Arno Truger
INITIAL
SITUATION
Civilian crisis intervention designed to prevent
violent escalation by means of conflict management or help transform conflicts
sustainable to a lower violence form, is overshadowed by the preparation and
implementation of military crisis interventions, although the latter are
invariably referred to as a “means of last resort”. On the other hand, the
pressing need for civilian crisis prevention and management is increasingly recognised
and both political and financial support is forthcoming. The following are the
principal underlying reasons:
§
The growing number of
intra-state conflicts,
§
the increasing world-wide
economic, political, ecological and military interdependence and
§
problems arising from
military conflict intervention.
Growing number of intra-state conflicts
One
of the major challenges facing conflict management consists in the fact that,
although the end of colonial rule and of the East-West confrontation has resulted
in fewer international wars, it has failed to prevent an increase in violent
intra-state conflicts and in international terrorism. Both are characterised by
a multitude of multifaceted causes and by a great variety of conflict parties
plus proponents. Such chaotic conflicts usually defy traditional approaches,
diplomacy and military missions. The same applies to acts of terrorism, as
evidenced by the terrorist attacks of 11 September 2001.
Increasing worldwide economic, political ecological
and military interdependence
The
increasing economic, political, ecological and military interdependence causes
the impact of crises to be felt worldwide (world market, climate change,
migration, dismantling of democracy, armament proliferation). As a result, the rule of “non-intervention” in
intra-state conflicts is giving way to the principle of legitimate
intervention, and especially international governmental and non-governmental
associations that have taken on security and peace policy tasks are called upon
to intervene and settle conflicts. The opportunity to respond to this challenge
was broadened, when the division into spheres of interest and the resulting
blocking manoeuvres by NATO and the Warsaw Pact in the UN Security Council came
to an end.
Problems involved in military conflict intervention
The
above-described development provides the legitimacy background to enhanced
military efforts and the safeguarding of power-political interests worldwide.
The dissolution of the Warsaw Pact has failed to generate restraint on
power-political and military reasoning. On the contrary: In order to safeguard
power-political interests worldwide and to legitimise military efforts,
security deficits and defence concepts are broadened into a global perception
of risk. The terrorist attacks of 11 September 2001 is among the events cited
as justification. The new NATO doctrine, the “new American internationalism”
(US Senator McCaine), efforts to build a European defence alliance or the
US-American “National Missile Defense” (NMD) are cases in point. Moreover,
attempts are being made to transform peacekeeping, which is traditionally based
on consensus between the conflict parties and the UN, into peace enforcement to
serve the purposes of complex operations in the context of intra-state
conflicts.
However, the efforts bent on settling conflicts and on preventing wars
through armament and military prevention are suffering from a loss of
credibility and more often than not turn out to be counterproductive. The
following has been clearly evidenced by military operations in the Gulf, in
Somalia, in Yugoslavia, in Afghanistan and in Iraq:
·
The mere preparation of
military operations as a means of last resort implies the preformation and
majorisation of settlement efforts by military considerations. Even the threat
of external military force has failed to de-escalate conflicts. On the
contrary: It has buoyed the hardliners among the conflict parties and entailed
further escalation.
·
Arming conflict parties
against enemies that are classified as a menace, under the motto that “my
enemy’s enemy is my friend” tends to escalate conflicts rather than to
de-escalate them, which was demonstrated by the cases of Saddam Hussein,
Noriega and Osama Bin Laden.
·
In the majority of cases,
the use of armed force tends to impede political solutions rather than to
facilitate them. They are not helpful in solving the problems underlying the
conflicts (e.g. in the case of Kosovo).
·
The use of military force
causes devastation (casualties – mostly among the civilian population, material
damage to buildings and infrastructure, ecological damage) with long lasting
consequences for the minds of the people.
·
When it comes to violent
intra-state conflicts, the use of armed force is even more questionable than in
international wars. It is mainly the civilian population that suffers (e.g.
collateral damage).
·
Interventions without a UN
mandate carried out by the USA or NATO weaken the United Nations and undermine
the role of conflict resolution mechanisms put in place by international and
national institutions and the role of international law.
