement, discussed the “Next Steps in Creating a UN Prevention and Enforcement Force.” Pace identified governments as the weakest link in the responsibility to protect civilians due to their reluctance to respond to circumstances with potential political and strategic risks. At the regional level, however, alliances such as the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) and SHIRBRIG have proved their ability to move forward by establishing rapid deployment forces, yet lack the ability to adequately train and equip their troops.

    Pace therefore suggested a “three-legged” approach for effective protection action, in which the UN, a regional organization and, more controversially, the US or another leading power are involved in creating a robust force. Furthermore, Pace reiterated the importance of terminology and issue framing in order to minimize opportunities for criticism from opponents of the project. In advocating for the shift of present discussions from “the right to intervene” to the “responsibility to protect,” Pace supported the expansion of constituencies of peace organizations to effectively tackle the issue.

    Don Kraus, Executive Director of the Campaign for UN Reform, commented on Pace’s discussion on political viability by focusing on the need to counteract US resistance to the proposal. He emphasized the need to replace the idea of preemption with that of prevention and protection. Furthermore, Kraus recommended the empowerment of the UN through increasing its role in post-conflict reconstruction and shifting its current zero financial growth to a policy of sound fiscal management. Kraus agreed with Pace on the necessity to reach out to new constituencies, and identified the need to frame the issue as attractive to the media.
    Next Steps

    The participants proceeded to discuss ways forward during the working sessions following the symposium. Throughout the afternoon portion of December 5, the participants discussed preferred models for UN prevention and enforcement. Langille’s second presentation elaborated on the current status of the Brahimi report, the expansion of the Department of Peacekeeping Operations (DPKO) and the UN Standby Arrangements System, the SHIRBRIG and the related, recent efforts to enhance rapid deployment. Kraus spoke about HR1414, the International Rule of Law and Anti-Terrorism Act of 2003. This bill calls on the US to support negotiations on creating a UN Civilian Police Corps. Mendlovitz proposed a UN Constabulary Force as part of the International Criminal Court (ICC). Based on the Rome Statute of the ICC, Mendlovitz envisions a standing force to intervene in the event of genocide or crimes against humanity. James Paul, executive director of the Global Policy Forum, provided his perspective on the role of the Security Council in moving forward.

    On December 6, the participants extended their discussion of preferred models for a UN force to prevent genocide and crimes against humanity. The scope and responsibilities of a potential UN force was discussed, and a consensus on a working title, a UN Emergency Peace Service, was reached.

    Following this, the working group deliberated on contents for a draft proposal, agreeing to use and adapt material from “The Responsibility to Protect”; “Building the Commitment-Capacity Gap”; as well as the Brahimi Report. A drafting committee was established to prepare a proposal and participants proceeded to consider logistical measures to enable an effective Emergency Service under UN auspices.

    The working session ended on a high note, as participants collectively brainstormed ways to promote the Emergency Service, making initial arrangements for future steps to be taken. Proposals included the establishment of an international coalition of civil society organizations, encouraging an annual meeting with DPKO, and approaching sympathetic governments to play an active role.
    For further information, contact Justine Wang, Research and Advocacy Coordinator, at advocacy@napf.org.

  • Chavez Stamp a Labor of Love

    It has been a whirlwind week for Latino activist Jack Nava, one that will culminate today after a mile-long march in honor of the late labor leader Cesar Chavez.

    At a small park in downtown Oxnard, the Ventura resident plans to recount his part in an eight-year campaign to persuade the U.S. Postal Service to issue a commemorative stamp featuring the United Farm Workers union co-founder.

    He will tell of helping to collect more than 25,000 signatures for the cause, circulating a homemade petition at college campuses, civil rights marches and other community events.

    And he will talk about swelling with pride last week at the ceremony he attended in downtown Los Angeles at which the 37-cent stamp was released to the public.

    “A lot of hard work went into this,” said the 65-year-old retired barber, who stooped in the fields long before the UFW helped secure such conveniences as toilets and drinking water for farm workers.

    “I didn’t read about Cesar Chavez in a book; I lived it and I know what he went through,” Nava said. “I thought he was a great man and I wanted to do something to help everybody remember him.”

    Unveiled in September, the stamp depicts a smiling Chavez against a backdrop of vineyards, symbolic of the strikes and boycotts Chavez organized to gain better working conditions for farm workers.

