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Kunlabora Spirito kaj Ĝiaj Multaj Elmontriĝoj

In AWC Esperanto Division, Environmental protection, Human Development, Solidarity, The Search for Peace, United Nations, World Law on January 25, 2012 at 10:20 PM

KUNLABORA SPIRITO KAJ ĜIAJ MULTAJ ELMONTRIĜOJ

de René Wadlow

esperantigite de Bernard Henry

 

 

La Ĝenerala Asembleo de Unuiĝintaj Nacioj (UN), en ĝia Rezolucio A/RES/64/136, konsekris 2012 kiel Internacia Jaro por Kooperativoj, celante antaŭenmeti la larĝan rolon kiun kooperativoj ludas en ekologiema disvolvo kaj malapliigo de malriĉeco. Kiel diris UN-Ĝeneralsekretario Ban Ki-moon, “Kooperativoj estas rememorigilo al la internacia komunumo, ke eblas ja celi al kaj ekonomia kaj sociala respondeco”. La kooperativa movado ludas larĝan rolon en ambaŭ la produkado kaj la disdono de komercaĵoj kaj servoj tra la mondo. Kvankam malpli videblaj ol private posedataj, transnaciaj korporacioj (kiuj havas larĝajn reklambuĝetojn kaj tiel igas siajn komercaĵojn neĉirkaŭpaseblaj), kooperativoj estas grava parto de la monda ekonomio kaj meritas la atenton kiun la UN-jaro kapablas alporti (1).

Tamen, malantaŭ kooperativoj de produkado kaj disdono, loĝas unuavice “Kunlabora Spirito” kiu elmontriĝas laŭ multegaj manieroj, kiuj estas ĉiuj bazitaj sur kunlaboro sed ne ĉiuj nomiĝas “kooperativo”. Kunlabora Spirito substrekas renoviĝon, kunlaboron, mutualan helpon, kaj komunecon kiel “tagordo” je la surloka, nacia, kaj monda niveloj. Kunlaboro estas nepra neceso por la venontaj paŝoj en homa evoluo.

Kunlabora Spirito aperas en multaj formoj. Homoj tra la mondo pli kaj pli ekkonscias, ke ĉiuj el ni estas interligitaj kun aliaj personoj, per la aero kiujn ni spiras kaj akvosistemoj, la grundo kaj ĉiuj vivoformoj. Ju pli ni povas plipovigi unu la alian por ekflori sen noci al aliaj, des pli ni kreas mondan kunlaboran socion. Tial ĉiu ago de la individuo – aŭ neago – povas havi forserĉajn konsekvencojn ambaŭ por ĉiuj homoj en la mondo kaj por la naturmedio je kiu ni ĉiuj dependas.

Kunlabora Spirito evidentiĝas en la kreskaj zorgoj de Verda – ekologiema – Ekonomio. Eŭropo subtenas komercan kaj kunlaboran disvolvon de karbonmalpliigaj teknologioj kun miksaĵo de registara investado, impostosenpezoj, pruntedonoj kaj leĝoj. Ekzistas agnoskata neceso ŝirmi la naturmedion, investi en puran energion kaj krei daŭripovajn laborpostenojn, sed multo restas por fari en la tuta mondo.

Tra la mondo, ni ĉiuj estas enirantaj periodon de ŝanĝiĝo por kiu estas neniaj antaŭplanoj. Tial nepras ke ni scipovu kunan laboron. La formoj de kunlabora agado fontas el historiaj cirkonstancoj, surloka kulturo, kaj ekologiaj kondiĉoj. Tamen ekzistas komuna zorgo pri kunlabora uzo de naturvivrimedoj, komercaĵoj kaj servoj. Kunlabora agado loĝas en la koro de la ekonomia kaj politika alturno al mondnivela disvolvo de vivrimedoj kaj pli bona vivokvalito.

Ekzistas multaj formoj tradiciaj de kunlaboro, de mutuala helpo en periodoj de manko. 2012 devas utili kiel ŝanco alrigardi la multajn manierojn laŭ kiuj Kunlabora Spirito elmontriĝas en la mondo. Tial 2012 devas esti nia ĉefa interesocentro koncerne al la plifortigo de la konvinkoforto de Kunlabora Spirito.

 

(1)  Bv vidi la UN-retejon pri la Jaro: http://social.un.org/coopyear

 

Prof. René Wadlow estas Prezidanto kaj Ĉefreprezentanto ĉe UN en Ĝenevo de la Asocio de la Mondcivitanoj.

Bernard Henry estas la Oficisto pri Eksteraj Rilatoj de la Oficejo ĉe UN en Ĝenevo kaj la Ĝenerala Direktoro de la Esperanto-sekcio de la Asocio de la Mondcivitanoj.

The Cooperative Spirit and its Many Manifestations

In Human Development, Solidarity, The Search for Peace, United Nations, World Law on January 25, 2012 at 10:07 PM

THE COOPERATIVE SPIRIT AND ITS MANY MANIFESTATIONS

By René Wadlow

 

The United Nations (UN) General Assembly in Resolution A/RES/64/136 has designated 2012 as the International Year of Cooperatives in order to highlight the large role that cooperatives can play in ecologically-sound development and poverty reduction.  As Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said “Cooperatives are a reminder to the international community that it is possible to pursue both economic viability and social responsibility.”  The cooperative movement plays a large role in both the production and the distribution of goods and services worldwide.  Although less visible than privately-owned trans-national corporations (which have large advertising budgets so their products become household names) cooperatives are an important part of the world economy and merit the attention that the UN Year may provide (1)

However, behind production and distribution cooperatives, there is first a “Cooperative Spirit”, and it manifests itself in a multitude of ways, all of which are based on cooperation but not all are called “cooperatives”. The Cooperative Spirit stresses renewal, cooperation, mutual help, and community as the ‘order of the day’ at the local, national, and world levels.  Cooperation is an absolute necessity for the next steps in human evolution.

The Cooperative Spirit takes many forms. People throughout the world are increasingly realizing that each of us is interconnected with every other person through the air we breathe and the systems of water, soils and life in all its forms.  The more we can empower one another to flourish without harming others, the more we create a cooperative world society. Therefore every action taken by an individual — or not taken — can have far-reaching consequences both for all the people of the world and upon the environment on which we all depend.

This Cooperative Spirit manifests itself in the growing concerns with a Green — ecologically-sound — Economy.  Europe has encouraged commercial and cooperative development of carbon-reducing technologies with a mix of government investment, tax facilities, loans and laws.  There is a recognized need to protect the environment, to invest in clean energy and to create lasting jobs, but much more needs to be done worldwide.

Throughout the world, we are all entering a period of change for which there is no blueprint.  Therefore it is essential that we learn to work together cooperatively.  Cooperative action takes its forms due to historical circumstances, local culture, and ecological conditions.  However, there is a common concern with the cooperative use of resources, goods and services.  Cooperative action is at the heart of an economic and political shift toward a worldwide development of livelihoods and greater quality of life.

There are many traditional forms of cooperation, of mutual help in times of need. 2012 should serve as an opportunity to look at the many ways in which the Cooperative Spirit manifests itself in the world. Thus 2012 can be our focus to strengthen the impact of the Cooperative Spirit.

(1)   See the UN website for the Year: http://social.un.org/coopyear

 

René Wadlow is President and Chief Representative to the United Nations, Geneva, of the Association of World Citizens.

The Horn of Africa: Refugees, Famine, Conflicts

In Africa, Conflict Resolution, Current Events, Solidarity, The Search for Peace, United Nations, World Law on July 31, 2011 at 11:24 PM

THE HORN OF AFRICA: REFUGEES, FAMINE, CONFLICTS

By René Wadlow

 

Only a crisis — actual or perceived — produces real change.  When the crisis occurs, the actions that are taken depend on the ideas that are lying around.  That, I believe, is our basic function: to develop alternatives to existing policies, and to keep them alive and available until the politically impossible becomes politically inevitable.

– Milton Friedman

 

Heavy fighting started again on July 28, 2011 in Mogadishu, the capital of what was once Somalia, in a battle between the African Union peacekeeping force (Amisom) and the Islamic insurgency al-Shahab. The fighting prevents aid from reaching the tens of thousands of refugees who have arrived in Mogadishu fleeing famine. The United Nations (UN) World Food Program says it cannot reach some two million people in need in areas controlled by al-Shahab which had expelled Western nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) who were providing relief.

The Horn of Africa, in particular Ethiopia, Somalia and Kenya, faces a deep crisis, a combination of refugee flows, famine in part linked to drought, and persistent conflicts.  There is a broad consensus in the UN system that radical measures are needed to deal with the Horn of Africa crisis and that these measures will have to be taken in a holistic way with actions going from the local level of the individual farmer to the national level with new government policies, to measures to be undertaken by the African Union and the UN system, in particular the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) in Rome.

Combatants with Somalia's al-Shabab Islamist militia.