·
In terms of democratic
policy-making the political and propagandist preparations and the back-up for
the use of armed force trigger problematic developments. They generate and
confirm prejudices and hostile perceptions as well as notions of military
security including the legitimacy and enforcement of armament measures.
·
The social costs of armament
and the use of armed force are enormous.
The
described conditions lend growing importance to civilian crisis intervention.
However, its effectiveness depends on the observance of the following criteria:
Prevent crises escalation at the earliest
possible point in time
It is uncontested
that the prevention of crises is better than their cure. It appears to be
equally uncontested that there is a gap between early warning signals, of which
there are usually many, and effective as well as efficient political response
(early action). There are two principal preconditions of crisis prevention:
1. Reliable early detection, based on a
standardised assessment matrix for the classification of crisis situations as
well as on procedures for the timing of preventive measures.
2. Feasible plans for conflict
intervention, which take into account the specific circumstances and conditions
prevailing in the conflict region as well as the options open to the agents
capable of intervening.
Unless
these two criteria are met, early warning will not be effective nor will it
lead to effective early action.
Address conflicts at their roots
Civilian
crisis intervention has to address the manifold (mostly civilian) roots of
crises. Throughout the world, the number of people living below the poverty
line is rising and currently accounts for more than half of the world
population. Globalisation poses a challenge in all areas of societal
development. It causes worldwide division of labour, increasing the
fragmentation of daily life (e.g. into family and work) and of societies (e.g.
by excluding sections of the population) and consequently leading to disarray.
The results are identity problems instrumentalised for their purposes by
decision-makers who link up tangible shortcomings within societies with people’s
only remaining, secure basis for action: their ethnic and religious identity. Instead of responding to or taking account
of needs, politicians and religious leaders instrumentalise this sense of
identity for “solutions” in the form of fundamentalism or nationalism.
Unsatisfied needs are exploited to boost destructive aggressions and downright
violence in the service of particular interests.
Identity problems among large parts of the population and the legitimacy
problems of decision makers constitute a challenge primarily to democratic
policy making, which requires the conceptual integration of all social distance
levels – from the intra-personal to the international. Concepts, such as “strong identity”, “gender awareness”, “civil
society”, “open society”, “good governance”, “subsidiarity”, and “solidarity”
represent the conceptual arguments conducted in this context, in which
committed citizens and NGOs are playing an increasingly important role.
Awareness
that the socio-political fields of conflict are invariably characterised by
more than one underlying cause is essential in civilian crisis intervention,
lest crucial aspects be neglected in their management. It is counterproductive
to underrate the causes of conflicts or to reduce them (e.g. to ethnicity).
Important policy areas for civilian crisis intervention, which
admittedly lack clean lines of demarcation and frequently overlap, can be
derived from the underlying structural conditions and the causes of conflicts
given below:
|
UNDERLYING STRUCTURAL CONDITIONS AND CAUSES OF CONFLICTS |
POLICY AREAS |
|
Human rights/ state/ society
(disregard of human rights and of national, religious and ethnic groups as
well as political repression and bad governance) |
Protection
and promotion of human rights and of specific sections of the population |
|
Economy/ecology
(misery and fear caused by social, economic and ecological conditions) |
Supporting
sustainable socio-economic and ecological development |
|
Security
(no separation of political and military leadership, offensive military
strategies, privatisation, etc.) |
Crisis
prevention, peace-making, peace-keeping and peace consolidation |
|
Culture/education/information
(insufficient options for cultural and artistic development, education and
free flow of information) |
Promotion
of culture, education and information |
Gear measures to the needs of those concerned,
involve and empower them and help them take charge of shaping societal
conditions
People living in crisis regions must not be instrumentalised as objects
of interventions, but involved and empowered according to their needs. The following principal needs can be
attributed to the four above-mentioned policy areas:
§
the
need for equality, self-determination and for a say in decision-making;
§
the need for well-being;
§
the need for security;
§
the need for guiding
principles and a social frame of reference.
