TELL OBAMA: “do more than stop genocide – take action now to prevent it”

The enterprise of genocide and conflict prevention is at a crossroads.

This is due to the fact that the prevailing ideology regarding the type and timing of interventions into unstable regions is finally being called into question, while, at the same time, the political conditions necessary for a change of policy course have also come to pass (with a change of leadership at the highest levels of government that has seen a new, experienced team of experts on genocide being given positions of power). With regards to the former, this ideological renaissance has been ushered in by some of the most prominent faces in scholarship and policy-making currently working on genocide prevention.

Alex de Waal is one of these individuals. Although having already made a tremendous influence on the academic world’s perception of the underlying political causes that precipitate famine and the inability of the humanitarian enterprise to recognize its own deficiencies and reform accordingly with his most prolific book, Famine Crimes, it was not until the recent genocide in Darfur that de Waal has become a popular figure of authority and leadership amongst the broader community of anti-genocide activism. Drawing from the same type of criticism lodged against humanitarian organizations and their approach towards famine alleviation, de Waal sees the lagged, interventionist approach of the current humanitarian enterprise as an impediment to lasting peace-building and reconstruction. Although in no way belittling the impact of groups like “Save Darfur” in their ability to mobilize and sustain levels of public support for aid distribution to the affected regions of Sudan, de Waal believes that the haphazard, confused, internally uncoordinated nature of the policy goals of these organizations have in many ways undermined the efficacy of the diplomatic effort that he sees as necessary to secure a political settlement.

According to de Waal, (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alex_de_Waal) a focus on Western intervention into the political situation in Sudan–in the form of the ICC’s arrest warrant for Sudanese president al-Bashir and the deployment of UN troops on the ground (both of which are the direct or indirect result of pressure from one or another major activist group)–has distracted policy-maker attention away from their roles as facilitators and guarantors of diplomatic agreements that would allow the political demands of the major actor involved in the fighting to be met without further violence. In sum, the appeal to the competing interests of these activist groups (however well-intentioned they indeed are) has prevented the formation of a unified diplomatic strategy at the international level. This inconsistent and toothless approach has led to a situation where the major competing parties in the Sudanese conflict have seen promises broken, their political clout misinterpreted, their level of outside support misrepresented, and their incentives to postpone settlement and reap the benefits of war reinforced and rewarded, thus undermining the very foundation upon which a lasting settlement can be reached. And if the diplomatic peace process fails, then all the successes of the aid distribution will be nothing but a band-aid, as a referendum for the secession of Southern Sudan in 2011 threatens to return the country to all-out civil war if a compromise cannot be reached.

This analysis echoes in many respects the recent diagnosis of the failure of the American government to prevent genocide put forth by the co-chairs of the Genocide Prevention Task Force, former secretaries Madeleine Albright and William S. Cohen.

When we were in the Clinton administration, we experienced firsthand the challenges of responding to such crises, sometimes because the political will was lacking, but more often because the American government simply does not have an established, coherent policy for preventing and responding to mass atrocities…Moreover, a lack of dedicated resources for prevention and the absence of bureaucratic mechanisms allowing rapid analysis and response have impeded timely action. What is needed is a national blueprint to prevent genocide and mass atrocities.

Their report goes on to highlight to importance of early warning detection for preventing conflict before it spirals out of control, as diplomatic intervention remains to be exponentially more effective before the momentum of violence takes hold.

What the assessments of the Genocide Prevention Task Force and Alex de Waal share is that they both recognize the need for a break in the old ideological mindset of genocide prevention that sees the amount of protesters lined up outside the White House, the gross dollar amounts spent on humanitarian aid, and the number of soldiers in blue hats on the ground as the true indications of success. This “we must do something” brand of action without vision, one that minimizes the role of the policy-maker and the scholar in favor of the PR agent and the compassionate celebrity, although undoubtedly not without merits in its own right, threatens to undermine the diplomatic route to conflict prevention and humanitarian action by taking resources and attention away from developing and following a clear plan of action that would systematize the government’s ability to detect pre-genocidal situations as they arise, assess situation on the ground, adapt to changes in this situation and react appropriately. Furthermore, the outdated approach of such organizations completely abstracts conflicts from their historical and political backgrounds. Although acknowledging and highlighting these contexts in discourse, valuing the freezing of the conflict through military might and the feeding and protecting those affected by the fighting as ends in themselves completely ignores any attempt to address the inequalities, scarcities of resources, distributions of power that caused the fighting in the first place.

Without the formation of a robust, well-staffed, highly-trained (in conflict studies, diplomacy…), internationally cooperative, organized bureaucratic body in every country that prides itself as a leader in preventing mass atrocities wherever they occur, the humanitarian movement will never overcome its legacy of being a reactionary endeavour that minimizes the extent of genocides after they occur, instead of a force in genocide prevention.

Acknowledgements: I must give credit to Matthew Gordon from who’s blog most of this material was reproduced.  John Stack, 18th August 2009.

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