For a capability to protect: Mass killing, the African Union and NATO

Abstract

Click to increase image sizeClick to decrease image size Acknowledgement The author wishes to acknowledge and thank Refugees International for giving him the support and encouragement to develop this idea. Notes 1. The United States plan is to contribute about $600 million over five years and has challenged its G-8 partners to expand their programmes likewise. The US plan would at least triple the current annual contributions to the African Contingency Operations Training Assistance programme for peacekeeping training. 2. Terms like ‘peace enforcement’ and ‘peacemaking’ are sometimes used to describe international operations when conditions are not entirely permissive. But such terms may not adequately describe situations when forceful military action is needed to stop mass killing or defeat forces doing the killing whether or not there is a peace to be enforced or made. For the purpose of this essay, we will rely on more descriptive, if less diplomatic, terms like ‘forcible humanitarian intervention’. 3. The origins, evolution and limitations of traditional peacekeeping are well explained in John Hillen's Blue Helmets (London: Brassey's, 1998). 4. Public statements of UN Secretary General Kofi Annan have done much to establish these principles. See, for example, ‘Two Concepts of Sovereignty’, The Economist, 18 September 1999. Also, see the Report of the International Commission on Intervention and State Sovereignty, ‘The Responsibility to Protect’, December 2001, http://www.dfait-maeci.gc.ca/iciss-ciise/report-en.asp. 5. The concept of sovereignty qualified by an obligation to treat people humanely could also be extended to encompass the idea of regime change. 6. Globalisation, the spread of information technology, and the ubiquity and accessibility of news media are all contributing to a growing public sense of and concern for ‘the human condition’, which will in turn strengthen norms that limit the violence of sovereigns against people and demand action to uphold those norms. It seems inevitable that this trend will continue. 7. See Clifford H. Bernath and David C. Gompert, ‘Power to Protect’: Using New Military Capabilities to Stop Mass Killings (Washington DC: Refugees International, 2003). 8. Hillen's Blue Helmets provides a good account of these limitations and the corresponding reliance on sub-contracting of military powers to conduct intervention and enforcement. 9. The advantage of striking killing forces – which typically want to kill but not to fight – was demonstrated by the British in Sierra Leone, who showed not the slightest hesitation in punishing, frightening and thus scattering the Revolutionary United Front. 10. This was the case in Rwanda, as noted, but also in the eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo, where Rwandan forces have largely had their way – not always with desirable results. 11. See David C. Gompert, Courtney Richardson, Richard L. Kugler and Clifford H. Bernath, Learning from Darfur: Building a Net-capable African Force to Stop Mass Killing (Washington DC: Center for Technology and Security Policy, National Defense University, 2005). 12. Among the obstacles has been the opposition of the permanent members of the UN Security Council who are concerned about the erosion of their decision authority if the world body has a force ready to act. 13. This idea is suggested by Peter Gantz of Refugees International. Whether such arrangements would require additional legal obligations, like those of a treaty-based alliance, or could instead rely on political and practical understandings, needs more study. 14. Among the Western countries with the kinds of capabilities that an AU humanitarian intervention could fall back on are the UK, France, Italy, Germany, the Netherlands, Canada and Sweden. 15. Other examples include the British aircraft carrier off Sierra Leone and US amphibious forces off Liberia – in both cases providing escalation dominance and sending a clear message to the killers. 16. It is important to note that the Constitutive Act (or charter) of the African Union explicitly provides for forcible humanitarian intervention without the unanimity of the AU Assembly or the consent of a recalcitrant sovereign, if needed to stop crimes against humanity. Additional informationNotes on contributorsDavid C. GompertDavid C. Gompert is an advisor to Refugees International and a Senior Fellow at the RAND Corporation. He is former Senior Advisor for National Security and Defense, Iraq, and has served in senior positions in several US administrations, in private industry and at RAND.