If
crisis intervention is geared to these needs, prevailing mind-sets and
behaviour patterns of the conflict agents can be sustainably aligned towards a
stabilisation of the situation. This is one more prerequisite for those
concerned to take charge of shaping their societal conditions (ownership), so
that the international players can withdraw.
Avoid negative effects
When
offering help in conflict situations, good intentions are less than inadequate.
In ugly situations, help may even cause the opposite of what is intended. Hence
it is crucial for all conflict interventions to have negative sequels that may
contribute to a violent escalation of conflicts identified by means of
“conflict impact assessments” and in this way to avoid adding to the harm (do
no harm). It is imperative to collect sufficient background information about
the conflict, its causes, its course as well as about the internal and external
agents involved in it. Before an intervention, all the international players
need to ask themselves the following questions:
§
In
what way and to what extent will the intervention help to achieve the
objectives of peace and development policies and of establishing security?
§
In
what way will the conflict impact on the intervention?
§
In
what way will the intervention influence the conflict dynamics?
§
Which
alternative options can be considered in the decision-making process?
Seek to achieve a lasting de-escalation of the
conflicts
Civilian
crisis intervention must seek to contribute to a lasting de-escalation of the
conflicts. In the Supplement to the “Agenda For Peace” of former UN Secretary
General Boutros Ghali it was underlined that crises will not end, once agreement
is reached on a cease-fire or on elections. What has to be done, once a
cease-fire has been agreed is to prepare the ground for a negotiated settlement
of the conflict, which has to be implemented with “outside” support. Moreover,
coordinated programmes have to be put in place which address and eliminate the
root causes of the conflict.
The role of embargos and sanctions in achieving
political objectives is at best limited
The more
closely international organisations become involved in conflict areas, the more
often they are faced with the issue of “political conditionality” - in other
words, the use of incentives (more aid in exchange for democratisation and
reduction of violence potentials) and of sanctions (less aid in the case of
violence build-up). At a meeting devoted to development cooperation (DC), held
at the Heinrich-Böll Stiftung in December 1999, this questions was answered as
follows:
·
DC
conditionality should be applied in crisis prevention whenever possible, though
its impact is limited.
§
Conflict
identification has to be improved, i.e. objectified by institutionalising and
applying crisis indicators.
§
DC
conditionalisation presupposes the coordination of the most important donors.
Cooperation needs to be substantially improved at least within the EU, so that
in certain cases (such as Ethiopia) one might even brave the US.
Sanctions
should never hit the distressed population, as was the case in Iraq. According
to Manfred Kulessa, guidelines for a European sanctions policy might look as follows:
§
Europe
should not set up its own system of sanctions but should, in this sphere as
well, seek to secure a UN monopoly on the use of force.
§
Europe
should evaluate the experience gathered in the implementation of UN sanctions
and international control measures and input new proposals into the
international discussion.
§
Europe
should become more actively involved in the discussion about “smart sanctions”.
§
Europe
should support the reforms under way on the UN system of sanctions.
§
Europe
should object to the Security Council being instrumentalised by great powers
for their own political ends.
§
Europe
should, on principle, advocate the limited duration of sanctions.
§
Europe
should advocate the fair compensation of third countries.
§
Europe
should actively promote scientific studies on the issue of sanctions.
Be aware of the interdependence of humanitarian
aid, development cooperation and conflict management
Governmental
and international organisations, such as the OECD and the World Bank, have
responded to the fact that humanitarian aid and investments, often raised with
great difficulty, have with growing frequency fallen victim to the violent
escalation of conflicts in deeply riven societies (e.g. Ruanda). They seek to
put humanitarian aid and development cooperation within the context of conflict
development and to link up the two aspects. When helping to rebuild a society
devastated by war, aid for material reconstruction should be combined with
measures conducive to the social, cultural and political development.
