Jason Stearns, Phil Clark and Richard Dowden debate the UN Group of
Experts (with a focus on the DRC)
June 10, 2013
For the motion: Jason K. Stearns, political analyst, director of the
Rift Valley Institute’s Usalama Project and author of the book,
‘Dancing in the Glory of Monsters: The Collapse of the Congo and the
Great War of Africa’ (Public Affairs, 2012).
Against the motion: Phil Clark, Lecturer in Comparative and
International Politics at SOAS, University of London, and author of
the book, ‘The Gacaca Courts, Post-Genocide Justice and Reconciliation
in Rwanda: Justice without Lawyers’ (Cambridge University Press,
2010).
OTJR’s opening online debate is moderated by Koen Vlassenroot,
Professor and Research Director of the Conflict Research Group,
University of Ghent and edited by Nicola Palmer, lecturer in criminal
law at the Dickson Poon School of Law, King’s College, London. The
debate forms part of our current examination of the different
methodologies and epistemologies used to determine the occurrence of
serious human rights violations. It throws a spotlight on the
different ways of knowing harm in contexts of repressive rule or armed
conflict, where access to information about human rights violations is
often restricted. This debate will run over the next two months and
will explore the recent reporting and monitoring of military activity
in the eastern Democratic Republic of Congo, alongside broader issues
around the role of international bodies in investigating and reporting
on complex conflict zones. The debate addresses issues of the
neutrality and impartiality of observers, the specific methods used by
international investigators and their impact on global media, policy
and legal responses.
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
This house believes that international monitors, such as the UN Group
of Experts or human rights groups, are essential for reporting on mass
conflict
Nav: Mod Pro Con ▲
For the motion: Jason K. Stearns, political analyst, director of the
Rift Valley Institute's Usalama Project and author of the book,
'Dancing in the Glory of Monsters: The Collapse of the Congo and the
Great War of Africa' (Public Affairs, 2012).
Against the motion: Phil Clark, Lecturer in Comparative and
International Politics at SOAS, University of London, and author of
the book, 'The Gacaca Courts, Post-Genocide Justice and Reconciliation
in Rwanda: Justice without Lawyers' (Cambridge University Press,
2010).
OTJR's opening online debate is moderated by Koen Vlassenroot,
Professor and Research Director of the Conflict Research Group,
University of Ghent and edited by Nicola Palmer, lecturer in criminal
law at the Dickson Poon School of Law, King's College, London. The
debate forms part of our current examination of the different
methodologies and epistemologies used to determine the occurrence of
serious human rights violations. It throws a spotlight on the
different ways of knowing harm in contexts of repressive rule or armed
conflict, where access to information about human rights violations is
often restricted. This debate will run over the next two months and
will explore the recent reporting and monitoring of military activity
in the eastern Democratic Republic of Congo, alongside broader issues
around the role of international bodies in investigating and reporting
on complex conflict zones. The debate addresses issues of the
neutrality and impartiality of observers, the specific methods used by
international investigators and their impact on global media, policy
and legal responses.
This debate is run in collaboration with the Rift Valley Institute,
the Conflict Research Group and the Royal African Society.
Opening Statements
Defending the motion
Jason K. Stearns
Political analyst and director of the Rift Valley Institute's Usalama
Project. In 2008 Jason was the coordinator of the UN Group of Experts
on the DR Congo.
In June 2012 various reports surfaced condemning Rwandan support to
the M23 rebellion in the eastern Democratic Republic of Congo. In
response to these reports by the United Nations, Human Rights Watch
and journalists, donors cut around $200 million of aid to Rwanda, over
ten per cent of the country's budget. This provoked a serious shortage
of cash and undermined development programs in a country often
heralded for its progress on economic and social reforms.
Controversy sprang up over the reports that led to the aid cuts, with
detractors arguing that the allegations were not well-grounded,
ignored broader political developments, and that their authors were
not accountable to anyone. It sparked a debate, which we continue
here, about who has a right to steer and influence major policy
decisions in these countries.
So are these critics on solid ground? More importantly, what role
should reports like these play in determining policy, and how should
organisations like the United Nations and Human Rights Watch be held
accountable?