Today, cooperation is needed among the UN family of agencies, national governments, NGOs, and the millions of food producers. There is a need for swift, short-term measures to help people now suffering from lack of food, inadequate distribution and situations of violence. Such short-term action requires additional funding for the UN World Food Program and the release of national food stocks. However, it is the longer-range and structural issues on which world citizens have focused their attention. The world requires a World Food Policy and a clear Plan of Action.

While constant improvements in technology, mechanization, plant breeding and farm chemicals have steadily increased food production per acre in much of the world, African food production per acre has stagnated, and in some areas has gone down. Likewise, the portion of development assistance in Africa dedicated to agriculture has declined from 15 per cent in the 1980s to 4 per cent in 2006.

As a July 11, 2011 UNCTAD study Economic Development in Africa stresses “One of the major challenges which African countries currently face is to generate productive jobs and livelihoods for the 7-10 million young people entering the labor force each year. This is difficult to achieve simply through commodity exports but rather requires a complementary process of agricultural productivity growth and development of non-agricultural employment opportunities in both industry and services.”

Carcasses of dead sheep and goats in the drought-stricken region of Waridaad, Somaliland.

Thus, the first need in Africa is to develop the local economies: currently, poverty, lack of adapted technology, population pressure on ecologically fragile areas, a growth of urban slums due to rapid rural to urban migration is the lot of many Sub-Saharan African countries.

Increased action to improve rural life needs to be taken quickly.  As the recent UN-sponsored Millennium Ecosystem Assessment warns “Human activity is putting such strains on the natural function of Earth that the ability of the planet’s ecosystem to sustain future generations can no longer be taken for granted. It is becoming ever more apparent that human society has a rapidly shrinking window of opportunity to alter its path.”

The Horn of Africa is an extreme case. The Horn possesses all the resources needed to make it one of Africa’s major economic centers, and yet there seems to be no halting the environmental decay and political insecurity it engenders. In fact, when one looks at the Horn’s problems, one must conclude that urgent and well-directed international action is needed to prevent a mega-disaster. Due to an often unenlightened management of the environment, its willful mismanagement to extract short-term economic gain, and confrontational rather than conciliatory policies, the squandering of the region’s resources has gathered speed.

A map of the ongoing famine in the Horn of Africa. The facts speak for themselves.

Environmental degradation is part of a cycle that upsets the traditional balance between people, their habitat and the socio-economic systems by which they live. Insecurity leads to strife; strife results in inter-clan feuding, civil war, cross-border raiding and military confrontation. Environmental degradation and insecurity continue to interact, swinging back and forth like a pendulum of destruction. A shrinking resource base breeds insecurity; insecurity spreads conflict, and conflict causes environmental destruction.

It is hard to know how to improve the situation. There is a long-term need for people to modify their living patterns to bring about a better quality of life, with increased security.  There is a need to break the cycle of chaos so that people can transform insecurity into confidence. Yet social change is slow, and the necessary limiting of the birth rate can take generations. Agricultural patterns also change slowly. There is no political leadership within the area, and there is no cooperation among the states of the Horn. The African Union’s conflict management structures do not function, and the UN has hoped that the African Union could take the lead in the area’s conflict resolution. This was a hope based on an unwillingness to get involved rather than a realistic evaluation of the situation.

The cycle of chaos is likely to speed up, and more refugees will be on the move.  However, as Milton Friedman noted only a crisis produces real change. Just as the “Arab Spring” brought a new generation of leadership into action — though not yet into power — the Horn of Africa might see a new generation of non-governmental leadership coming to the fore. The older political and clanic leadership has failed and is discredited. However, they have guns and plan to stay in control. Yet what is politically impossible today in the Horn may become politically inevitable.

 

René Wadlow is Senior Vice President and Chief Representative to the United Nations Office at Geneva of the Association of World Citizens.

See also Somalia: Signs of Danger (https://awcungeneva.wordpress.com/2011/05/17/somalia-signs-of-danger/)

Palestinian Status at the UN: Breaking the Logjam

In Conflict Resolution, Current Events, Middle East & North Africa, The Search for Peace, United Nations on June 30, 2011 at 7:44 PM

PALESTINIAN STATUS AT THE UN: BREAKING THE LOGJAM

By René Wadlow

There is a good deal of discussion in the halls of the United Nations (UN), both in New York and Geneva, concerning a possible application of full membership in the UN by the Palestinian Authority. The discussions reflect similar discussions within Foreign Ministries in the hope that there can be an agreed-upon program of action (or non-action) by September when the new General Assembly meets. Currently Palestine has observer status at the UN from a time when liberation movements were given observer status — two organizations for South Africa, one for South West Africa as Namibia was then, and for the PLO. With the changes in South Africa and Namibia, the liberation movement observer status was dropped for the three, and only the PLO remained.

In practice, there is little effective difference between observer status and full membership. Observers cannot vote, but voting in the UN has been largely replaced by ‘consensus making’. Effectiveness for all countries except for a small number of Great Powers depends on the skills of the diplomats which represent them. The Vatican has only observer status but a good deal of influence due to an effective diplomatic team. The Palestinian diplomats in Geneva have been weak, in New York somewhat stronger. The Palestinian diplomats have always been in the shadows of the representatives of the Arab States who want to play ‘Big Brother’, but with the exception of Egypt which has always had a strong core of diplomats, the Arab diplomats have rarely been more competent than the Palestinians.

Being overshadowed by the larger Arab States would probably not change even if full membership is granted, but full membership would be a symbolic victory of legitimacy and open the door to the independent use of the World Court. As Mahmoud Abbas has written “Palestine’s admission to the United Nations would pave the way for the internationalization of the conflict as a legal matter, not only a political one. It would also pave the way for us to pursue claims against Israel at the United Nations, human rights treaty bodies and the International Court of Justice.”

The Middle East came this close to peace when Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin and PLO Chairman Yasser Arafat shook hands on the White House lawn on September 13, 1993.

As of now, there are a number of variations being discussed around three possible approaches:

1)      The first approach favored by the USA, some of the Western European members of the European Union, in particular Germany, and a few others including Israel is that the issue should go away. It is felt that there are enough problems in the world, especially in the Middle East not to have a complicated procedural battle in September. This has been the ‘advice’ given to the Palestinians by the US, Canada, and some Western European States. It may be also what some of the Arab States are saying more privately. To reinforce their arguments, the US and the Western European governments have a strong card — they can cut off funding to the Palestinian Authority. The pretext would be the Hamas support or participation in a ‘unity government’ even if such a government is made of ‘non-political technocrats’. Hamas is still listed by the USA and the European Union as a ‘terrorist organization’ and so cannot receive funds from the US or EU governments. The Palestinian Authority depends largely on external financing; thus cutting off financing is an argument that carries weight — even if it is called ‘blackmail’ in other settings.

In exchange for dropping the full membership application, there would be some sort of short Israel-Palestine meeting where each side would speak of a ‘peace process’ through September when the membership issue has gone by. Such a sleight of hand will not advance real negotiations but may ‘buy time’ which is what many governments now want.

2)      There is, however, a real possibility that the Palestinian Authority will ask for full membership in September. This will depend in part on discussions among the Palestinian leadership and the views of the three key States concerning the Middle East: Egypt, Turkey, and Iran. Iran which is one of the Vice Presidents of the upcoming General Assembly will be particularly influential in procedural matters. The UN Charter states that the admission of new members “will be effected by a decision of the General Assembly upon the recommendation of the Security Council”. The Council makes its membership recommendation through a resolution; thus it must be approved by at least nine of the Council’s 15 members and not be vetoed by the one of the five permanent members. If the USA abstains — abstentions are not considered a veto — it is likely that there would be at least nine positive votes for Palestinian membership in the Security Council. Then it is most likely that the General Assembly would follow the Security Council recommendation as it has always done in the past. Thus current discussions turn around what could convince the US to abstain rather than veto. We will return to this key issue after a consideration of a third possibility.

3)      The third possibility in the case of a US veto is to move the issue to the General Assembly under what is known now as the “Uniting for Peace” mechanism. UN General Assembly resolution 377(V) of November 3, 1950, first known as ‘the Acheson Plan’ from the name of the US Secretary of State who proposed it and later renamed Uniting for Peace states that in cases where the UN Security Council fails to act to maintain international peace and security, owing to disagreement among the five permanent members, the matter shall be discussed immediately by the General Assembly. If the General Assembly is not in session, an Emergency Special Session can be called. This procedure has been used 10 times since its 1950 start. (1) As from September to December, the General Assembly will be in session, a Special Session will not have to be called. For a resolution to pass under the Uniting for Peace mechanism, there must be a 2/3 majority, meaning now 135 States if all are present and voting. However, not being present is a ‘diplomatic’ way of not having to be seen making a choice. Currently, 112 UN members recognize a Palestinian State within the pre-1967 frontiers. What cannot be analyzed is how hard the USA and some of its allies would work to prevent the 135 positive voters.

To turn back to the Security Council procedure, we can ask could there be a ‘deal’ that would satisfy no one completely but not dissatisfy any of the five permanent powers to the extent of their casting a veto. Here we can turn to precedent because at the UN everything functions by precedent. If something has been done once, one can argue that it can be done again. If it has never been done, it takes an exceptional situation and a few highly skilled diplomats to get any innovation.