Utilise the specific merits of non-governmental
organisations (NGOs)
The increasingly important role of NGOs in crisis
intervention is being generally acknowledged. The above-mentioned developments
in the security-policy area and the problems governmental crisis management has
in coping with them, have been major driving forces behind the setting up of NGOs. On the one hand, NGOs owe their emergence to the fact that vital
societal needs are not being met. On the other hand, they owe it to the fact
that governmental organisations are considered incapable or unwilling to
improve the situation.
The
outcome is a dichotomy between governmental organisations and NGOs, which may
vary between rejection and assimilation, depending on the attitude adopted by
the two sides. In dictatorships the relationship tends to polarise towards one
of the two attitudes: being either antagonistic or assimilating. In the latter
case, the resulting entities are referred to as “GONGOs” (governmental
non-governmental organisations) or “QUANGOs” (quasi-NGOs). In democracies the
important role of the civil society and the assistance it has to offer are
increasingly acknowledged by governments, and cooperation between governmental
organisations and NGOs is constructive and of mutual benefit. Governmental
organisations are assisted by NGOs in identifying the major political, social,
economic and ecological problems and, as a result, gain legitimacy. Conversely,
cooperation with governmental organisations may help NGOs to gain financial and
political support in achieving their own objectives.
The
specific merits of international NGOs
in the context of civilian crisis intervention are mainly the following:
§
NGOs need not represent
government interests nor comply with diplomatic conventions. This gives them
greater leeway for action. Occasionally, not being an “official entity” may be
to their disadvantage, since it means less political legitimacy and no
diplomatic immunity.
§
NGOs are less prone to be
suspected of representing power-political interests which they seek to exploit
to their own advantage. On the other hand, NGOs have less leverage, e.g.
through economic conditionality.
§
NGOs are more flexible (no
longdrawn legitimation procedures within individual countries or vis-à-vis partner
countries) and are consequently better placed than governmental organisations
to implement preventive measures.
§
Some NGOs can mobilise
initiatives, tools, human and financial resources, which are not or not as
easily accessible to governmental organisations. What applies to a great number
of NGOs is that they are understaffed and underfunded and find it hard to
guarantee the financial and social security of their staff (self-exploitation).
“Internal” non-governmental players are important contacts and partners for
international governmental and non-governmental agents. They can make sure that
outside aid is actually channelled to where it is needed and to those in need.
In a situation of political dictatorship, their support is frequently decisive in
changing prevailing conditions. The merits of non-governmental players, native
to conflict areas, in the context of civilian crisis intervention are mainly
the following:
§
The work of non-governmental
agents has less to do with formal relationships and the interests of political
factions and more with the needs of their protagonists for well-being, for a
say in decision-making, for security, guiding principles and a social frame of
reference (against de-solidarisation and the destruction of meaningful life).
§
Non-governmental players are
better placed to deal with the roots and the agents of conflicts within
societies (unlike their institutional and political counterparts). Hence, they
address not only the factual conflicts but also the relational conflicts, which
frequently date back many generations.
However, both sides – that is to say
the non-governmental players within the conflict region and those agents
wishing to help them from outside - are frequently confronted with the
following sets of problems:
§
For non-governmental players
within the conflict region cooperation with “external” agents may imply that
§ their relations with intra-state governmental
organisations deteriorate and may even end in political, police and military
persecution and repression;
§ their relations with other intra-state
non-governmental organisations deteriorate, due to jealousies and rivalries;
§
the
relationship with partners abroad may lead to dependence and an unintended,
possibly even harmful modification of their objectives and activities
(patronising attitude).
§
For agents trying to help
from outside, cooperation with non-governmental players within the conflict
region may imply that their support is misused in the pursuit of objectives
they never intended to achieve.
Both international agents and non-governmental domestic players must
therefore proceed with caution.
Cooperation between the international
governmental and non-governmental players
Rivalries
over economic interests and political prestige frequently incite states or
organisations to put their own interests and standing before cooperating with
other organisations in the crisis region. In this context the hegemony of the
USA, which is very reluctant to cooperate either at the bilateral or the
multilateral level in the interests of other countries, poses a special
problem. Its choice of partners of doubtful democratic standing as well its
relationship with the UN, its refusal to submit to the rulings of and
international court of justice or to sign the Kyoto Protocol, and its behaviour
at the World Conference against Racism in Durban have demonstrated the
reluctance of the USA to cooperate with other democratic states in enforcing
the legitimate interests of the disadvantaged. What falls by the wayside is the
welfare of the populations concerned and even the success of civilian crisis
interventions.