    The postal service receives tens of thousands of requests each year for commemorative stamps, but only a fraction make the cut. More than 75 million Chavez stamps were printed following a nationwide campaign spearheaded by the Glendale-based Cesar E. Chavez Foundation.

    Foundation spokeswoman Annie Brown said it was supporters such as Nava who made the idea a reality.

    “It wasn’t one person in particular responsible for pushing this through, but I think Jack Nava’s efforts are representative of what we’ve seen across the country,” Brown said. “What we find particularly encouraging is that 10 years after Cesar’s passing, people are still moved by his legacy to want to carry on and do these things.”

    Nava said he was first moved to do his part at a parade in East Los Angeles shortly after Chavez’s death in 1993. He marched in the parade holding a homemade sign asking whether there was any interest in a Chavez stamp.

    The positive reaction spurred his signature-gathering campaign.

    “I was one of the first to sign,” said Denis O’Leary, an El Rio schoolteacher and spokesman for the Cesar Chavez Celebration Committee. “It has been his mission to get the stamp. I give Jack all of the credit in the world.”

    In albums and portfolios, Nava has documented the drive with letters, photos and resolutions supporting the effort. Among Nava’s most precious documents is a 1995 letter from the postal service — sent in response to a letter of his — informing him that a Chavez stamp was under consideration.

    Nava continued gathering signatures and support until word came last year that the postal service would be issuing the stamp.

    “Man, I really couldn’t believe it,” said Nava, who spoke Friday about the effort to community leaders in Oxnard.

    “After all that work, after all of those times of having doors slammed in my face, it finally paid off.”

  • The Troubling New Face of America

    Originally Published in the Washington Post

    Fundamental changes are taking place in the historical policies of the United States with regard to human rights, our role in the community of nations and the Middle East peace process — largely without definitive debates (except, at times, within the administration). Some new approaches have understandably evolved from quick and well-advised reactions by President Bush to the tragedy of Sept. 11, but others seem to be developing from a core group of conservatives who are trying to realize long-pent-up ambitions under the cover of the proclaimed war against terrorism.

    Formerly admired almost universally as the preeminent champion of human rights, our country has become the foremost target of respected international organizations concerned about these basic principles of democratic life. We have ignored or condoned abuses in nations that support our anti-terrorism effort, while detaining American citizens as “enemy combatants,” incarcerating them secretly and indefinitely without their being charged with any crime or having the right to legal counsel. This policy has been condemned by the federal courts, but the Justice Department seems adamant, and the issue is still in doubt. Several hundred captured Taliban soldiers remain imprisoned at Guantanamo Bay under the same circumstances, with the defense secretary declaring that they would not be released even if they were someday tried and found to be innocent. These actions are similar to those of abusive regimes that historically have been condemned by American presidents.

    While the president has reserved judgment, the American people are inundated almost daily with claims from the vice president and other top officials that we face a devastating threat from Iraq’s weapons of mass destruction, and with pledges to remove Saddam Hussein from office, with or without support from any allies. As has been emphasized vigorously by foreign allies and by responsible leaders of former administrations and incumbent officeholders, there is no current danger to the United States from Baghdad. In the face of intense monitoring and overwhelming American military superiority, any belligerent move by Hussein against a neighbor, even the smallest nuclear test (necessary before weapons construction), a tangible threat to use a weapon of mass destruction, or sharing this technology with terrorist organizations would be suicidal. But it is quite possible that such weapons would be used against Israel or our forces in response to an American attack.

    We cannot ignore the development of chemical, biological or nuclear weapons, but a unilateral war with Iraq is not the answer. There is an urgent need for U.N. action to force unrestricted inspections in Iraq. But perhaps deliberately so, this has become less likely as we alienate our necessary allies. Apparently disagreeing with the president and secretary of state, in fact, the vice president has now discounted this goal as a desirable option.

    We have thrown down counterproductive gauntlets to the rest of the world, disavowing U.S. commitments to laboriously negotiated international accords. Peremptory rejections of nuclear arms agreements, the biological weapons convention, environmental protection, anti-torture proposals, and punishment of war criminals have sometimes been combined with economic threats against those who might disagree with us. These unilateral acts and assertions increasingly isolate the United States from the very nations needed to join in combating terrorism.

    Tragically, our government is abandoning any sponsorship of substantive negotiations between Palestinians and Israelis. Our apparent policy is to support almost every Israeli action in the occupied territories and to condemn and isolate the Palestinians as blanket targets of our war on terrorism, while Israeli settlements expand and Palestinian enclaves shrink.