A picture of the funeral of Yitzhak Rabin after he was shot dead on November 4, 1995 by an Israeli nationalist named Yigal Amir.

Thus we can turn to the 1954 period and the breaking of the ‘logjam’ on membership. During the first ‘hot round’ of the Cold War — the June 1950 to July 1953 Korean War — the Soviet Union and the USA blocked each other’s potential allies from UN membership. At the end of the Korean War, there was a host of pending membership applications on which no progress had been made. There seemed to be little possibility of moving things forward.

The 1954 membership issue was my start at looking closely at diplomatic negotiations around procedural issues at the UN. At a time when I should have spent my time chasing girls, I was a university student representative on the Executive Committee of what was then the United World Federalists in the USA. In 1955, the issue of a review conference on the UN Charter was to be placed automatically on the agenda of the General Assembly. During the 1945 negotiations that led to the creation of the UN Charter, a review conference on the Charter after 10 years was to be placed on the agenda. This was a demand of some of the smaller States at San Francisco, in particular Australia. It was expected in 1945 that such a review conference would be held and that was still the expectation in the period 1953-1954. There was a good deal of reflection on how to improve and strengthen the Charter during such a Review Conference. Universal membership was one of the demands of UN reformers, both some diplomats and activists such as those in the United World Federalists who had taken a lead on the Charter Review issue.

However, both the USA and the USSR opposed holding a Charter Review conference and brought most of their allies along with them. The result was that when the Charter Review conference came upon on the agenda, it was swept under the rug, and there has never been a review. Nevertheless, the diplomats of the USA and the USSR felt that some of the ‘steam’ for a Review Conference had to be lowered and this could be done by getting rid of ‘universal membership’ as an issue. Negotiations to break the logjam on pending applications started with the aim of making as close-to-possible balance between pro-USA, pro-USSR and neutral States entering the UN. The negotiations were carried out in 1954 and in 1955, before the debate on Charter Review, the membership logjam broke and Albania, Austria, Bulgaria, Cambodia, Finland, Hungary, Ireland, Italy, Jordan, Laos, Libya, Nepal, Portugal, Romania, Spain and Sri Lanka entered the UN. Japan should have been part of the group, but there was still the “enemy states” clause in the Charter which took more negotiations concerning Japan. Japan only came in the next year, 1956.

Dean Acheson, the U. S. Secretary of State who fathered the Uniting for Peace procedure at the United Nations.

Can there be something comparable in September? In an article “Coming in from the Cold: UN Membership Needed for the Phantom Republics”, I suggested at the time of the Georgia-Abkhazia-South Ossetia conflict that Abkhazia, Chechnya, Kosovo, Nagorno-Karabakh, South Ossetia and Transnistra be given UN membership as a necessary first step for security and a lessening of tensions. I had stressed that “to find mutually acceptable forms of government in these conflicts will require political creativity (breaking out of thinking in fixed patterns) and then new forms of constitutional order such as renewed forms of federal-confederal types of government, greater popular participation in decision-making and new forms of protection of minorities. Flexibility, compromise and cooperation are the hallmarks of success when it comes to resolving such conflicts concerning independence and autonomy. There is a need for a healing of past animosities and a growth of wider loyalties and cooperation.”

Both diplomats and members of the UN secretariat as well as secretariat of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe where I had also floated the idea explained in detail why such a joint membership procedure would not happen. None the less, if we added upgrading the status of Palestine in the UN, another membership logjam might be broken. The point I have repeatedly made is that membership does not solve difficulties; it just provides a framework where serious negotiations might be carried out. The 1955 access to membership of Cambodia and Laos did not ‘solve’ the Indochina conflict. The French-led war in Vietnam was still going on, to be followed a decade later by the US-led war.

Thus, I think that a world citizen position is that full Palestinian membership in the UN will not ‘solve’ all the Israel-Palestine issues, and certainly not the issues of the wider Middle East. However UN membership will allow the Palestinians to come out from the shadows of the Arab States and to negotiate with the Israelis as equals. Such is a very modest step forward but it is worth taking.

(1)   For a useful discussion of the background to the Uniting for Peace procedure see Dean Acheson Present at the Creation: My Years in the State Department (New York: W. W. Norton, 1969, chapters 47-51)

 

René Wadlow is Senior Vice President and Chief Representative to the United Nations Office at Geneva of the Association of World Citizens.

June 8 – Day of the Law of the Sea: Introducing Ralph Townley

In The Search for Peace, World Law on June 7, 2011 at 7:16 PM

JUNE 8: DAY OF THE LAW OF THE SEA

By René Wadlow

 

The United Nations (UN) General Assembly has designated June 8 each year to be the The Day of Oceans and the Law of the Sea. For a decade, from 1973 to 1982, the United Nations negotiated a far-reaching Convention on the Law of the Sea which declared that the oceans beyond the limits of national jurisdiction to be the common heritage of mankind.

Much of the spirit for the law of the sea and the regulation of trade by ships is due to the pioneer international law writing of Hugo Grotius. Ralph Townley, a former high UN secretariat member had outlined the contribution of Grotius in an article in Transnational Perspectives (www.transnational-perspectives.org) republished here:

  

Ruit Hora!: Hugo Grotius and the Rule of Law

By Ralph Townley

Hugo Grotius was born in Delft on Easter Sunday 1583 into a family with a long tradition of public service and one characterized by deep religious devotion. Similar in this respect to the background of Dag Hammarskjold, their lives were an expression and an elaboration of this dual heritage. An infant prodigy, Grotius received his first primer at the age of one from the renowned Lipsius. At three, he could read it and recite the psalms. At six Grotius was a passable astronomer, and at eight wrote a Latin elegy on the death of his infant brother. When eleven, Grotius entered Leyden University and graduated covered in honours three years later. Rather like the young Mozart, Grotius was hawked around Holland at public expense to display his erudition. Not unexpectedly he grew up a little arrogant, touchy, priggish, sanctimonius, and sensitive to criticism.

Grotius’ entry into the world of diplomacy, jurisprudence and statecraft began at fifteen when he was appointed as a diplomatic envoy in a mission to Henri IV. On the way, he had his first experience of a naval battle between Dutch and Spanish men-o’-war. On the way back, he stopped off to take a doctorate in laws at the University of Orleans. Called to the bar at sixteen he soon held high office as Advocate-Fiscal and State Historian. At that time he translated from Dutch into Latin the latest navigational and astronomical commentaries by Mercator and others. He also wrote and published in 1601 his first play Adamus Exul to serve, as he put it, “as a little exercise in Latin.”

As a jurist, Grotius first found international recognition when the Dutch East Indies Company captured a Portuguese treasure ship: Portugal at that time being ruled by Spain. The Company retained him to prepare a brief which was, in essence, a defence of piracy. De jure Pradae provided him with the elements of his first major work of international law Mare liberum published anonymously in 1608. That year he married Marie Van Reigersberch with whom he exchanged love letters in Greek and who was to bear him seven children.

A portrait of Hugo de Groot, aka Grotius, by Michiel Jansz van Mierevelt.

His career was interrupted abruptly when, in 1619, he was condemned to life imprisonment. Two years later, his resourceful wife arranged his escape from the fortress of Loevestein in the library chest in which she normally sent his books and in which he had dutifully returned those he had read. Disguised as a plumber, Grotius escaped with Marie to Paris where, as all good internationalists do when unemployed, he tutored students.

It was in Paris in 1625 that he published his magisterial work De jure Belli ac Pacis. It was a masterpiece commanding instant recognition, and receiving an enduring reputation. Two years later, he finished “Concerning the Truth of the Christian Religion”. It rivals The Imitation of Christ in its popularity. Both have been translated into almost every language and have remained in print ever since.

Grotius’ attempts to return to his own country were well-nigh disastrous and, in due course, he entered the service of the Swedish court serving as ambassador to France. He justified his decision by stating that, like Joseph in Egypt, his people having no further use for him, he was at liberty to enter the service of others. His public probity, however, was never questioned. Throughout his exile, he steadfastly refused all commissions that might have injured the commerce or the political interests of Holland.

While on his grand tour, the young poet John Milton was sent to Grotius by Lord Scudamore, the British ambassador, who, as Milton wrote, “gave me a card of introduction to the learned Hugo Grotius at that time ambassador from the queen of Sweden to the French Court.” It is from Adamus Exul that Milton lifted much of the language for Paradise Lost. (As my friend and colleague Dr Calvin Plimpton once stated “You British never plagiarize, you plunder!”)

As ambassador, the position of Grotius was not enviable. Serving under the redoubtable Chancellor Oxenstierna, he had to attempt to extricate Sweden from an offensive alliance it had had no business concluding with France. With that country at the height of its powers and Sweden by then in decline, Sweden was no match for France. Nor was Grotius a match for Richelieu: Grotius was incapable of dissembling or deceit – very much the tools of the trade of diplomacy in those days – or of demonstrating those vulpine qualities of Richelieu that reveal themselves so startlingly in de Campaigne’s triple portrait of him.