I will focus on the most publicised report: that of the United Nations
Group of Experts on the Democratic Republic of the Congo. The Group,
which I led in 2008, was created in 2004 to help bring an end to the
conflict there. The idea is simple: In order to demobilise the several
dozen armed groups in this region, we need to dismantle their support
networks––the businessmen who buy the minerals they tax, the elites
who provide political cover and financial support, the governments
that funnel military aid to them. The Congo expert group, one of
thirteen that have been set up to monitor sanction regimes from Iran
to Al-Qaeda, reports back to the Security Council, which can then
impose travel bans and asset freezes on the individuals and entities.
The Group of Experts is an essential tool for the international
community––by its very nature, much of the conflict economy takes
place in the shadows. These investigations can help uncover the people
and governments undermining stability in the region; while these
reports should not be the only authority for major policy decisions,
they can provide crucial information.
Despite an aggressive counter campaign that dipped into character
assassinations and smear tactics, the Group's general findings of
Rwandan support to the M23 last year ––a small part of two reports
spanning over 200 pages––have been confirmed by many other sources,
including Human Rights Watch and the International Crisis Group, my
own research for the Rift Valley Institute, international journalists,
and various reputable Congolese non-profit groups.
Nonetheless, there is room for improvement for the Group. In order to
raise their already high standards––as laid out by the Security
Council's 2006 report by the Informal Working Group on General Issues
of Sanctions––the Group should carefully assess the bias of their
sources and exclude them if they are deemed unreliable, file
anonymised and coded transcripts of key interviews with the United
Nations, and ensure that two members of the Group are present for
interviewing witnesses. Perhaps most crucially, the UN Security
Council itself must get serious about complying with its own
resolutions. Some of its members stonewall on providing information to
the expert groups, and the reports have far greater impact in the
media than through sanctions list, which is sparsely populated by
relative nobodies.
But has the Group been given disproportionate influence? Is it a group
of activists run amok, as some of its detractors claim, accountable to
no one? While any independent group of experts must be given
sufficient leeway to criticise people in positions of power, even
those who appointed it, there are also mechanisms by which the Group
of Experts can be held accountable: its conclusions have to be reached
by consensus among the four to six experts, and the Security Council
can choose to end the contract of any expert at the end of her
mandate, which never lasts more than a year. Most importantly, the
reports of the Group are supposed to enrich the debate, but the debate
does not end with them. For example, if journalists and donors latched
onto their claims of Rwandan support to the M23 rebellion, it was
because they were able to confirm them independently.
This points to a larger issue: report-based organisations can indeed
be held accountable, through the market of public opinion. Groups like
Amnesty International, International Crisis Group, and Human Rights
Watch should be scrutinised and investigated themselves if necessary.
Their reputation, their main means for fund-raising, is at stake. This
means of accountability is, however, partially flawed. After all, this
particular market of public opinion is limited, as information about
human rights abuses and armed group support networks is difficult to
come about. Concordantly, it will be more difficult for groups like
Amnesty International, which derives almost all of its funding from
small member donations, to be held accountable, as most of their
members do not have the means to verify their reports and claims.
Strong checks and balances within their organisational
structure––ombudsmen, strong boards of directors, transparency
regarding operations and funding––can help, but not entire solve this
conundrum. Organisations such as the CharityWatch and Charity
Navigator can also promote transparency, but are not immune to
criticism themselves, as controversies over NGO Monitor and Better
Business Bureau have shown.
Where are we left? There will always be tradeoffs between independence
and accountability, especially in the realm of international politics
where organisations are rarely answerable to the people for whom they
advocate––but it is precisely because those people's voices are
muffled that such organisations exist.
Don't throw the baby out with the bathwater. No, none of these
organisations provides the Holy, Indisputable Gospel; they need to be
interrogated and fact-checked, and we should always be looking for
ulterior motives and prejudices behind their work. But the Group of
Experts, as well as other organisations mentioned above, provide
valuable information in areas where violence and abuse go hand in hand
with secrecy.
Against the motion
Phil Clark
Lecturer in Comparative and International Politics at SOAS, University
of London.
The last decade of conflict in central Africa has highlighted the role
of international observers in documenting cases of mass violence.
Reports by the United Nations, Human Rights Watch (HRW), Amnesty
International (AI) and other monitoring bodies have generated reams of
press coverage and defined public perceptions and international policy
toward this region. For much of the world, these organisations are
their eyes on the ground – impartial sources that can be relied on to
tell them who is raping and killing whom and who should be held
accountable.
