So, Rush Limbaugh Supports the Lord's Resistance Army

In a spectacular example of supreme dicketry, Rush Limbaugh openly criticized Obama's decision to send 100 troops to Uganda as support for the continued hunt for Joseph Kony, leader of the Lord's Resistance Army. Rush believes that the LRA are Christians fighting Muslims in Sudan, fighting to end the oppression of Ugandans and of gross violations of human rights - the LRA's "objectives", which naturally should be taken at face value. At the end of the transcript someone apparently informed Rush that the LRA is accused of "really bad stuff", such as child kidnapping, torture and murder, but all Rush knows is that "we got a hundred troops being sent over there to fight these guys -- and they claim to be Christians."

FYI, the official name of North Korea is the Democratic People's Republic of North Korea, but that doesn't mean the country is democratic. Same goes for the Lord's Resistance Army, which has terrorized northern Uganda for over 20 years. Attacks there have diminished, but only because the LRA has moved to the CAR and eastern DRC, with massacres happening there despite the presence of the largest humanitarian force on the world (MONUC). I don't know yet how to feel about 100 US troops in Uganda to help the search for Kony - it hasn't worked before and is likely that Kony isn't in Uganda, where the majority view is he should be granted amnesty so the whole ordeal can be dealt with locally, without the ICC - but I do know how I feel about hateful ignorance.

Maybe try Google next time, Rush, before you shit out of your mouth again.

Dutch State Blamed for Deaths of Three Men at Srebenica

Reading through the headlines on Al Jazeera and noticed this: "Dutch Blamed for Srebenica Deaths." The Hague found the Dutch state guilty in the murders of, not the 8,000 Muslim men and boys who were murdered there in 1995, but three men whom Dutch peacekeepers "handed over" to Bosnian Serb forces. The report does not include why the men were handed over, but because the Dutch peacekeepers (Dutchbat) had witnessed "multiple incidents in which Bosnian Serbes mistreated or killed male refugees outside the [Srebenica] compound" prior to allowing the three men to leave the safe are, the Dutchbat is now held liable for their deaths.

This ruling fascinates me for reasons beyond Dutch responsibility and the Bosnian war: I wonder if this will open claims from families in Rwanda to make claims against France, Belgium or the United States? Or rather, make claims that now have legal precedence. After all, the original finding of the Hague court was that "the UN was responsible for the [Srebenica safe area] mandate, and therefore the state was not responsible." Now that the Dutch state can be held accountable for the deaths of three, who be next in line to be tried for their failure to protect?

On Libya, Rwanda and Intervention

The joint forces intervention in Libya, and the subsequent comparisons to Rwanda, seem a good subject with which to reintroduce my international commentary. What follows is my opinion, with whatever weight that may hold.

And so NATO has intervened in Libya under the guise of R2P, which means the military force currently being used is to (nominally) protect civilians from violence, though it is difficult to separate intervention meant to assist civilians from intervention that inevitably assists the rebels. Military intervention based upon moral convictions strives to be impartial but it is (almost) impossible to be so; more on that later.

With the intervention comes comparisons to past atrocities that either benefited from military force (Bosnia) or suffered from the lack of foreign concern (Rwanda). While I do not agree with comparisons in general - as each situation is unique and comparisons always gloss over, or ignore, certain truths - I understand why they are made: to justify foreign military intervention through examples of success and failure. Concerning Bosnia, NATO acted independently of the UN and the military strikes which ensued quickly brought an end to the civil war and genocide against Bosnian Muslims. Concerning Rwanda, the world failed to take action and over 800,000 Rwandans (mainly Tutsis) were slaughtered; genocide could have been averted but was not. Therefore, we (the US, Britain, France, so on) must act to stop similar atrocities from occurring in Libya.

While I understand the reasons for comparisons, I do not agree with them, specifically comparisons to Rwanda, because Libya today is not Rwanda circa 1994. As I wrote above, each situation is unique. In 1994 Rwanda the UN was already in the country and had been for months, attempting to broker a peace agreement between the RPF and current Rwandan government, thus ending the civil war that had been going on since October 1990. No intervention occurred because the intervention force was already there - UN forces only needed to authority to use force (in case you are not familiar with the history, they never got it). Furthermore, the time when military force would have been most effective in Rwanda - the first week following the death of president Habyarimana - was the time when the situation was most confusing, with the RPF and Rwandan forces battling each other in the streets of Kigali and mass murders of civilians only beginning to spread in the countryside. After that week 100,000 were already dead and the UN forces on the ground only beginning to comprehend what was happening. Gaddafi has openly called for attacks on civilians - there is nothing confusing about it. By ordering attacks on his own people Gaddafi has defied UN statutes of the protection of civilians during war and, with his own words, justified foreign intervention.