"De jure belli ac pacis", title page from the second edition of 1631.

In 1645, while returning from a visit to Queen Christina, Grotius was shipwrecked in the Baltic and died shortly afterwards in Rostock. He lies buried in his native Delft alongside those princes of the House of Orange who, in life, hounded him so relentlessly.

Grotius’ contribution to his world was two-fold: in an age of unbridled religious passion and persecution: tolerance; and at a time of the brutality and horror of the Thirty Years War: the precepts by which nations should govern their conduct with one another and with their subjects.

The sacerdotal, obscurantist, Catholic south of Europe was then locked in a bitter struggle with the Protestant north. With the Huguenots defeated in France, the standard bearers of Calvinism became the House of Orange. Their belief in a dour and awesome God, and a mankind whose fate was predestined became an obsession in the face of Catholic persecution. They sought to establish a highly authoritarian, rigid theocracy in Holland and particularly in that country’s South American colonies under Prince Maurice the absolutism of Bacon and the leviathan of Hobbes came close to reality. While the House of Orange found strong support in the lower classes, the patrician scholars and businessmen rejected Calvinism in favour of a more generous and liberal Lutheranism. Holland had by its own industry and the accidents of history replaced Venice. Holland became the centre of world trade, banking, shipping, agriculture, industry, and scientific inquiry. With a congruence, that can often be remarked in history, politics, religion and the needs of commerce all called for a liberal and spacious government making treaties with any state, a commerce that traded with anyone and a freedom of scientific inquiry unfettered by religious constraints.

That wise and resourceful statesman Oldenbarneveldt, one of the founding fathers of his country, led this movement of enlightenment. The Calvinist synod sought support from Armenius, the noted theologian from Leyden. Instead of helping to scotch the viper in their midst, his research led him to the conclusions that there were no biblical grounds for the belief in predestination, and that man had free will which enabled him to accept – or reject – God’s grace.

Prince Maurice moved swiftly. In 1619 Oldenbarneveldt was executed, Armenius disgraced and Grotius condemned to life imprisonment. Amidst all this, Grotius remained an apostle of tolerance, believing with Erasmus and Nicholas of Cusa that “to know nothing completely is the surest faith.” Grotius continued to translate and write commentaries on the Old and New Testaments as well as to translate Euripides and write his own plays. He advocated reconciliation between Catholic and Protestant to give freedom to the many sects and schools of thought to which Holland was rapidly becoming host. But the separation of man from nature and both from God was already in evidence in Dutch life, art and belief. Some historians have seen the rapidly expanding glass industry as being particularly significant in this process. The wide use of glass and the invention of the lens not only extended the working day and the workman’s working life, but through the invention of the telescope and microscope ushered in the secular era.

This process was most visible in the collapse of Christendom and the rise of the nation-state. Historians date the Treaty of Westphalia of 1648 as the beginning of a world of sovereign independence. But in Grotius’ time this was already a reality, and Grotius did not seek to change it. The nation-state was here to stay. What he sought to do was to rescue from the old order the works of early writers on international law so as to restore the jus naturalis as the overriding obligation not only of mankind but of states as well.

A historical Map of the Treaty of Westphalia.

The natural law to the earlier writers was divine law. It was that which was right and just and the righteous man would be a just man. Grotius saw natural law regardless whether it was divine or secular in origin, as binding on the conduct of nations as well as on man. In his major works, Grotius drew on the Spanish school of de Vitoria, Soto, Vasquez, and Suarez as well as the Italian Gentile, and through them reached back to Aquinas and Augustine. Grotius’ writings lacked the sharp edge of the Spanish School and being a practicing lawyer preferred to quote precedent 2,000 years old rather than contemporary cases.

But he codified the law as it applies to the rights, duties and obligations of states on land, at sea, in war and at peace. He sought to create a moral cosmos in which states not only observed the law in international relations with one another but also towards their own citizenry. This social order paralleled in his mind the physical order of the heavens then being revealed by Galileo and his precursors. Much of this thinking can be found in Adamus Exul in which, at seventeen, Grotius was already exploring the moral as well as the physical order of the universe.

His importance today? It is not difficult to trace the Grotian legacy in what is called the constitutive process. Beginning with Jay’s Treaty (when Jay graduated from King’s College, he travelled to Delft on a fellowship to study the Grotius papers), arrangements for arbitration and other methods of peaceful settlement began to feature in international instruments. The Alabama Claims Arbitration was a triumph for Grotian principles. The Hague Conventions and the League of Nations were similar expressions. Less visible but of much greater importance have been the everyday observance of international rules of conduct. This observance gives the lie, I think, to those positivists who regard law as only that which can be enforced.

The Grotian legacy can be found in the pursuit of human rights although it is unlikely, given his rather shaky stand on slavery, that Grotius would have seen the role of the state as an enhancer of human rights. As a realist he only hoped that the observance of natural law would restrain the state from becoming an instrument of oppression.

Many international lawyers see the Grotian legacy slipping away. The seas that for 300 years have been used by everyone as being inclusive, will, under the United Nations Law of the Sea Convention, fall for the most part under exclusive jurisdiction. Law may still have a role but it does not rule. There were more cases before the old Hague Court in the first year of the League of Nations than during the first twenty of the United Nations. As Antony Eden once remarked, “There is too much accommodation between the fire brigade and the fire.” In fact, as Kurt Waldheim has demonstrated, you can get away with almost anything as long as your timing is right.

With a statue of Grotius in front of its Gothic-style Nieuwe Kerk (New Church), birthplace Delft proudly celebrates the native son.

So many say. But these trends are not a refutation of Grotius’ moral cosmos but the product of new voices raised in the international community who state that it was an immoral cosmos and one in the making of which they had had no voice: hence the search for new approaches to an equitable sharing of the world’s resources, one where the benefits of science and technology can be made universally available and one where even information would be transmitted with a greater sense of international responsibility. These new voices call not for a rejection but a redefinition of the rules that should govern the conduct of the international community.

The Grotius family motto was Ruit Hora. This was not just a Calvinist reminder not to waste time; but, that man has but a brief spell before he exchanges time for eternity and that in that period he has certain obligations to fulfil. In our international activities particularly, we are more likely to run into the would-be-Richelieu than a would-be-Grotius. All the more reason then that we should take his family’s motto and restore ourselves by making it our own.

************

 

Ralph Townley, a retired director in the United Nations Secretariat, is the author of United Nations: A View from Within.

Ratko Mladić: Arrest and Coming Trial – A Step Forward for World Law

In Current Events, Human Rights, International Justice, The Balkan Wars, The Search for Peace, United Nations on May 27, 2011 at 7:23 PM

RATKO MLADIĆ: ARREST AND COMING TRIAL – A STEP FORWARD FOR WORLD LAW

By René Wadlow

On May 26, 2011, President Boris Tadić of Serbia announced the arrest of General Ratko Mladić, the Yugoslav general become head of the Bosnian Serb forces of Republika Srpska. General Mladić had been charged by the War Crimes Tribunal for ex-Yugoslavia in the Hague for genocide, crimes against humanity and war crimes and thus should be sent from Belgrade to the Hague to stand trial shortly. General Mladić is particularly charged with commending the 1992-1995 siege of Sarajevo during which much of the city was destroyed and some 10,000 persons killed, often shot by snipers. The genocide charge arises mainly from the killing in July 1995 of some 8,000 Muslim men at Srebrenica which had been declared a neutral safe haven guarded by UN troops.

Mladić had been forced from his position in Republika Srpska after the 1995 Dayton Agreement, largely facilitated by the US envoy Richard Holbrooke. Mladić moved to Serbia and lived mostly in Belgrade, having changed his name. He was arrested at the farm of a cousin some 50 miles north of Belgrade in the Vojvodina area. His arrest and trial was one of the conditions set by the European Union for advancing with negotiations on Serbia joining the EU. Negotiations are now at a serious stage, and the arrest of Mladić was necessary to open the door further. Mladić kept out of sight, but he was not hiding. He had supporters in the Serbian army, police and in certain nationalist political circles. Thus an arrest earlier would not have been worth the political outcries and tensions an arrest might have provoked. Now, when EU membership and the economic future of the country are at stake, his arrest is not a very high price to pay.

Ratko Mladić, here as the Bosnian Serb forces' top general during the civil war in Bosnia-Herzegovina (1922-1995).

It is not really satisfaction when one sees those who have betrayed one’s proposals are finally taken down. However, there is a sense of “closure” – a recognition that karma is finally at work. I did not know Ratko Mladić but saw him a number of times in the halls of the Palais des Nations — the European Headquarters of the United Nations (UN). I was in contact with Radovan Karadžić, the political head of the Bosnian Serbs — officially Prime Minister of Republika Srpska. I had been asked to be an advisor to Karadžić on UN procedures when negotiations began in Geneva in 1992. After discussions, I turned down the offer although it would have been a possibility to be a direct participant in the negotiations.