Certainly these observers play an important role in documenting, and
focusing global attention on, mass crimes. Sometimes they are the only
available monitors of atrocity. However, they should be assessed
critically because their methods and findings are often highly
problematic and can distort – rather than aid – our understanding of
conflict.
Of the various investigating groups working in central Africa, the
United Nations has gained the most attention, principally through two
sets of documents: the 2010 mapping report on human rights violations
committed in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) between 1993 and
2003; and the series of reports in 2012 issued by the UN Group of
Experts on the DRC, which centred on Rwanda's (and to a lesser extent
Uganda's) role in creating and backing the M23 rebel group. While the
initial furore over the 2010 report quickly subsided, the effects of
the 2012 reports continue to reverberate, as major donors have
responded by withholding aid to Rwanda and sanctioning various rebel
leaders.
Meanwhile, tucked away in the labyrinthine evidence before
international courts and tribunals is the sustained impact of human
rights groups such as HRW and AI. In the recent International Criminal
Court (ICC) case of the alleged Congolese rebel leader, Callixte
Mbarushimana, the Prosecution conducted few of its own investigations
in eastern DRC and relied heavily on secondhand evidence gathered by
HRW, AI and various UN bodies. In 2008, the International Criminal
Tribunal for Rwanda refused to transfer four apprehended genocide
suspects to Rwanda on the grounds that the individuals would not
receive a fair trial in the country – a judgment based primarily on a
HRW amicus curiae brief. In 2009, the UK High Court similarly refused
to extradite four genocide suspects to Rwanda, citing a HRW submission
as the principal basis for its judgment.
Underpinning these policy and legal decisions is the view that
international observers such as the UN Group of Experts, HRW and AI
should be trusted as impartial and systematic reporters on conflict
zones that are largely inaccessible to foreign policymakers and
judges. There are three reasons why we need to temper this view and
treat these observers' findings with much greater scepticism. This is
not to suggest that we should dismiss these organisations out of hand
but rather that their findings and recommendations warrant deeper
scrutiny.
First, all of these bodies have political interests and agendas that
shape how they gather and present evidence. A marked feature of the UN
Group of Experts reports in 2012 was their limited criticism of the
Congolese government and armed forces, which are also responsible for
serious violations. This raises the question of whether the UN feared
jeopardising relations with the DRC, upon whose cooperation it relies
for all of its operations in Congo (including for the running of
MONUSCO, the world's largest peacekeeping mission), or undermining the
newly re-elected Congolese President, Joseph Kabila, during a fragile
political period.
Meanwhile, a major challenge for human rights groups such as HRW and
AI is how to balance their dual agenda of advocacy and analysis. The
advocacy role means adopting pre-determined stances on human rights
issues (including a firm belief in the formal, legal prosecution of
those considered 'most responsible' for serious crimes), while the
analytical role entails reflecting the often messy reality of war in
which those considered 'most responsible' are not always clear-cut and
strict prosecutorial approaches do not always yield positive results.
In the cases of transfers and extraditions to Rwanda, HRW's evidence
(based on a small, selective sample of judicial cases in Rwanda)
reflected a longstanding advocacy position about the state of politics
in Rwanda rather than a systematic analysis of fair trial standards in
the country. One major effect of this form of advocacy is to flatten
out the complexity of conflict and post-conflict situations in order
to tell a simple story for a non-specialist audience. This is useful
for attracting global attention to ongoing violations but militates
against objective, fine-grained analysis of dynamics on the ground.
These issues connect to a second problem, namely international
organisations' often flawed methodologies and modes of analysis.
Sometimes their methods are robust, involving dedicated fieldwork over
many months, and at other times they are based on uncorroborated
interviews with single sources or no fieldwork at all. As I have
detailed elsewhere, the UN Group of Experts reports in 2012 manifested
this full spectrum of methods, with some findings based on confirmed
information from multiple, varied sources and others on single
anonymous sources or telephone conversations overheard by third
parties. Reflecting the political concerns above, these reports' most
commonly cited sources were Congolese political and military
officials, who are far from impartial regarding violations committed
in this region.
In the case of HRW and AI, their reports are often based on a handful
of perceived human rights violations or contraventions of legal due
process, which are used to paint a more general picture. A key
example, the HRW amicus briefs in the transfer and extradition cases
made wide-sweeping claims about fair trial standards in Rwanda on the
basis of several of the most problematic cases from a decade earlier,
rather than a sustained analysis of current, representative trends.