Information on actions planned and on the conflict
situation
Information on
the different positions of conflict parties, as well as on the positions of
those willing to assist them in managing conflicts is of vital importance.
International players can help to render reporting on events in the region more
objective and thus counter lopsided propaganda spread by the conflict parties.
Moreover, they need – as early as possible - to inform the population concerned
and the institutions and organisations within the region about their plans, in
order to nip rumours in the bud and also to make it easier for those in need
and those willing to cooperate to contact them.
Step up the training of civilian specialist
staff
More
often than not, the representatives of international players in conflict areas
have had little or no preparatory training for the tasks awaiting them. To make
a mission successful it appears essential
§
to prepare staff for the general conditions in which
they will have to act, i.e. for acute conflict situations, lack of
infrastructure, crass prejudices and hostile perceptions, health and supply
problems, dealing with traumatised people, etc. To be able to cope with these
problems, people have to become capable of handling conflicts. This requires
both knowledge of the causes, of the prevailing conditions and of the tentative
solutions of conflicts as well as of the players involved in the conflict
management. Moreover, they will have to engage actively with their own conflict
behaviour and position vis-à-vis the conflict parties;
§
to prepare them for the function they will have to
perform within the conflict area. Being a good lawyer does not in itself make
you a good human rights observer;
§
to prepare them for the mission they are going to be
part of. The objectives of the mission, the organisation’s special mandate and
structure, strategies and logistics, but also the specific political, legal,
social, cultural, economic, and security situation should be known in advance.
§
International
organisations, such as the UN, the OSCE and the EU attach growing importance to
the preparation for missions, and more and more national and regional
governmental and non-governmental training programmes are being put in place.
What is still missing however, are international training standards, based on
generally recognised job profiles for the various functions to be performed.
Improve selection and recruitment of staff
The
selection and terms of recruitment differ from organisation to organisation,
from country to country and even inside countries (e.g. depending on the
foreign ministry department in charge of recruitment). This faces the
organisation that is recruiting staff, the applicants for recruitment and the
organisation running the mission with serious problems. What is needed are
compatible data bases with the data of applicants, which can be
cross-referenced with standardised requirements (job descriptions) and will
enable the recruitment of suitable staff for vacant positions.
The
above-described conditions and challenges demonstrate that civilian crisis
intervention is vital if the violent escalation of conflicts is to be
effectively prevented or if conflicts are to be transformed into a lower form
of violence. To be effective, interventions will have to meet the following
criteria:
§
Prevent
further escalation of crises as early as possible (crisis prevention);
§
address the root causes of
conflicts and consider the great variety of policy areas involved on account of
the structural framework conditions and the fact that conflicts are rooted in
the areas of human rights/state/society, economy/ecology, security as well as
culture/education/information;
§
gear missions to the needs
of those affected, involve and empower them and assist them in taking charge of
societal conditions (ownership);
§
avoid adverse effects (do no harm) by systematically
studying possible sequels (conflict impact assessment);
§
try
to achieve lasting de-escalation of the conflicts (sustainability) beyond the
immediate effect;
§
make only limited use of embargos and sanctions
(conditionality) to reach political objectives;
§
take
account of the interdependence of humanitarian aid, development cooperation and
conflict management (interdependence);
§
utilise
the specific merits of non-governmental organisations and involve the
non-governmental agents native to the conflict areas;
§
seek
to pool the efforts of the diverse international governmental and
non-governmental players that are willing to help (cooperation);
§
supply information on your plans and intentions and
help objectify reporting on the conflict situation (information);
§
step
up the education and training of civilian specialist staff (up-skilling);
§
ensure
efficient selection and posting of mission personnel (recruitment).