Whatever credibility I had in the Yugoslav conflict came from being a neutral and not linked to one side, although I was generally seen as pro-Serb. My first efforts had been to help Milan Babić, the leader of the Serb enclave in Croatia called Krajina. I had Babić address the UN Commission on Human Rights in February 1991 to warn of the consequences if Yugoslavia broke up. His presentation was filmed and widely shown on Yugoslav TV. I am still convinced that had his warning been taken seriously, things might have been different. However, the Commission on Human Rights was not really equipped to deal with “early warning”, and nothing was done until fighting broke out in June 1991.

Here with then General Ratko Mladić, former Bosnian Serb political leader Radovan Karadžić.

In June, Krajina declared its independence from Croatia, calling itself the Republic of Serbian Krajina. Babić was named Prime Minister. From August to December 1991, Serbs from Krajina killed hundreds of Croats and drove some 80,000 from their homes. Ratko Mladić was the head of the Krajina forces at the time and a close co-worker with Babić.

In 1992, Babić was eased out of power by behind-the-scenes pressures by Prime Minister of Serbia, Slobodan Milosevic, who wanted someone with a less independent character, at which time Mladić left Krajina and went to Bosnia where he had been born.

In 2004 Babić was sentenced to 13 years in prison for war crimes by the Yugoslav War Crimes Tribunal in The Hague and shortly afterwards committed suicide.

On July 11, 1995, General Ratko Mladić and his troops stormed the Bosnian Safe Haven of Srebrenica. With the most unwelcome participation of UN peacekeepers there, they secured the place for the Bosnian Serb army and took some 7,000 unarmed Bosnian civilians to their death.

In March 1992, Bosnia-Herzegovina declared its independence from Yugoslavia, and at the same time, Republika Srpska declared itself independent under the leadership of Radovan Karadžić. Many at the time questioned the wisdom of a unilateral splitting of Bosnia, but Mladić said “The existence of the Republika Srpska may be contested internationally, but the existence of its army cannot be contested. The Republika Srpska exists because we have our territory, our nation, our government and all the attributes of a state. Whether they acknowledge it or not — that’s their problem. The army is the fact.”

A month later, in April 1992, the siege of Sarajevo began with Ratko Mladić in charge of the Serb forces. The siege was to illustrate that a multi-ethnic society could not exist, Sarajevo being the Yugoslav city with the most ethnically-mixed population.

I had been in Belgrade in 1991 at the start of the Yugoslav fighting, just at the time of the fall of Vukovar, the first major battle, to see if NGOs could play any role in conflict reduction. But once the fighting had broken out there was really nothing that NGOs could do to prevent the spread of the conflict. The International Committee of the Red Cross tried, with great difficulty, to maintain some humanitarian efforts, but NGO conflict mediation was not really possible.

In September 1992, with fighting still going on, the Geneva Peace Conference on Bosnia began at the UN headquarters under the co-leadership of Lord David Owen on behalf of the EC and Mr. Cyrus Vance, former U. S. Secretary of State for the UN. Vance later withdrew, discouraged by the lack of progress and was replaced by Thorvald Stoltenberg, a former Minister of Foreign Affairs of Norway.

Lord David Owen, Special Representative of the European Community for Bosnia-Herzegovina, and the UN Special Envoy, former U. S. Secretary of State Cyrus Vance.

Late in 1992, as fighting was increasing and political proposals for the future of Bosnia were bogged down, David Arnott, an English Buddhist who had been working with me on Burma issues and I were the first to propose in the UN Commission on Human Rights and in a text sent to the members of the UN Security Council the creation of a number of security zones or “safe areas” within Bosnia-Herzegovina. I had been working closely with Tadeusz Mazowiecki, a former Prime Minister of Poland, who was the Special Rapporteur of the Commission on Human Rights on ex-Yugoslavia. In his November 1992 Report to the Commission, he had proposed the establishment of a security zone encompassing Sarajevo and its airport in order to facilitate the delivery of humanitarian supplies.

Building on this proposal, in an oral statement of December 1, 1992 to the “Special Session of the Commission on Human Rights devoted to Human Rights in Former Yugoslavia”, I stressed the need to create a larger number of safe havens and emphasized “that the declaration of protected Safe Haven Zones is an interim arrangement with a humanitarian purpose and in no way reduces the urgent and imperative need to find negotiated political solutions.”

Safe havens, called neutralized zones, are provided for in article 15 of the 4th Geneva Convention of August 12, 1949. On October 30, 1992, the International Committee of the Red Cross had proposed that “protected zones be set up for the civilian population at risk, away from combat areas. They would not be intended for the inhabitants of besieged towns for whose protection other solutions should be found, such as a cessation of hostilities.” This was basically a call for protected refugee camps while ours was for “protected cities” since ‘cessation of hostilities’ were not in the cards.

General Sir Michael Rose, the British senior military man who in 1994 served as Commander of the Bosnian segment of the United Nations Protection Force (UNPROFOR Bosnia). When the Bosnian Serb army attacked a UN-declared Safe Haven for the first time (that was Goražde in April 1994), General Rose and his UNPROFOR troops stood idle and let the Bosnian Serbs invade the city.

Thus our proposal was not original but rather what was needed for the hour. On April 16, 1993, the UN Security Council proclaimed Srebrenica a safety zone and on May 6 added Sarajevo, Žepa, Goražde, Bihać and Tuzla to the list. Our proposal was quoted by the then Ambassador of Afghanistan, Mr. Farhadi, during the debate on safe havens.

Thus I followed with interest how the safe havens were put into place. Srebrenica had been a middle-sized town of 6,000 prior to the fighting. It had grown to over 70,000 as families left the countryside for the relative safety of the town; infrastructure, however, could not keep up.

In July 1995, the “safe havens” of Žepa and Srebrenica were taken over by the forces led by Ratko Mladić. The UN forces led by soldiers from the Netherlands did not try to resist. A month earlier in June, UN forces had been taken hostage for two weeks but finally were released. Although NATO planes were dropping bombs on Serb positions at the time, it is not clear that any NATO forces would have come to the defense of the Dutch. The UN troops stood by as Mladić separated the women and children from the men. He had his soldiers kill some 8,000 male prisoners and had their bodies put into mass graves.

General Philippe Morillon, the French peacekeeper whose efforts to protect the UN-designated Safe Havens quickly made him a living legend in Bosnia-Herzegovina.

There had been so many violations of the laws of war and human rights in the Yugoslav conflicts, that there was not much public outcry at the time, although Tadeusz Mazowiecki resigned his UN position as Special Rapporteur writing to the UN Secretary-General Boutros Boutros-Ghali and making his letter public that his resignation was forced by the “horrendous tragedy which has beset the population of those ‘safe havens’ guaranteed by international agreement…I believe we have a certain hypocrisy as far as Bosnia is concerned when we are claiming to defend it but in fact we are abandoning it. The same goes for hypocrisy about the protection of human rights. I hope that my decision will also be understood as a protest against this hypocrisy.”

The wheels of karma turn slowly. As there is no longer anything at stake, more people today will agree that killing people who thought that they were protected in UN-proclaimed safe havens is not a good thing. There have been no new proposals for safe havens since and thus none has been created. I still think that it was a good idea at the time. Yet I share the observation of Michèle Mercier who had been for a long time part of the International Committee of the Red Cross team in former Yugoslavia “The word most frequently heard in the ranks of humanitarian workers is frustration. Their leaders are powerless to settle by themselves the problems involved with security and they have worn themselves out negotiating and renegotiating with opposite numbers of the most unlikely kind agreements that lose all their meaning before they are reached.” (1)

René Wadlow is Senior Vice-President and Chief Representative to the United Nations Office at Geneva of the Association of World Citizens.

(1)  Michèle Mercier Crimes Without Punishment: Humanitarian Action in Former Yugoslavia (London: Pluto Press, 1995, p. 165)


UN Peacekeeping Forces: Limits and Opportunities

In Conflict Resolution, The Search for Peace, United Nations on May 24, 2011 at 8:40 PM

UN PEACEKEEPING FORCES: LIMITS AND OPPORTUNITIES

By René Wadlow

   

May 29 has been designated by the United Nations (UN) General Assembly as a Day to honor UN Peacekeeping troops. Thus we are reminded that the UN remains the only universally representative and comprehensively empowered body the world has to deal with threats to international peace and security.

Peacekeeping operations have made the UN visible in many parts of the world, and the “blue helmets” have symbolized the peacemaking and conciliation role of the UN. The Nobel Peace Prize awarded to the “blue helmets” in 1988 testifies to the respect and confidence placed in them. The UN is the logical choice to provide a framework for multilateral engagement. The UN operates under its Charter which outlines norms of behavior, establishes means for the settlement of disputes and gives sweeping powers to the Security Council under Chapter VII for enforcement of peace. These powers are internationally binding and in many countries, carry the force of domestic laws.

Yet the UN does not have its own peacekeeping forces and must always rely on the goodwill of a relatively small number of Member States to provide soldiers and finance. Often the UN peacekeeping operations are determined not by the situation but by the resources available. In practice, the UN must accept what it can get from any state that offers units. The UN Secretariat is designed to serve its member states and does not have the authority to impose standards on contributing countries — except where UN soldiers break national laws, such as having sexual relations with under-age children.