Finally, the attention paid to international organisations often
silences local actors. While external agencies invariably describe
their work as giving voice to the voiceless, they are often
inadvertently part of the silencing. In the rush to cite the latest UN
or HRW report on central Africa, the international media and
policymakers rarely consider the range of Congolese, Rwandan, Ugandan
or Burundian NGOs, thinktanks, journalists and academics who live in
the affected areas, maintain constant contact with their interlocutors
and possess a degree of political, social, cultural and linguistic
expertise unmatched by any foreign analyst. The result is that
international debates are often deprived of the in-depth knowledge
that only these local sources can provide.
Taken together, these problems underscore that international observers
need greater scrutiny and accountability, for the sake of more nuanced
understandings of conflict and more effective policymaking.
Opening Remarks
Moderator's opening remarks
Koen Vlassenroot, Professor and Director of the Conflict Research
Group, Faculty of Political and Social Sciences, University of Ghent
Are international monitors, such as the UN Group of Experts or human
rights groups such as Amnesty International or Human Rights Watch,
essential for reporting on mass conflict and serious human rights
violations ? The publication in 2012 of the report by the UN Group of
Experts on Rwanda's and Uganda's hand in the M23 rebellion, was the
trigger of an animated discussion on the quality of evidence and the
reliability of the claims presented.
The opening statements in this online debate present us with some of
the strengths and flaws of the current reporting and monitoring of
military activity and conflict dynamics in eastern DR Congo. For Jason
Stearns, a leading analyst on the Great Lakes Region, these reports
are an essential tool for the international community. He convincingly
states that these often include the only available evidence on the
operations and support networks of armed actors that are held
responsible for mass crimes and the undermining of stability. Although
he admits that there is a need for scrutiny and accountability, he is
persuaded that these investigations are extremely useful for policy
decisions. Phil Clark, a respected lecturer at SOAS, is much more
hesitant. He argues that we need to be careful with the findings
presented in these reports, not only because of the lack of an often
assumed impartiality of those organizations that produce these
reports, but also because of the flawed methods of evidence collection
and analysis, and the silencing of local voices.
For those trying to understand what is going on in eastern DR Congo,
the reports of the UN Group of Experts, Human Rights Watch or Crisis
Group indeed are often the only available sources of information. This
is even so for academics, who, by lack of access to the field, in some
cases have no other option than to rely on the data presented by those
organizations. This is of course highly problematic. It is even more
so because, while the argument is pertinent that there is a need to
check facts, there is hardly any option to do so. This gives these
reports much more credibility than they probably deserve.
On the other hand, it would be naïve to assume that these reports are
the only sources of inspiration to international policy. The latest UN
Group of Experts report on the M23 rebel group had two major impacts.
The claims presented in this report received wide international
attention, which increased public pressure on policy makers; and it
wanted to provide systematic evidence (on the role of Rwanda in the
creation and military operations of the rebel group). For most policy
makers though, the report was only confirming what intelligence
reports were already telling them. So it was not the evidence as such
that made them move, but the growing pressure produced by the wide
attention the report received.
And this brings me to my final and most important comment. While both
opening statements discuss the quality of evidence, the debate needs
to be pushed a bit further. It should also deal with the underlying
assumptions in these reports of what conflicts are about and how these
could be resolved. The focus on the armed groups' networks of support
inherently suggests that their behavior is mainly guided by a search
for economic control. Documenting these networks and cutting their
links with armed groups through sanctions would isolate those
responsible for undermining stability and, in the end, would help to
reverse existing conflict dynamics. It represents an explicit lack of
recognition of the complexity of conflicts such as the war in eastern
DR Congo and reduces the options for policy.
The proposer's response
Jason K. Stearns
In our opening statements, Phil Clark and I both end by saying that
organizations reporting on conflict deserve greater scrutiny. However,
you will find we disagree about the particular cases that Phil
mentions.
Phil's assessment of the UN Group of Experts' work on the Congo does
not do justice to its rigorous investigations, which are by far the
most authoritative source of information on conflict in the country.