    There still seems to be a struggle within the administration over defining a comprehensible Middle East policy. The president’s clear commitments to honor key U.N. resolutions and to support the establishment of a Palestinian state have been substantially negated by statements of the defense secretary that in his lifetime “there will be some sort of an entity that will be established” and his reference to the “so-called occupation.” This indicates a radical departure from policies of every administration since 1967, always based on the withdrawal of Israel from occupied territories and a genuine peace between Israelis and their neighbors.Belligerent and divisive voices now seem to be dominant in Washington, but they do not yet reflect final decisions of the president, Congress or the courts. It is crucial that the historical and well-founded American commitments prevail: to peace, justice, human rights, the environment and international cooperation.
    * Former president Carter is chairman of the Carter Center in Atlanta.
    © 2002 The Washington Post Company

  • Stop the US Foul Play

    Perverse as it may seem, we should be grateful to the Bush administration for its recent clumsy efforts to undermine the International Criminal Court just as it came into existence on July 1. The administration’s maladroit use of the United Nations Security Council to alter the terms of the Treaty of Rome, the founding document of the Court, should be a wake-up call for all those committed to building an international system based on a rule of law and all who care about maintaining the United Nations as a credible organization.

    First, any illusion that the present U.S. administration might have a smidgeon of respect for international treaties or multilateral co-operation should be finally dispelled. The disdain of the Americans is palpable; they’ll resort to crude means to wreck any form of international architecture with which they disagree.

    The argument they made in demanding immunity from the ICC — that this was simply a way of protecting their peacekeepers — was a false one, and they know it. As Paul Heinbecker, Canada’s permanent representative to the UN, pointed out, the United States has all the safeguards it needs — particularly the fact that the ICC is a jurisdiction of last resort.

    This means that if any crime were committed by an American, be it by a soldier stationed in Bosnia or by the Secretary of Defence in Washington, then the U.S. justice system — civilian courts or military tribunals — would be entitled to prosecute the case. The ICC only comes into play when a nation state is unwilling or incapable of exercising legal action against an act of genocide or a crime against humanity, as defined in the treaty.

    Unfortunately, this refutation of the Americans’ oft-stated objection never got the attention it deserved; too often, the media bought the false notion that this was a jurisdictional dispute. The antagonism of Washington’s current rulers toward the ICC, and their reason for disavowing the Clinton administration’s signature on the Rome Treaty, is that they do not want to be restrained by any limitation on their actions, including compliance with international criminal law.

    What’s particularly shocking about this attitude is that it flies in the face of all President George W. Bush’s aims as set out in his campaign against terrorism. We hear constantly that this is a great battle between forces of good and evil, of justice versus injustice. Yet rather than embrace a genuine, broadly supported effort to construct a global system of legal co-operation in investigating, capturing, prosecuting and incarcerating international criminals including terrorists, the Bush administration set out to emasculate such an institution.

    That was bad enough. But the Americans compounded the damage inflicted on the international multilateral system by their tactic of holding hostage the renewal of a peacekeeping mission in the Balkans and subverting the role of the Security Council. The so-called compromise arrived at by backroom deals among the permanent five members of the council is frankly a cave-in to U.S. demands.

    And it sets two very dangerous precedents. First is the use of blackmail on peacekeeping to achieve the purely self-interested objective of one of the council’s permanent members. Second, the compromise acquiesces to the Security Council’s questionable right to amend by interpretation a treaty arrived at in open discussion by representatives of more than 100 nation states in a founding convention. The compromise, giving a 12-month hoist to any application of treaty provisions, abrogates the original intent of the drafters. It does not protect the integrity of the Rome Statute, as claimed.

    Fortunately, that position is not going unchallenged. Our ambassador at the UN, supported by the Minister of Foreign Affairs and the Prime Minister, has led the fight to preserve the validity of the court. Mr. Heinbecker was able to obtain an open debate at the council and used that to expose U.S. myths and mobilize opposition to the original and more blatant initiative to achieve blanket immunity. It was Canadian diplomacy at its best.

    And it must be continued by our seeking to invoke the engagement of the UN General Assembly on this vital matter. The permanent five members have sought by a sneaky procedural device in the wording of the compromise resolution to keep the assembly out of the picture. But this position is not impregnable; it’s imperative that the assembly be seized of both the inherent threat to future peacekeeping missions and the erosion of the ICC that the council decision entails.