Despite what seems as obvious justification, I can also understand the hesitancy over Libya: how much force is enough? How long will an intervention force stay in the country? Until Gaddafi is ousted? How can the intervention remain impartial to the civil war while protecting civilians, as rebels happen to be where civilians are? Will that make the force "pro-rebel", whether intentionally or not? And when does this military intervention stop being a force to protect civilians and becomes a foreign military action for regime change? These are valid questions that become increasingly pertinent with each passing day as Libyan rebels lose ground to Gaddafi's forces. If the rebels continue to falter will the joint forces simply leave the country to its fate? Will those forces remain the ensure the safety of civilians from the potential aftermath of Gaddafi's rage? Or will the joint forces fully step in to militarily assist the rebels win the war? (Unfortunately, it seems the last question is what is more likely to occur.) What are the limits to humanitarian intervention and what happens when they are reached?

Rather than making unnecessary and incorrect comparisons to the past our leaders - Obama, Cameron, Sarkozy - need to decide just what it is we are doing in Libya. Otherwise you do not need to look in the past to know what happens when intervention, liberation and war become one and the same, but rather slightly to the east.

And for the record: what is happening in Libya is not genocide. Crimes against humanity, yes, but civilian deaths as a casualty of civil war is not genocide. Gaddafi targeting civilians is not genocide. Unless we are saying that civil wars are genocidal in nature . . . but that is another post.

On Cell Phones and Conflict Minerals

Last week I read a post in Texas in Africa (naming, shaming & measuring) concerning the Enough Project's monitoring and ranking of electronics companies making an effort to create a conflict-free mining sector in the Congo. When finished I silently cheered, not because of the rankings or the Enough Project's efforts, but rather because I agree with Texas in Africa that the effort is largely futile. I normally remain quiet on the issue because I have felt guilty about my opinion, as though it made me a bad Africanist or only quasi-liberal. In Uganda I was often with good-intentioned volunteers or know-it-all travelers and it was easier to say nothing rather than contradict their grandiose statements; cowardly, I know.

But the idea of conflict-free cell phones (and electronics in general) is dubious and largely a display of American arrogance. According to John Prendergast of the Enough Project, "[a]merican consumers have enormous leverage over the companies from which we purchase our electronics." Furthermore, Americans "we need to use our considerable market muscle to demand evidence from companies such as Apple, Nokia, Hewlett Packard, and Nintendo that their products do not contain conflict minerals." Inspiring demands, but I don't believe that Americans choosing conflict-free electronics will affect the crisis in the Congo, mainly for two reasons.

American consumers cannot make enough demand for electronics companies to offer only conflict-free products; American and Canadian and European consumers combined cannot make enough demand. What they can do, however, is demand that conflict-free products be offered to them. This does not stop the exploitation of minerals in the Congo; it does not stop women and girls from being raped. It allows the Western consumer to ease their conscience about the suffering of others by believing that at least their cell phone did not rape someone. A balm is not a cure. Just because Americans may buy conflict-free products does not mean those same products are offered in Asia, the Middle East or Africa itself and it certainly does not mean that fighting over control of eastern Congo will end; there is more to the conflict than minerals.

The fact that President Kabila (of the DRC) placed a ban on the export of minerals last September yet violence continues makes it clear that there is more to the conflict (in the Congo) than minerals.Tension (read: fighting) between autochthonous and foreign groups over territory; lack of state control leading to fighting for local control; invasions of foreign forces, though not exclusively the Rwandan and Ugandan armies: the Lord's Resistance Army remains in threat in the Congo, attacking villages, abducting children and killing indiscriminately. And those are only a few issues of a conflict so complex that the balance of powers changes if you look away for just a moment. I can understand the desire to boil down the issues to something as clear-cut as mineral (and human) exploitation, but the Congo defies such attempts at simplicity. Furthermore, as Laura at TiA points out, even if companies do comply with attempts to obtain conflict-free minerals, there is no definite way to ascertain whether or not those minerals actually are conflict-free.