While it is true that the media has focused its reporting on Rwandan
involvement in the conflict, the Group has also consistently
highlighted the Congolese state's role in the violence. In last year's
report, the Group explained at length the role that army officers have
played in backing rebellions; it was in part due to their research
that President Kabila sacked the head of the land forces, General
Gabriel Amisi. Both the 2010 and 2011 Group of Experts reports made
strong arguments about criminal networks in the Congolese army.
It is also not true that the Group relies mostly on Congolese state
sources for its information on Rwandan involvement. A close reading of
the report shows that the Group cites interviews with over 100 former
M23 and allied combatants, as well as local leaders, United Nations
officials and other eyewitnesses as evidence. The Group could have
easily made its case without mentioning Congolese authorities.
I was therefore perhaps not clear enough in my opening statement. When
I said that there is room for improvement for the Group, this does not
refer to last year's report, which I have solidly backed, but to the
work of such UN monitoring bodies in general.
While I am much less of an expert on Rwandan domestic politics, I
can't help but bristle at Phil's characterization of Human Rights
Watch's (HRW) work. First, Phil gives them too much credit–– while a
British court did cite a HRW submission in its refusal to extradite
genocide suspects, the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda
(ICTR) disregarded HRW's concerns in the 2011 Uwinkindi case, which
led to extradition. Several other countries have since also extradited
suspects to Rwanda, citing this ICTR decision. Second, HRW's criticism
of judicial independence in Rwanda is not based on a small selective
sample, but on a pattern that the organization has researched through
years of field research in the country.
And although I agree with Phil that we should rely more on local
voices, it is precisely in situations of conflict that many of these
voices are silenced and outside attention is required––in Rwanda, it
is not the Group of Experts or HRW that is silencing voices, but the
government itself.
Enough of the particulars. I agree with Phil that reporting on
conflict needs as much scrutiny as possible. Part of this is what Koen
Vlassenroot mentions in his moderator's comments: not just to focus on
the quality of evidence, but the questions that drive the reporting.
To what degree does the focus on civil rights and military networks
suffice? Are we talking about the right things?
Yes and no. These reports are crucial parts of the puzzle – after all,
we should care about how a government treats its citizens, and about
who is supporting instability. But this kind of inquiry does not
address two key questions.
First: What? As Koen points out, by focusing on economic networks, we
assume that this is the root cause of instability, whereas we know
that in this region institutional weakness, local conflicts over land
and power, and the pathologies of authoritarianism and patrimonialism
also need to be scrutinized.
Secondly: Why? Why is the Rwandan government involved in the eastern
Congo? Why is the Congolese leadership so reluctant to reform its
institutions? Why are donors so concerned about pushing certain
agendas? The kinds of investigations we are discussing provide
important data that we need to answer these questions, but this
information then needs to be put in a political context. For
activists, good political analysis should be as important as rigorous
methodology.
The opposition's response
Phil Clark
Jason Stearns and I agree that there needs to be greater scrutiny of
international monitors and investigators working in complex conflict
zones. Jason provides some useful suggestions for how the UN Group of
Experts and other observers can better assess the bias of their
sources and generally improve the quality of their investigations.
However, I'm not persuaded by his broader argument that these monitors
are 'an essential tool for the international community', as he skirts
over some important problems with their reports and the reasons why
they shape media and policy responses.
Jason's argument is that the individuals and states that support armed
groups operate in the shadows and therefore independent international
monitors are vital for exposing their activities. These monitors'
reports, he argues, have such salience among journalists and
policymakers because they can independently verify – and confidently
amplify – those organisations' findings. Accountability for
international observers then should take the form of internal scrutiny
of the Group of Experts by the UN Security Council and, in the case of
report-based organisations such as Human Rights Watch (HRW) and
Amnesty International, by their own boards and the court of public
opinion.
This largely apolitical argument overlooks two key issues. First,
Jason puts enormous faith in the capacity and willingness of the few
journalists and foreign intelligence agents on the ground to
fact-check the array of issues addressed in observers' reports.
Regarding last year's Group of Experts findings in Congo, journalists
and other monitors such as HRW and the Rift Valley Institute confirmed
only a handful of the UN's claims. Most media outlets reported the
UN's findings as soon as they were leaked, before any independent
verification was possible – because the findings on their own were
considered news. Several journalists based in Goma, after being
questioned on Twitter, expressed scepticism about the Group of
Experts' claims of hundreds of Rwandan soldiers crossing the border to
support the M23 invasion of Goma (by which stage the Group's
investigators were no longer on the ground), but they did not report
their misgivings. This suggested a reluctance to assume the
fact-checking role Jason ascribes to the media.