    In fact, there’s now an opportunity to institute even further reform. The time has come to begin working toward the democratization of the Security Council by insisting that all members be elected. The UN cannot be credible when its decisions are so dominated by a small, unaccountable elite of states that do not represent the full interests of the world — especially when the Security Council’s permanent members use their privileged position to eviscerate the Charter of the United Nations.

    While that monumental task is under way the role of the General Assembly needs to be asserted and enhanced.

    A good place to start is by building a capacity for peacekeeping that doesn’t rely on the Americans. One irony of their indignant stand against the ICC having jurisdiction over peacekeepers is that, of the 45,000 peacekeepers serving in UN missions, only 745 are supplied by the United States. Where the Americans do have an edge is in transport, logistics and intelligence-gathering. Canada should co-operate with the Europeans to develop those capacities, so that the next time the Americans want to play hardball, the rest of the world can tell them to take their ball and go home.

    The International Criminal Court needs careful stewardship, attention, resources and support during this critical start-up period. We know it faces an implacable foe in the present U.S. administration. This is all the more reason to redouble efforts to assure its effective launch and to continue campaigning to bring more members on board.

    Establishing the first new international institution of this new century dedicated to protecting people against violation of their basic rights is a remarkable achievement in the progress of humankind. Canada has played an important role from the time of the ICC’s inception. We were there last week to defend it against unwarranted attack. We now have the continuing task of helping to give it a firm foundation. Thank goodness for the wake-up call.
    *Lloyd Axworthy, Canada’s foreign affairs minister from 1996 to 2000, is director and CEO of the Liu Centre for the Study of Global Issues at the University of British Columbia.

    THE GLOBE AND MAIL
    Wednesday, July 17, 2002 – Print Edition, Page A13

  • Facing the Children of Iraq

    Despite the reports from every United Nations organization dealing with health, agriculture and children, the United States has maintained unwavering support for continuing the economic embargo on Iraq. On my first visit to Iraq in July and August, I traveled with Chicago-based Voices in the Wilderness to experience the effects on the people of Iraq who are suffering needlessly at the hands of our government. As many people know, travel to Iraq is illegal and those undertaking the trip do so at the risk of twelve years in prison and over one million dollars in fines. For me, to meet teachers, students, families, doctors, patients, mothers and ordinary people whose lives have been irreversibly altered as a result of the mean-spirited policies of my government, the risk is worth it.

    Before I left I had viewed the excellent documentary by John Pilger and had participated in the cross-country educational Remembering Omran Bus Tour, named for a shepherd boy from a farming community near Najaf who was killed in May 2000 by coalition bombs. I had already taken a public stand against the sanctions through written articles as well as in my classroom where I teach high school classes on nonviolence. Having returned from Iraq after seeing for myself the squalor that children play, learn and live in, seeing for myself the pathetic conditions of health care and education, and seeing the indomitable spirit of the Iraqi people, I realize that I know nothing. I know nothing about patience, about hopefulness and hopelessness, about just getting by, and about forgiveness. I realize that we Americans have so much privilege, time, and resources and that our lives have gone on since the Gulf War. We are able to forget about the Iraqi people because our media does not present us with images from families who boil sewer water for tea, with images from inside a morgue where babies are kept in flimsy boxes until their families can come pick them up, with images from car accidents on hot asphalt roads caused by blowouts because the people can’t afford new tires.

    I realize that I know nothing about life under siege. Voices in the Wilderness founder Kathy Kelly describes our world as a train: some people travel first class, riding with comfort and ease, some people travel in cramped third class conditions, and some people are under the train, and the people of Iraq are under the US foreign policy train which is rolling full speed ahead toward annihilation. To stop this runaway policy of genocide, I can figuratively lay myself down on the tracks. I can lay down the stories of the people I know from Iraq. I can lay down the stories whose raw truth can compel more Americans, more young people like me, to get involved.

    Every day since I returned I have thought about a mother and her twelve-year-old son and sitting at his beside while she cried uncontrollably. He was unconscious, a victim of leukemia caused by toxic exposure to depleted uranium. I gave her some tissues and sat with her as long as I could before our delegation continued on to other sweltering rooms filled with sick kids and their helpless mothers. It was at the Saddam Teaching Hospital that I realized kids cry in the same language and that inconsolable mothers worldwide feel the burden of responsibility when their kids won’t get well. The situation in Iraq is compounded because of the crippling lack of medicine and hospital supplies, like refined oxygen. We witnessed some men unloading industrial oxygen tanks into a hospital hallway which were to be used on even the most fragile babies because refined oxygen is unavailable.