"The electronics companies are powerful actors in their supply chains. If they show leadership, they can fundamentally change the way these minerals are bought and sold, ensuring that the minerals don’t contribute to armed conflict and the continuation of the worst violence against women and girls in the world." (Enough Project) Maybe, but probably not. Besides finding it incredibly disingenuous to make a direct connection between systematic rape in the Congo and electronics - and rather offensive to rape victims - the purpose of pushing for conflict-free minerals is to shame consumers rather than change the situation in Congo, with the result that consumers may buy new products while the situation in Congo remains the same. I understand the desire to for effective action, but wanting a plan to work does not ensure it will.


Not to seem negative for grassroots activism (though I do not consider the Enough Project grassroots, at least not anymore), I do applaud electronics for listening to consumer demands and attempting to obtain and offer conflict-free materials. Conscientious conglomerates can not be bad thing. I only want people to understand that being conscientious is not the ultimate solution to Congo's problems. To that end, I encourage everyone to read more about the Congo, the conflict and its myriad causes and complications, and the work being done on the ground to make the area safe for all inhabitants.

Texas in Africa
Congo Siasa
Heal Africa
HRW Congo
allAfrica.com


Africa's World War, Gerard Prunier
The Congo Wars: Conflict, Myth and Reality, Thomas Turner
In the Footsteps of Mr. Kurtz, Michela Wong
The Dynamics of Violence in Central Africa, Rene Lemarchand

Sudan Prepared for Referendum Vote

Tomorrow balloting begins on the referendum for southern Sudan independence. The process is will take 7 days and 60% is the percentage of "yes" votes needed to determine whether or not southern Sudan will become its own country. There have been concerns over security and the willingness of Khartoum to accept a possible yes for independence, but President al-Bashir visited Juba on January 4 and pledged to honor the outcome of the ballot and to work closely with the south on post-referendum concerns, such as whether north or south will control the oil-rich district of Abyei.  In face, Abyei faces its own referendum to determine its boundaries and future status in Sudan - north, south or unified. Oil is Sudan's main export and main contributor to the country's GDP; which side will benefit from this wealth?

The coming week is sure to be tense, but Covering the Globe hopes and believes that the balloting will occur will relatively little violence; events following the vote, however, may not be. Will Sudan remain united yet face renewed conflict from detractors in the south? What will happen to Darfur rebels if southern Sudan splits, yet retain positive diplomatic relations with Khartoum? Darfur rebels were recently expelled from southern Sudan in order to appease the north - in what way will separation affect the ongoing conflict in Darfur?

This sounds horrible, but this event is damn exciting; literally, it's quite historic. I'll keep a close eye on the situation and keep you informed as to results. You can also check out allAfrica.com for up-to-date information.

Nuke 'Em!

When I read the op-ed piece by John Bolton and John Yoo (about the New START treaty with Russia involving, what else?, reducing and better controlling nuclear arms) I thought I mistakenly eaten some psychadelic mushrooms: it is surreal. I had to step away halfway through because, for a moment, I thought they were arguing within today's reality - they're not! To claim that the treaty would reduce America's capacity to defend itself when actually the States would retain over 1,550 nuclear warheads is ridiculous. There aren't even 200 countries in the world and only 7 - 7! - have nuclear arms. Say what?  The first paragraph really does say it all:

  Voters want government brought closer to the vision the framers outlined in the Constitution, and the first test could be the fate of the flawed New Start arms control treaty, which . . .  awaits ratification. The Senate should heed the will of the voters and either reject the treaty or amend it so that it doesn’t weaken our national defense. 

I read that connection as such: People love red Twizzlers therefore clothing manufacturers should only produce red textiles. Doesn't really flow, does it?

I can't deride their fantasy with any justice; luckily, Fred Kaplan over at Slate can. Read it, please, and remember you are as sane as you thought you were yesterday.

Pledge to America: Still Empty

The Huffington Post has an interesting article on the Republican's recently unveiled "Pledge to America", which includes the lofty provision of spending control. However, it seems the "Pledge" excludes references to Social Security and Medicare, which together take the heftiest chunks from the federal budget (behind defense spending, of course) and benefit the main supporters of the GOP (the elderly and white working-class). If Democrats and liberals are so despised because of their "elitism" and "intellectualism", can someone find down-home way to explain that "spending control" can have negative effects?

Oh, also a way to explain that cutting back on Federal spending doesn't include cutting back on the defense budget or financing a ridiculous and unwinnable land war in (southwest) Asia (over one trillion dollars since 2001. Trillion with a "T"!) $100 billion dollars a year. Could we try to reign that in first?

Back to Basics: Defining Genocide

It's time I return to my genocide posts. I realize I have seriously dropped the ball on this series I started, but that's just me.
In my last post on the subject (four weeks ago!) I briefly raised issue with listing common factors of genocide, insisting that without critical analysis of such stages, such information should not be accepted as immutable fact. The same goes for the "12 Ways to Deny Genocide" because that list is vague enough to be renamed "12 Ways to Deny Anything". I have particular issues with each, but in the interest of brevity I will focus on one thing at time; today, it's "definitionalist" denial.

Precise interpretation of the definition of genocide is unavoidable, at least when one is prosecuting or defending the accused: if a person (or persons) is accused of committing genocide, and that person is brought to trial, it stands that there something in the legal definition that matches the supposed crime. My problem is Gregory Stanton's claim that it is only people who haven't read the UN Convention who ever make a claim that a certain crime/situation doesn't fit the definition of genocide - and maybe he's right. But something Stanton is ignoring is that as genocide, both as a concept and and as a crime, increasingly permeates our everyday lives, in news, books, music, and movies, then a common understanding forms that may or may not strictly adhere to the letter of the law, and more often than not, "genocide" commonly means annihilation; complete destruction; lots and lots of death.  In other words, genocide means "killing", killing everyone. I know this is wrong; anyone who studies genocide or crimes against humanity or even international law should know this is wrong; but the popular (mis)conception holds that it is right.

Continuing Effects

I am preparing my next post on genocide theory, but while waiting for that let's consider the continuing effects of genocide:

The vice-president of Rwanda's Green Party was found dead just a few days ago. The police claim he was robbed, but as his wallet and money were not taken from him and he was found "nearly beheaded", it's more likely he was targeted as an opposition figure. This happened approximately one month after another opposition figure, Faustin Kayumba Nyamwasa, was shot in Johannesburg, and also a month after the journalist who accused the Rwandan government of attempting to assassinate Nyamwasa was himself shot and killed.

So Rwanda is perhaps not as safe as it is touted to be, but what does this have to do with genocide? Everything, actually: Paul Kagame endlessly uses the Rwandan genocide as an excuse for any actions the government and army take that are considered questionable or illegal. This includes invading DRC in order to plunder its mineral wealth; closing newspapers and blocking opposition parties from registering for the presidential elections; and assassinating opposition members. But before you speak up and openly accuse Kagame of such oppressive practices, remember that he and the RPF liberated Rwanda from a devastating and particularly brutal genocide while the rest of world looked away.

However, considering that Kagame and the RPF invaded Rwanda in order to take control of the government and the country - and once the genocide began, continued with this plan, clearly avoiding areas where massacres were occurring - how long can we be expected to turn on our backs on such obvious displays of fascism? Taking power by force is one thing - of course the US can't be too critical about that - but sixteen years later it's time to let the political process normalize.

And stop guilt-tripping people who dare criticize your actions - the honeymoon ended long ago.

Image courtesy www.altnation.com

Genocide Theory

Revolutionary White Girl recently posted a blog concerning a trip she made to a genocide memorial in Rwanda, a trip which made her rethink the concept of genocide, as her blog did for me. It's time to break out of the domestic bliss I've been living in for the past week and start focusing on my great academic love again: genocide theory.

Like RWG, I have struggled with the concept of the term "genocide", to the point that is became the underlying theme of my Master's thesis. However, I haven't thought of it much since turning in said thesis, so I figure it's time to revisit that struggle. Over the coming weeks (yes, weeks, because I know myself) genocide theory will be my main theme, as I detail my problems with the concept and its applicability to modern events. Some of my ideas are fairly lucid while others are demonstrative of my inability to adequately verbalize my thoughts. I appreciate - and desire - any and all feedback.

One of the main ideas behind the creation of the word "genocide" (as defined by Raphael Lemkin in his book, Axis Rule in Occupied Europe) was that genocide was a crime out of place Western Enlightenment principles, therefore out of place in "civilized" nations. Not an unacceptable crime as such, but unacceptable within Western, first-world ideals. It was not accidental that the perspectives and peoples of the South were completely disregarded - Lemkin himself attributed the fate of the Hereros and Congolese (for example) to their own "barbaric" natures.* It stands, then, that the "crime without a name" was a crime of barbarity - a crime of the Other.