Meanwhile, we know very little about US, UK or French intelligence
services in central Africa, their effectiveness and the extent to
which they were able to verify all, some or none of the Group of
Experts' claims. We are asked to trust that foreign intelligence
sources agreed with the Group's key findings – which shifts these
discussions into the realm of faith rather than evidence.
Second, there are various reasons that international investigative
reports make media and policy waves, not all of which – as Jason
suggests – relate to the content of their claims. As I have argued
elsewhere, the furore over the Group of Experts and M23 last year
stemmed as much from broader or extraneous political issues as the
substance of the UN's findings. The Group's conclusions were widely –
and almost immediately – accepted because they also gave grounds to
denounce Rwanda's various armed interventions in Congo since 1996 and
Rwanda's domestic human rights record; helped justify foreign aid cuts
which are increasingly unpopular in the UK and elsewhere during a
period of austerity; and became part of the whirl of controversy
around Andrew Mitchell and Susan Rice, long-term supporters of Rwanda
who were facing separate political battles at home. These issues gave
the Group of Experts' reports unexpected political salience and a
momentum that militated against close scrutiny of their methods and
findings.
Turning to Koen Vlassenroot's opening comments, I agree that mass
conflict is more complex than suggested by the international observers
we're discussing here. Inevitably, these organisations choose their
lens of analysis – economic dimensions of war or domestic judiciaries'
adherence to international legal standards – and interpret entire
periods of conflict and post-conflict activity accordingly. To address
this complexity, we need to more carefully scrutinise international
monitors' findings, afford much greater media and policy attention to
other sources (including reports by local observers and academic
research) and generally better educate the court of public opinion on
the nuances of conflict. This will lead to more informed discussions
of the causes of violence, more appropriate policy responses and
greater accountability for international investigators.
Guest's response
Richard Dowden, Director of the Royal African Society
It has been said many times that one person's freedom fighter is
another person's terrorist. Aims and methods get confused in
conflicts. One person's just war may be a campaign of murder and
destruction to another. The causes and aims of war do not always
reflect the way in which it is fought. Sometimes just causes are
pursued by brutal means. When outsiders come into a war zone, they
often judge the actions of one side or the other by evidence of
torture, rape and murder. Yet an indisciplined army does not
necessarily mean that its cause is unjust. Similarly a country with a
just cause may use vile methods to achieve it.
Until human rights organisations began to do political analysis as
well as draw attention to individual violations, the world relied on
journalists to form its opinions on the rights and wrongs of wars.
They in turn were briefed by diplomats and spoke to people on both
sides but, like most human beings, they could be easily swayed in
their judgements by seeing atrocities carried out by one side or
another. Diplomats, especially those as US Secretary of State, Jim
Baker, once said who "have a dog in this fight", had an interest in
presenting the facts to suit their agenda. The human rights
organisations are usually seen as more objective on political
perspectives. Amnesty International reported human rights violations
but did not put its campaigns in a political context until Human
Rights Watch came along. They did put violations in the political
context with a clear structural analysis. Americas Watch was founded
in 1981, Asia Watch in 1985, Africa Watch in 1988, and Middle East
Watch in 1989. These helped create a better understanding of the
political causes of conflict and the resulting atrocities and crimes.
In this debate, Phil Clark argues that reports by international
monitors need to be read in the political context of their own
organisation as well as that of the conflict. I disagree:
international monitors should be what it says on the tin – globally
objective – trying to get at the facts however uncomfortable that
might be.
In the early nineties I was part of a group of journalists who were
tired of calling Africa's wars "ancient tribal hatreds" or "popular
uprisings". Our response was: "If you call it chaos you haven't worked
hard enough". I spent time in eastern Congo just before the Rwandan
genocide in 1994. It is a patchwork of communities and one of the most
politically complicated places in the world. We found an outsider, a
Canadian aid worker who was reputed to be the expert on the area.
After a two hour explanation of the causes and aims of conflict in the
region, he said: "It is so complicated that I would just call it
chaos."
The joke aside, the situation remains complicated but comprehensible.