There are situations which objectively threaten international peace and security, and the maintenance or restoration of order would require police actions, often swift and prolonged. However, for some types of action, the military working for the UN are only relatively trained. Most come from the ex-British Empire: India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Nepal and Nigeria. They share the methods of training of the British Army and speak English. Now China is starting to provide troops with a non-English tradition.

In 1988 the UN Peacekeeping Forces were awarded the Nobel Peace Prize.

There have been a good number of suggestions that the UN create a “ready response” force of its own that would be on call and would have had special training for the broad tasks which UN troops now undertake. These suggestions have always come up against the “wall of costs” and some fears that the UN would become a “super-state” if ever it had its own forces. The UN Secretariat has established a “standby forces” study group to study equipment compatibility, standardization and shaping national units tasked for multilateral activities. Nothing visible has arisen from these studies, but they may be dusted off in future emergencies.

The ending of the “East-West Cold War” confrontation has seen the proliferation and diversification of UN peacekeeping missions, increasingly complex and difficult to conduct. Yet, “blue helmets” are increasingly called upon not so much to safeguard a peace agreement but to create a situation of peace and to transform earlier relationships, as we see in Darfur, Sudan and the eastern provinces of the Democratic Republic of Congo (basically North and South Kivu).

Sir Brian Urquhart, former UN Undersecretary-general for Peacekeeping Operations. The British diplomat is widely regarded as the father of UN peacekeeping as we know it today.

Currently, there is no such thing as consistency and predictability in UN actions to preserve order. The world is too complex, and UN Security Council resolutions are voted on the basis of national interests and political power considerations. UN “blue helmet” operations have grown both in numbers and complexity. Even with the best planning, the situation in which one deploys troops will always be fluid, and the assumption on which the planning was based may change by the time the force is ready for deployment or even as the force hits the ground.

Policemen, civilian political officers, human rights monitors, electoral officials, refugee and humanitarian aid specialists all play important roles along with the military. To be successful, UN peacekeeping operations need clear objectives, but such objectives cannot be set by the force commanders themselves. Peacemaking forces are temporary measures that should give time for political leaders to work out a political settlement. The parties in conflict need to have a sense of urgency about resolving the conflict. Without that sense of urgency peacekeeping operations can become eternal as they have in Cyprus and Lebanon. There needs to be real international support for UN peacekeeping operations, otherwise there is a danger that they will be overburdened, under-funded and overstretched.

UN Forces do not exist in a vacuum. They are part of world politics. They have limited but crucial roles. UN forces are one element in a peacemakers tool kit, but there needs to be a wide range of peace-building techniques available. It is not enough to say “Support our UN troops”; there must be concerned efforts by both diplomatic representatives and non-governmental organizations to resolve the conflicts where UN troops serve, as in Darfur, in the Congo, in the Middle East.

 

René Wadlow is Senior Vice-President and Chief Representative to the United Nations Office at Geneva of the Association of World Citizens.

Somalia: Signs of Danger

In Africa, Conflict Resolution, The Search for Peace on May 17, 2011 at 10:44 PM

SOMALIA: SIGNS OF DANGER

By René Wadlow

 

            Although Somalia is in a crucial geo-strategic position on the Horn of Africa facing the Arabian peninsula, the country had largely slipped from world attention except for African specialists. The government had disappeared in 1991, proving that people can live without a State if there are sub-State institutions of order and dispute settlement. Thus what order existed was the result of local warlords and clanic chiefs who provided order in very small areas, often only one town and a small area around it. In July 2006, a revitalized Islamic movement — the Union of Shari’a Courts — took control of the capital Mogadishu and in the months following extended its control to much of the country. There was a fear in other countries that Somalia could serve as a base for terrorist activities on the pattern of Afghanistan. On December 6, 2006, the UN Security Council passed Resolution 1725 which authorized the creation of a regional African peacekeeping force to enter Somalia. The creation of such a multi-state force under the authority of the African Union seemed unlikely in the near term. The African Union forces are tied up in the Darfur, Sudan conflict. Therefore, Ethiopian troops moved in at the request, it is said, of the Transitional Federal Government. Ethiopia has the best trained and equipped army in the Horn of Africa. The Ethiopian forces quickly defeated the loose coalition of clanic militias which were supporting the Union of Shari’a Courts. On December 28, 2006, Ethiopian troops and representatives of the Transitional Federal Government moved into the capital Mogadishu. Thus an analysis of the background of the conflict in Somalia is merited as the conflict has potentially wider implications.

            As William Zartman points out in his recent book  Cowardly Lions  “In a world scarred by State collapse and deadly conflict, external actors can no longer sit by and watch, mesmerized by the blood on their television screens. Nor can they hide behind the fear of their own casualties or long-term involvement as an excuse for inaction. External engagement is required when it is necessary to protect populations from their rulers and from each other. Such protective engagement is justified for its own sake, for humanitarian reasons, and for preventive security purposes, because these conflicts will continue to destabilize their regions and impose costlier involvement later on… The terrible fact is that in the major cases of state collapse in the post Cold-War era, specific actions identified and discussed at the time could have been taken that would have gone far to prevent the enormously costly catastrophes that eventually occurred… The reason why no action was taken also varies, ranging from loss of nerve to preoccupation elsewhere.” (1)

            The UN General Assembly resolution on Somalia is an indication of a growing consciousness that international action must be taken early in a conflict before positions harden. The longer a conflict lasts, the more likely the parties will harden their positions to justify the costs in lives and money that has gone on before. With the entry of Ethiopian troops into Somalia in support of the Transitional Federal Government (TFG), the Somalia crisis seems to observers to be at a critical stage when the intensity of the conflict could escalate.  Thus the need for action, although there is no clear view on what action should be taken. The first step to analyze the possibilities of action is to place the Somalia conflict into a historical and sociological framework so that alternative international actions stand out clearly.

An old map of Somalia as a colony of Britain and Italy.

            In 1960, the Somali Republic was created by the union of a British colony and an Italian trusteeship area. The start of European involvement in Somali affairs began in 1902 when Italy, France, and Britain signed a Tripartite Convention that saw the Somalis divided between France taking Djibouti — a potentially important port and the terminal of the railroad to Ethiopia, the British which created Somaliland and also attached a separate area of Somali-speaking people to its Kenya colony, and Italy which created a separate colony of Italian Somaliland. The European powers recognized the expansion of the Ethiopian Empire under the leadership of Emperor Menelik which had taken control of the Ogaden area, inhabited largely by Somalis.

            The British and Italian Somali colonies existed from 1902 until 1945. At the end of the Second World War, the Italian colony was placed under a UN administration as was all of Italy’s former African holdings. From 1945 to 1950, Somalia was governed by UN administrators. By 1950 Italy had regained international respectability and so Italian Somaliland was returned to Italy under a UN Trusteeship Council mandate.

            1960 was a turning point for African independence. Although there was not among the Somalis a strong anti-colonial movement as there had been in North and West Africa, by 1960 both the French and the English believed that the colonial system as it had existed in Africa since the 1880s could no longer continue. There was a systematic granting of independence of the French colonies in 1960 and a drawn out granting of independence to the British colonies. Italy went along with the tide. Thus in 1960, both the UK and Italy granted independence to its Somali holdings and combined the two into the new state of the Somali Republic. However, there was a five day gap between the granting of independence to the UK colony and its integration into a united Somalia. This five-day status of independence now serves as the basis for the independence of the former British colony called again Somaliland, declared in 1991.

The once-united nation of Somalia now stands divided in three separate entities: Somalia proper, Puntland, and Somaliland.

           By and large, the different colonial administrations had little impact on the lives of the Somali populations. The Somalis speak the same language and practice the same forms of Sunni Islam.  The divisions among the Somalis are not tribal but clanic, with clans being followed by sub-clans, lineages, and extended families. Lineage is the most important identity. Thus one has frequent intra-clan tensions as well as inter-clan disputes. The sub-clan and lineage are the core social institutions providing personal identity, mutual support, access to local resources, and the framework of customary law, called xeer in Somali. It has been said that Somalis live in societies with rules but without rulers.

           The pastoral clan organization in Somalia is a fragile system characterized at all levels by shifting allegiances, temporary coalitions and ephemeral alliances. Lineages usually exist for three generations at which time they split and form new lineages. In such a clanic, largely pastoral society, one does not need state institutions to function. Clans are not all equal; some are severely disadvantaged due to their social status and therefore had less access to water and grazing land. There are, however, some people who lived outside the Somali clanic system. There is a small minority on the frontier with Kenya who are agriculturalists and not Somalis.  There are also a small number of urbanized Somalis, especially those living in the coastal cities who no longer followed clanic authority, as well as a small but growing educated bourgeoisie. (2)

            The great majority of Somalis are Muslim. Somali Islam is largely Sufi based with three major Sufi orders: Qaadariya, Saalihiya and Ahmadiya with other smaller groups or followers of particular saintly figures. By and large, the Sufi orders have been non-political, but the best known of the anti-colonial Somali leaders was a member of the S aalihiya order. Sayed Mohammed Abdille Hasan, called by the English “the Mad Mullah” led a 20 year struggle against Ethiopia, Italy and England starting in 1899 against Ethiopia and ending with his death in 1920.  He had been influenced by the earlier Madhi movement in Sudan.