    During my time in Iraq, I thought about why my country has made it illegal for me to visit the cradle of civilization. My only explanation is so that we cannot see the soul-wrenching, pervasive damage our government has perpetrated there. I wondered if people in my government feel any shame for what they have done to ravage these ancient sites in this beautiful country. The foundation for disrespecting pre-existing cultures is nothing new for my country, though, and I was struck by the similarity of how millions of Native Americans were killed by European diseases and uprooted from their native lands in the name of Western progress.

    Yet as I stood at the convergence of the Tigris and Euphrates where they become the Shatt al-Arab, I felt so privileged to be in a place very few Americans will ever see. I felt the timelessness of Iraq and the historical and religious significance which lies within the boundaries. Standing on the top of the ziggurat at Ur and holding seashells which still rest there from the “Great Flood”, I knew the infinite importance of Iraq. And I saw the hurt in our guide’s eyes as as I watched him pull a piece of shrapnel out of the side of the ziggurat where it stuck after a coalition bomb struck a few hundred yards from this temple.

    Americans largely misunderstand the Arab culture. I encountered a country full of generous and hospitable people, welcoming me into their homes even though my country still bombs them many times each month. Yet anti-Arab attitudes promote such discrimination and racism in our country, attitudes fostered by movies and media which portray them as terrorists and suicide bombers. Iraqis especially are shown as hating Americans, burning our flag and cursing our democratic and freedom-loving nation. The Iraqis I met all said that they understand that the American people have good hearts and that we are not our government or military. Can the average American say that about the people of Iraq, or do we equate an entire nation of 23 million people with one leader? In addition to lifting the economic sanctions, we need to eliminate the institutionalized hatred of Iraqis which enables the good people of America to sit by and let our government destroy a beautiful nation.

    Iraq does not need to be bombed another time, and it does not need smarter sanctions. The economic embargo needs to be lifted because it violates the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child, specifically Article 24 which pertains to healthcare for children, including prenatal care for expectant mothers. Each month nearly 5,000 children die as a result of sanctions, according to the World Health Organization, and 1 in 10 children will not live to see their first birthdays. Prior to sanctions, citizens of Iraq enjoyed quality comprehensive healthcare, but today over 90 percent of pregnant women are severely anemic.

    Additionally, in the past eleven years under sanctions, the international community has rendered the Geneva Convention protocol protecting victims of armed conflicts ineffective because of the intentional, preconceived and flagrant human rights abuses perpetrated in Iraq by the United Nations sanctions supported by our government. This protocol exists to protect not just Westernized countries, but all humans. I live every day knowing that policies of my government dispassionately kill Iraqis, and as a U.S. citizen I bear responsibility for their enduring consequences. We as Americans are guilty of genocide in the cradle of civilization through our inaction and inattention to the needless suffering that has transpired over the last eleven years; we must hold ourselves and our government accountable and mobilize to create more just policies toward Iraq.

    *Leah C. Wells is Peace Education Coordinator at the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation.

  • Human Rights in the 21st Century

    The people of Iraq have been denied basic human rights since the Economic Sanctions were imposed in August of 1990, and the international community has done little but watch and wait. The United States and United Kingdom have bilaterally acted to deny the innocent people in Iraq clean water, electricity, materials to rebuild their devastated national infrastructure after the Gulf War, and most importantly, food. Every United Nations organization pertaining to health, agriculture and children has reported on the detrimental effects of the sanctions on the most compromised populations, the children, the sick and the elderly.

    To address the issue of human rights, the international community must take a stand on the situation in Iraq. Many countries have already violated the sanctions, like France, Russia, Ireland and Syria, showing that support for the sanctions is crumbling. The international community must show the backbone to support human rights because the concept of human rights transcends ideologies, religions, and national borders. If ever there were a case for taking a strong stand in favor of human rights, Iraq is it. How can countries investigate the egregious violations of human rights in this isolated country when travel and communications with its residents is in all cases ill-advised and in some cases illegal? How can the international community ignore the World Health Organization’s reports that over half a million children have died, and more than one million total, as a direct result of the sanctions?

    Is this the policy we choose to set as a standard for supporting human rights in the twenty-first century?

    *Leah C. Wells it the Peace Education Coordinator at the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation.