After a long history of costly failures within the US government, in Europe and beyond, a recent report by the Genocide Prevention Task Force offers new hope that shrewd diplomacy may alter the political landscape in which genocide takes place, and that concerted international efforts may be able to forestall mass killings through early intervention in the sorts of political quarrels that have typically escalated into genocide. The committee, co-chaired by former US Secretary of State Madeleine Albright and former US Defence Secretary William Cohen, even suggests that preventive political monitoring, worldwide, could be carried out for as little as US$250M per year – much less than the cost of a week’s fighting in Iraq.
Given the political experience of its co-chairs, it is no surprise that the report speaks frankly about past failures: “[O]ur leaders have not always been bold enough in confronting congressional skeptics or reluctant policymakers. Moreover, a lack of dedicated resources for prevention and the absence of bureaucratic mechanisms designed for rapid analysis and response have become a rationale for inaction.” This pusillanimity was much in evidence in the dishonest apology that President Clinton made to Rwandans four years after his prevarication had allowed genocidaires free rein for three crucial months. “All over the world there were people like me sitting in offices who did not fully appreciate the depth and speed with which you were being engulfed by this unimaginable terror,” said the President − but he lied. As the political commentator David Korn subsequently noted in The Nation, a comprehensive report by the independent National Security Archive observed that: “Indeed, the story of Rwanda for the US is that officials knew so much, but still decided against taking action or leading other nations to prevent or stop the genocide. Despite Rwanda’s low ranking in importance to U.S. interests, Clinton administration officials had tremendous capacity to be informed − and were informed − about the slaughter there.”
Raphael Lemkin, the scholar who coined the word and did more than anyone else to introduce the new concept of “genocide” into legal theory, foresaw this sort of evasion and tried to anticipate it by defining genocide broadly enough to force governments to act. But Lemkin realised early on that he was stepping into a semantic minefield. If the legal standard was set too strictly then a genocide might only be determined after the fact, too late for the victims but late enough for reluctant international actors to shirk their moral responsibilities. Lemkin originally described the crime as a “coordinated plan of different actions” which sought to destroy the “culture, language, national feelings, religion” of vulnerable ethnic groups. The definition has evolved many times since then, but modern governments have never had much trouble finding wiggle room in the definition when they needed some. Albright, Cohen et al slice through this Gordian knot with refreshing directness: “To avoid the legalistic arguments that have repeatedly impeded timely and effective action, the task force has defined its scope in this report as the prevention of ‘genocide and mass atrocities,’ meaning large-scale and deliberate attacks on civilians.”
The report is equally pointed when it considers the other standard diplomatic excuse of there not being enough political will for the US – or any other government − to intervene in an incipient genocide, with these stirring words: “Summoning political will requires leadership, not only after a crisis strikes, but also before one emerges. It means taking on inertia within the government, investing political capital, doing the heavy lifting of persuasion. Political will involves fending off critics and cynics. It means bucking the tides of caution. It means risking failure.” Furthermore, in what is either an act of courage or political foolhardiness – in light of the last five years of US foreign policy − the report suggests that the Obama administration should be “prepared to employ military options as part of comprehensive genocide prevention strategies.”
This suggestion may not be as idealistic as it sounds. The report points out that “in Bosnia, the United States has invested nearly $15 billion to support peacekeeping forces in the years since we belatedly intervened to stop mass atrocities.” The international community could have saved billions more and countless lives, by more timely interventions in Darfur. But the report also takes an imaginative overview of the strategic options available to a president. It suggests that the State Department and USAID “expand ongoing cooperation with other governments, the United Nations, regional organizations, NGOs, and other civil society actors on early warning of genocide and mass atrocities.” It recommends efforts to “strengthen civil society in high-risk states by supporting economic and legal empowerment, citizen groups, and a free and responsible media.” It even acknowledges that “Preventive diplomacy strategies should include the credible threat of coercive measures, should avoid an overly rigid ‘escalatory ladder,’ and should not dismiss potential benefits of rewarding ‘bad people’ for ‘good behavior.’”
Genocide claimed tens of millions of lives in the twentieth century, beginning with Turkey’s massacre of the Armenians during the First World War, through the Nazi Holocaust, up to the more recent killing fields of Cambodia, and the televised slaughter in Bosnia, Rwanda, and Darfur. Smaller genocides, like Saddam Hussein’s anfal campaigns against the Kurds are scarcely mentioned and conveniently forgotten by the countries who facilitated these murders by supplying the dictator with his weaponry.
After every new atrocity there is hand-wringing, apologies and good promises that usually go nowhere. Could the plain-speaking report of the Genocide Prevention Task Force make a difference? Could the appointment of the genocide scholar Samantha Power to a senior position in the Obama administration? Could the fact that Michael Ignatieff, another human rights scholar, may soon become the next prime minister of Canada? Maybe.