            Sufi Islam is largely non-legalistic, placing a large emphasis on the teachings and lives of local saintly persons. Somali Sufi orders have integrated into the customary law (xeer) certain elements of Shari’a law especially as concerns family law – divorce and inheritance.

            During the last 25 years, and especially since 1991 with the end of state institutions, three other currents of Islam have been present and which are important in the analysis of the current political situation. Somalia is in the orbit of Wahhabist preaching sponsored by Saudi Arabia. This is a conservative, legalistic Islam, part of a wider Salafist movement. The Wahhabist school of thought has a good deal of Saudi money to open schools and medical clinics at a time when state facilities have largely disappeared.  There is a reformist Islamic movement, Al Islah, which is heavily influenced by the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood and has some contacts within Pakistan. More important politically, there is a more radical At Itihad al Islamiya movement which is willing to use violence to further its aims. These non-Sufi movements are largely limited to larger towns and the few cities, but they have support from outside Somalia. (3)

            The first 10 years of independent Somali political life was largely a reflection of clan and sub-clan reality. The Parliament and the higher administration was structured on clanic reality. Government posts, seats in Parliament and government favors were distributed along clanic lines. The army was the only institution of the state that was not originally structured along clanic lines. Then in 1969, General Mohamed Siad Barre took control of the government.  His ideology was an anti-clanic “scientific socialism” drawn from his limited reading of Soviet philosophy. However, he received support from the USSR, thus bringing Somalia into the Cold War. The Cold War helped to partition Africa into ideological spheres of influence. In order to counter Soviet influence in Somalia, the USA increased its support for conservative Emperor Haile Selassie of Ethiopia.

General Mohamed Siad Barre, President of Somalia from 1969 to 1991 and the country's very last head of state.

            Siad Barre, with the help of Soviet advisors, increased the size of the Army and the paramilitary forces. By 1982 there were some 120,000 men in the army with political commissars to develop ideological purity. Unlike the colonial period and the first years of independence during which the rural areas were left alone, Siad Barre extended government control to the rural areas, weakening clanic chiefs. Siad Barre also largely destroyed the independent bourgeoisies; some were jailed, more left the country to work elsewhere.

           Siad Barre, followed by probably the majority of Somali leaders, had a pan-Somali ideology which maintained that those areas of Kenya and Ethiopia where Somalis live should be joined to Somalia. The ideology had already led in the mid-1960s to attacks on Kenya which were quickly pushed back and then a much bloodier 1977-1978 war with Ethiopia in an effort to annex the Ogaden area where most of Ethiopia’s Somalis live. The fighting in Ogaden brought heavy losses to both armies. While Ethiopia pushed back Somali troops, the losses have left deep scars in Ethiopia and a persistent fear of Somali policies.

           At the time of the 1977-1978 Ogaden War with Ethiopia, there was a classic Cold War switch of alliances. A Marxist, Mengistu Haile Mariam, overthrew the emperor of Ethiopia and looked to the Soviet Union for help. In 1978, Siad Barre abrogated the USSR/Somali Treaty of Friendship and turned to the USA for help with weapons and training of the military. As Barre was uninterested in U. S. liberal-democratic ideology, he returned to governing on a clanic basis with members of his lineage, that of his mother and that of his principal son-in-law. His style of government under U. S. influence from 1978 until the end of 1991 ranged from autocratic to tyrannical.

            With the end of the Cold War, neither the USA nor the USSR had much interest in supporting difficult and unpredictable allies. Thus by 1991 both Siad Barre and Mengistu had been forced from power by rebel movements. While Ethiopia, having a long history of a weak but centralized government, was able to re-establish a state structure, Somalia returned to a precolonial structure but with few of the conflict-resolution techniques of precolonial times. Thus, in addition to traditional clanic conflicts over water and livestock, there was a clash between traditional clanic leaders and army officers who had gotten a taste of power under Siad Barre and who now wanted to set up little militarized kingdoms over which to rule.

            The 1960 merger of the Italian and British colonies had been more based on a desire of the Europeans to withdraw than any Somali urge to merge. The former British area reorganized itself after 1992 and took back the name of Somaliland. The Somaliland area is about the size of England with some 3,5 million people. In 1993, Somaliland reintroduced the structures of government: tax, customs, and banking. Somaliland has trade to Arabia and beyond through the busy port of Berbera and is helped by the remittances from the Somaliland disaspora of about one million in Saudi Arabia and the Gulf States, in East Africa and some in Europe. Somaliland, the former British colony is calm and its administration largely unchanged in Hargeisa, its capital which has become a magnet for displaced middle-class Somalis. However, there is a deep fear among many African governments that if one African state breaks up, many could follow the same pattern. Thus no African government wants to recognize the independent existence of Somaliland, and Europeans and others will not go against the African consensus by recognizing Somaliland.

The flag of Somaliland as a would-be independent state.

            Thus, it is in the former Italian area and its capital Mogadishu where fighting is taking place and where the dangers of increased conflict exists. The following analysis concerns only this former Italian Somali colony.

            Siad Barre was in power from his coup in 1969 until January 1991. When he was forced from Mogadishu, he tried briefly to re-establish control but was finally forced into Kenya.  He died in exile in Nigeria in 1995. Those who had forced Siad Barre from power were never able to reorganize central control of the country, nor even of the former Italian area. The country was divided into small fiefdoms headed sometimes by clan leaders but more often by military officers who had served in the government of General Siad Barre and had gotten a taste for power and the wealth which came within. These “warlords” as they were called carved out fiefdoms which served as a base for the exploitation of confiscated properties; plantations for banana export, the arms trade, and drug trafficking.  Around the warlords are their business allies who run the plantations, make contacts with foreign companies  for banana exports, and especially organize the arms and drug traffics.

            The warlords used the clan and sub-clan organizations among ethnic Somalis to create alliances and build support. However, the warlords are not traditional clan leaders. There have always been conflicts among clans. However the violence in Somalia after 1991 was not caused by clan and sub-clan divisions but was a struggle for power among individuals. Once violence broke out, the clan and especially sub-clans provided a ready-made solidarity group, and old inter-clan disputes were reignited. (4)

            Fighting continued over the control of areas between two fiefs. The result was economic and political chaos, with most people living a day-to-day existence. Many of the youth have been taken into the forces of the warlords but receive no education  and even little military training. There are also independent bandit  bands interested in looting.

            Since governments do not like anarchy, there have been numerous efforts on the part of neighboring countries, in particular Kenya, to help the Somalis create a government. (5) After many failed efforts, there now exists a Transitional Federal Government (TFG) which is recognized by the African Union. The TFG is made up of some clan leaders, some warlords and some persons chosen from urban civil society. However, while people do not have much enthusiasm for a continuation of armed conflicts, there is little enthusiasm for the return of government either. Attitudes of animosity, suspicion, and hostility are dominant. It will have to be seen if the TFG is able to establish control over the country if the Ethiopian troops are withdrawn.

            The Transitional Federal Government is, no doubt, more transitional than federal. Most international mediators have preferred to focus on trying to stabilise Somalia before addressing the Somaliland issue. The TFG has as president Abdullahi Yussuf — a war lord turned president — but its authority was limited to one large town, Baidoa, 200 miles from Mogadishu. Into the political void, Islamic groups that have always been around tried starting in June 2006 to take the high ground. The al-Ittihad al Islaami (Islamic Unity, often called just al-Ittihad) is a loosely structured group which has taken in a few floating Islamic fighters, many of whom had been been in Afghanistan or Pakistan. They see the similarities between the chaos in Somalia and the time after the departure of the Soviets from Afghanistan when the resistance forces were fighting for control among themselves. They hope that with a Taliban-like ideology of “Order and Islam will solve all your problems”, the people would help them come to power to put an end to the divisions among the warlords.

           Most of these Islamist groups have created a loose structure called the Union of Shari’a Courts, sometimes called the Union of Islamic Courts. The current leader Sheikh Hassan Dahir Aweys is a former Army colonel as well as a former leader of the al-Ittihad though he claims that the Shari’a Courts have a broader base al-Ittihad. The Union of Shari’a Courts received funds but no troops from Saudi Arabian sources. The line between public and private funds in Saudi Arabia is never clear.

            Ethiopia was the regional state most concerned by the rise of the Shari’a Courts and their potential control of the country.  Ethiopia feared that the Shari’a Courts could revive the pan-Somali ideology as a way of rebuilding national unity and so might again try to join the Somali-populated Ogaden to Somalia. Since the 1977-1978 war, the Ogaden has taken on increased importance to Ethiopia. The area could have large quantities of gas but further exploration is needed to verify the amount and the possibilities to develop the field.