Furthermore, the UN Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide, which provides the legal definition, is overly dependent on the specific crimes of the Holocaust, resulting in the constant search for similarities between modern instances of mass violence and the crimes of the Nazi regime. Considering that more scholarship is available on the Holocaust (including all the history that word entails) than all other genocides combined, the search for connections is understandable, but mistaken. If the Holocaust is just one example of genocide among many, than the UN Convention should not include specific details pertinent only to Holocaust history ("forcibly transferring children of the group to another group" is an explicit reference to Nazi policy) but rather should be rewritten to broadly encompass all possibilities. On the other hand, if the Holocaust is "uniquely unique", as some Holocaust scholars claim, than it should in no way be the basis for international law. It is beyond comparison and any attempts otherwise will ultimately prove futile.

If a law is intimately rooted in the crimes of the mid-twentieth century than it will not be able to evolve along with modern methods of war and concepts of human rights - and an evolving law is desperately needed. Despite the existence of the UN Convention, there is no consensus on what genocide actually is: is it a crime specifically of "intended extermination; a descriptive term useful only in its ability to classify certain acts; a historical phenomenon?** In common usage, "genocide" applies to all three, but is that valid? Common usage (common knowledge) also equates genocide with "the simple desire to kill as many of one's enemy as possible,"*** but surely genocide is meant to be more than that? Otherwise, why differentiate between acts of war and acts of genocide - or should we?




* - Dominik Schaller, "Raphael Lemkin's View of European Colonial Rule in Africa: between Condemnation and Admiration," Journal of Genocide Research 2005. See also John Cooper, Raphael Lemkin and the Struggle for the Genocide Convention.
** - Henry Huttenbach, "Gerlach Reconsidered: Search for Terminological Clarity," JoGR 2007.
*** - Anthony Pagden, "Genocide in the Age of the Nation-State II", JoGR 2007.

Reflection: Burundi

The last time I was in Kampala I met a woman from Burundi. She was an evangelist and "spreading the word of God", but what stuck with me was simply her nationality. How few people think of Burundi, Rwanda's southern neighbor, despite being beset by an off-again/ on-again civil war that ended only last year with a shaky peace agreement. Burundi, which in 1972 saw the massacre of between 100,000 and 200,000 Hutu students, priests, and army officers, among others (deemed genocide by a report given to the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace), leading to thousands of refugees fleeing to Rwanda and Tanzania. Burundi, which experienced wave after wave of riots and reprisal killings, mainly against the Hutu population, throughout the 1980s. Burundi, whose first Hutu president was assassinated in 1993 by the Tutsi-dominated army, sending angry and vengeful Burundians to Rwanda, where they were easily absorbed into the anti-Tutsi genocidal movement.

It's shameful that because a country's international significance is so slight (even less than that of Rwanda in the early 1990s) such obvious crimes against humanity are largely ignored. At the present time Burundi is preparing for national elections, but corruption and possible voter fraud in local elections are already threatening to derail the process. Uganda's Daily Monitor reports that both the ruling party and opposition are raising youth militias for use as "activist thugs". If the elections fail, Burundi could once again collapse into violence, with devastating consequences for the civilian population.

It's time for the international community wake up and realize that all potential conflicts deserve attention, despite the host country's lack of international glamour and appeal.

Wikileaks and War Crimes

Photo courtesy of www.britannica.com

To begin my thoughts on the Wikileaks video depicting US pilots "indiscriminately killing" 12 civilians, please read this article by Robert Grenier, the CIA's former chief of station in Islamabad. In it he tries to explain not how murdering civilians is acceptable, but rather how the murder of civilians could happen as an acceptable risk, at the time, in this particularly difficult type of warfare. Grenier does not (explicitly) excuse the actions of the firing soldiers, but he does urge readers to remember that the type of war being fought in Iraq and Afghanistan - almost anti-technological guerrilla tactics used effectively against a highly modernized, technology-dependent military - contains more shades of gray than before considered possible. And if the war itself is so shady, than actions that are or could be considered "war crimes" are that much more difficult to qualify. Despite how humanitarian we, the world's people, have become (whether in actuality or fantasy) there is still an accepted, and acceptable, risk of civilians deaths by those who choose to undertake war. The problem is how to decide the difference between accident, murder and atrocity.

More to come . . .