Organised chaos perhaps? But some things are clear. Rwanda has a deep
and prolonged interest in eastern Congo which, according to all the
analysts I trust, goes far beyond its need for security. In addition
to the cross border activities of its own troops it supports armed
groups there with arms and money. The exact extent is unknown. But we
do know that huge amounts of material from eastern Congo pass through
Rwanda, adding massively to Rwanda's meagre income from its own
resources. The link is clear and the evidence is there.
The context is that Western countries tolerate this because President
Paul Kagame has delivered health, education and some prosperity to
Rwanda and persuaded many Western leaders that he is the man able to
bring development to Rwanda. He continually uses the fact that Western
governments did not respond to the 1994 genocide to put them on the
back foot. Any good politician would do the same. But he also brooks
no dissent which might publicly question his statements and policies.
This inhibits the normal operation of organisations such as Human
Rights Watch in Rwanda and eastern Congo.
This raises some important questions. Are human rights organisations
honest about where they cannot get to and what they cannot find out
and do they spell this out? Are they open about what they do not know
and even if they are, does that affect their political analysis? Jason
Stearns argues that they are open about what they don't know. Jason
also suggests that journalists and donors verify the basis of
international monitoring reports before quoting them or acting on
them. I am not sure this is always the case for journalists. Donors
should check, but do they? I have always assumed that international
monitoring groups have verified their information from several sources
and that it is correct unless someone, other than the accused, denies
it. Yet, are there instances where monitoring organisations have
aligned their findings with the interests of major powers such as the
US and UK and failed to give equal weight to other interpretations and
conclusions?
In the case of Rwanda this has clearly happened. For a long time
Rwanda's involvement in supporting militias to protect its theft of
resources from Kivus was disguised as "security" and covered up. Is
Rwanda a special case where the rest of the world does not demand the
usual freedoms of speech and association demanded and monitored by
Human Rights Watch and other NGOs? Does genocide in 1994 in Rwanda
justify continued intervention across the border in Congo 20 years
later?
To answer these questions take Rwanda's not-quite-twin, Burundi. In
1993 there was genocide there following the murder of the first Hutu
president. No one knows how many people died. Maybe only half a
million compared to Rwanda's million. The ruling Tutsis have stayed in
power since but have eventually reached an accommodation with Hutu
parties that involves genuine power sharing between the two identities
that Kagame claims to have abolished. Burundi also sent it troops
across the border into Congo and supported groups there but this, as
far as we know, has also stopped. Without the denial of Hutu/Tutsi
identities, the two groups have made peace at home and have no need to
pursue the strategy that Rwanda has, with such devastating
consequences. So why is there one rule for Rwanda and another one for
Burundi?
Comments
#3 Felix M. Ndahinda 2013-05-24 13:57
Arguably, interventions are meaningful and justifiable if they focus
on the best interests of the beneficiaries. The utility of
interventions is in their outcome. When the outcome of intervention
shows limited results or provides ground for other sources conflicts,
such interventions are questionable. The long history of global
interventions in the Congo, displays the inherent limits of global
interventions. From the activism of the Congo Reform Association of
the early 1900s to the interventions by, among numerous actors, the
United Nations of Dag Hammarskjöld in the 1960s or of Kofi Annan and
Ban Ki-moon in the 21st century, very limited concrete results have
been achieved in improving the lives of the average Congolese or in
building a stable and inclusive Congolese state. This suggests that
such interventions have either failed to identify what the real and
pressing problems are or to positively engage local stakeholders in
owning their problems and seeking adequate solutions.
Quote
#2 Lewis Brooks 2013-04-25 10:48
Excellent opening statements. I think broadly I agree with Phil's
level of scrutiny and his point that often reports from the UN and
particular NGOs do not receive the level of scrutiny from readers and
policy makers that they deserve. I would direct those interested to
the work of Gavin Hilson and Martin Clifford on the negative impact of
poorly scrutinised UN and Kimberly Process reports on Ghana's fragile
diamond industry.
However, to use a phrase from Phil's lectures,'what does this all mean
when we get down to nuts and bolts?'. For policymakers and those
concerned about mass human rights violations which information should
be relied on to provide a more balanced, at least broader, view and
how feasible is access to such information?
Quote
#1 Carol Jean Gallo 2013-04-18 09:51
Anyway I could get a printer-friendl y version of this? Cheers!
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