           As Ethiopia is helping the TFG, the Eritrean government angry with Ethiopia for unresolved frontier issues and resentments from the long struggle for independence from Ethiopia has sent some troops to aid the Union of Shari’a courts. Thus the TFG, in the spirit of “the enemy of my enemy is my friend” is trying to build links with the Eritrean Liberation Front, an armed insurgency against the Eritrean government.

            Kenya also has direct interests in Somalia — Kenya’s northeast province is populated by ethnic Somalis. From 1963 to 1967 there was on-and-off fighting between Somalia and Kenya as part of the then “Greater Somalia” policy. There are also some 135,000 Somali refugees living in Kenya, some of them involved in an active arms trade.

            Into these lands of intrigue, few want to adventure. Some countries, in particular the U. S. government, see the possibility of Somalia turning into a safe haven for al-Qaada networks. Sheikh Aweys of the Union of Shari’a Courts has already been designated as a terrorist by the USA for suspected links to al-Qaada. The USA has some 1,800 troops based nearby in Djibouti specializing in intelligence gathering and counter-terrorism. These U. S. troops are especially active since the 1998 attacks on U. S. embassies in Nairobi and Dar es Salaam which had been prepared in Somalia. The USA is unlikely to get directly involved, but they sponsored the 6 December 2006 UN Security Council resolution which opens the door to African peacekeeping troops.   

            Once Ethiopian troops moved massively into Somalia in mid-December 2006, the fighting in Somalia was brought to the attention of the UN Security Council. The USA and the UK prevented a resolution calling on all foreign troops to leave the country from being presented. The delay in passing any resolution gave time to the Ethiopian troops to fight the forces of the Union of Shari’a Courts. In fact, the Courts had few foreign forces helping them. In a tightly structured clanic society as Somalia, foreigners, even Muslims, stand out and are not welcome. There is a real risk of betrayal of foreigners who can not be integrated into the protective network of a sub-clan. The Shari’a Courts were able to draw on the militias of some sub-clans, drawing upon clanic loyalties rather than on ideological conviction. The support of these sub-clans melted away once they saw the superior fighting force of the Ethiopian army.  On December 28, Ethiopian troops and representatives of the TFG including Prime Minister Ali Muhamad Gedi and Vice Prime Minister Mohamed Hussein Aidid moved into Mogadishu with the top Shari’a Courts leaders going into exile in Yemen.

            It is too early to know if the TFG will be able to consolidate its authority since it is a coalition of clans, warlords and former administrators who have little in common. It is also too soon to know what policy Ethiopia will follow. Ethiopian Prime Minister Meles Zenawi has said that the troops will be withdrawn as soon as order is established. But who is to define “order”? It is important that those working for peace from outside Somalia follow developments closely. Somalia requires our constant concern.     

 

References

1)      I. William Zartman.Cowardly Lions: Missed Opportunities to Prevent Deadly Conflict and State Collapse (Boulder, CO: Lynne Rienner, 2005)

2)      I. Lewis. A Pastoral Democracy (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1991)

3)      I. Lewis. Saints and Somalis: popular Islam in a clan-based society (London: Haan, 1998)

4)      I. Lewis. A Modern History of Somalia (Oxford: James Currey, 2002)

5)      International Crisis Group. Negotiating a Blueprint for Peace in Somalia (Brussels: ICG, 2003)

 

Rene Wadlow is the editor of the online journal of world politics www.transnational-perspectives.org. He is also the Senior Vice President and Chief Representative to the United Nations Office at Geneva of the Association of World Citizens. Formerly, he was professor and Director of Research of the Graduate Institute of Development Studies, University of Geneva.

الأرض هي بيتنا المشترك

In Middle East & North Africa, Poetry, The Search for Peace on May 5, 2011 at 10:00 PM
 الأرض هي بيتنا المشترك

رينيه وادلو

حياتي مشتركة
مع حياة أخرى لا تحصر،

سوى بشرية أوغيرها ؛

معا يمكننا أبداع الكمال

هذه هي الأرض.

لا استطيع ان اكون إلا كجزء

هذا الكمال؛

بسبب ذلك الكمال

أنا مواطن عالمي.

في الإنسانية،

ويمكن أن تعكس على من هو

وبالتالي يمكن فتح البوابة

لإمكانيات جديدة ولدت

معرفة النفس.

أنا المبدع.

كما الحياة ، وأنا احد قوة

النمو والتقدم.

كما وعي، ويمكنني مباشرة

هذه القوة من الخيال و

ن العلم، من الحكمة والمهارة.

يمكنني بناء ما لم

تم بناؤه من قبل.

يمكننا أن نحب ونعرف

الحلم والتغيير.

معا ، يمكننا أننخدم

مصيرالحياةفيعالمنا
واطلاق العنان للامكانات عميقة.

هذهالخدمة

هيمفتاحهويتنا الإنسانية.

ومنخلالهذه الكفاءة

أستطيع أنأداء دوربلدي

(Drawing: Evgueni Bosyatski)

كمواطنعالمي..

ويمكنأنتنعكسعلىمن هو معي

وبالتالي يمكن فتحالبوابة

لإمكانيات جديدة وولادة

نفس مطلعة.

أناالمبدع.

  كالحياة ، وأنا احدقوة

  النمو والتقدم.

بوعيي، ويمكنني أستثمار

  قوة  الخيالو

العلم، معالحكمةوالمهارة.

يمكننيبناءمالم

تمبناؤهمن قبل.

يمكننا أن نحبونعرف

الحلموالتغيير.

معا ، يمكننا أننخدم

مصيرالحياةفيعالمنا
واطلاق العنان للامكانات عميقة.

هذهالخدمة

هيمفتاحهويتناوالإنسانية.

ومنخلالهذه المهارة

أستطيع أنأدي دوري فيبلدي

كمواطنعالمي

World Citizens Call for a Thai-Cambodian Peace Zone: From Periodic Flair-ups to Permanent Cooperation

In Asia, Conflict Resolution, The Search for Peace on April 23, 2011 at 8:36 PM

WORLD CITIZENS CALL FOR A THAI-CAMBODIAN PEACE ZONE:

FROM PERIODIC FLAIR-UPS TO PERMANENT COOPERATION

By René Wadlow


In an April 23 Appeal to the United Nations (UN) Secretary-General, Ban Ki-moon, Prof. René Wadlow, Senior Vice President and Chief Representative to the United Nations Office at Geneva of the Association of World Citizens (AWC), called for renewed efforts to promote a zone of peace along the Thai-Cambodian frontier where fighting had broken out on Good Friday, April 22, and was continuing on Saturday, April 23. “Quick UN action is required to halt these periodic flair-ups and to create a zone of peace that would facilitate permanent cooperation” said the World Citizen Appeal.

The early morning Good Friday fighting between Thai and Cambodian troops took place near the ancient temples of Ta Krabey and Ta Moan Thom some 150 kilometers southwest of the better-known 900-year-old Preah Vihear  Temple where fighting had broken out in February. There have been repeated clashes around the Preah Vihear Temple, especially after 2008 when UNESCO enshrined Preah Vihear as a World Heritage site for Cambodia over Thai objections. The World Court had in 1962 decided that Preah Vihear was on the Cambodian side of the frontier.  However the only roads for easy access to the temple are from Thailand.

The World Citizen proposal for a Thai-Cambodian peace zone is based on a “peace park-condominium zone of peace” between Ecuador and Peru proposed by Professor Johan Galtung at a time of growing military confrontations between the two South American countries and published in his collection of peace proposals: Johan Galtung 50 Years (Transcend University Press, 2008, 263pp.)

The Preah Vihear Temple, a World Heritage Site.

The troops of the two countries would disengage and withdraw, and procedures would be established for joint security, patrolling, and early warning of military movements.  A code of conduct would be drawn up.  Thus the two countries with a history of hostility could use conflict creatively to grow together at the disputed point and at the speed national sentiments would tolerate and demand.  Such a zone of peace would be important both for conflict resolution and for protection of the ecology.

The fighting in February had been brought for mediation to a meeting of the Foreign Ministers of the Association for South East Asian Nations (ASEAN). Indonesia which currently holds the rotating chairmanship agreed to send military observers to the frontier area.  However, they have not yet been sent, and Thai officials considered them unnecessary.

However, the new round of fighting and the evacuation of the population of villages near the frontier indicate that the situation remains volatile. Joint cooperation between the UN and ASEAN would be important to create a stable form of third-party mediation. As Prof. Wadlow pointed out in the World Citizen Appeal, “Buddhist groups in both Thailand and Cambodia have been working for reconciliation based on the common value of compassion. There is a growing role for citizen diplomacy and mediation efforts. The Thai-Cambodian conflict is one in which such citizen diplomacy can play an important role, especially in building up the institutions of a zone of peace with joint centers for Buddhist study and practice as well as increased protection of the fragile environment. However, in light of the increased dangers of renewed fighting, swift action by governments is needed. The UN Security Council is best structured for deciding on the swift action needed”.

René Wadlow is Senior Vice President and Chief Representative to  the United Nations Office in Geneva of the Association of World Citizens.