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I NTERNATIONAL A FFAIRS Northwestern’s Journal of

FALL 2006 •V OLUME VIII

CRISIS & RESPONSE

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Special Thanks to

PRESIDENT HENRY BIENEN, PROVOST STEPHEN FISHER AND THE

CICS STAFF:

MR. ANDREW WACHTEL 2

MR. BRIAN HANSON MR. MAGNUS BRIEM MS. DIANA SNYDER

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NJIA Staff EXECUTIVE COMMITTEE

PRESIDENT

Haimu Sun EDITOR-IN-CHIEF:

Derek Thompson VICE-PRESIDENT OF OUTREACH:

James Wang DIRECTOR OF BUSINESS AFFAIRS:

Shyaam Ramkumar DIRECTOR OF LAYOUT/DESIGN:

Farah Ahmed CO-EDITOR-IN-CHIEF

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Amy Hamblin EDITORIAL BOARD

Andrew Levin Alastair Rami Deniz Ayaydin Rachel Haig Aimee O'Malley OUTREACH

George Brandes TECHNOLOGY DIRECTOR

Andrew Nho FACULTY ADVISOR

Dr. Mark Witte

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The staff of NJIA would like to apologize to Evan Michelson for a misspelling of his name in our Winter 2006 Issue.

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Table of Contents EDITOR’S NOTE 1. CRISIS AND RESPONSE: LESSONS AND WARNINGS

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INTERVIEW 2. INTERVIEW WITH NORTHWESTERN’S RICHARD JOSEPH

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SCHOLARS AND PROFESSIONALS 3. COVERING THE WAVES Thomas R. Lansner

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4. NO QUICK FIX FOR DARFUR Roberta Cohen

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5. CORPORATIONS AND KATRINA: WHY COMPANIES OFFERED BETTER HURRICANE RELIEF THAN GOVERNMENT Agnes Norvich

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6. IN OUR OWN BACKYARD Philippe R. Girard

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7. WOMEN’S RIGHTS AS HUMAN RIGHTS: THE UNITED STATES’ RELUCTANCE TO RATIFY THE INTERNATIONAL BILL OF RIGHTS FOR WOMEN Jennifer Manne

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8. LESSONS FROM CRISIS CASE STUDIES Bob Roemer

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FROM THE STUDENTS 9. AIDS AND THE FORGOTTEN ORPHAN CRISIS IN AFRICA Kyoung Yang Kim

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10. RABBLE-ROUSER: WHY THE UNITED STATES SHOULD IGNORE HUGO CHAVEZ Marshall Miller

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Editor’s Note Crisis and Response: Lessons and Warnings When the waters receded after the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami, the United States participated in a historic worldwide relief effort. But just nine months later, Hurricane Katrina struck the Gulf Coast, and the country suffered its own natural calamity. In the first crisis, the United States played a laudable role as benevolent superpower; in the second, Americans watched in disbelief as federal and local governments failed to provide the most basic necessities to its own citizens.

In the wake of these catastrophic natural disasters and in the shadow of ongoing tragedies in Africa, the Northwestern Journal of International Affairs dedicates its latest issue to crisis and response: how international actors recognize crises and how they choose to confront them.

We are happy to report the largest-ever participation in our undergraduate essay contest. The first place winner, Northwestern senior Kyoung Yang Kim, examines solutions to Africa’s silent orphan epidemic in AIDS and the Forgotten Orphan Crisis in Africa. In Rabble-rouser, runner-up Marshall Miller cuts through rhetoric on both sides of the Caribbean to expose the empty threat of Hugo Chavez. These are just two highlights from a vibrant student body that we will continue to tap in future issues.

Among our professional and scholarly submissions, we examine the media’s role in shaping both natural disasters and international relief.

As Columbia University’s Thomas R. Lansner writes in Covering the Waves, the extraordinary media inundation after the 2004 tsunami elicited an unprecedented outpouring of support for the victims. But the silent tsunamis of disease, poverty and genocide are often more deadly. Roberta Cohen, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution, breaks down the complex saga of the Darfur genocide in No Quick Fix for Darfur.

We hope this issue will help unravel some of the most significant crises of our time—whether urgent or emerging, unspoken or overblown.

National and international crises, both natural and man-made, are inevitable. But there is nothing inevitable about how we choose to respond in the face of tragedy. Crises have the power to devastate, but in our responses we determine whether hope can shine through in those darkest hours.

Derek Thompson and the NJIA editorial staff FALL 2006 • VOLUME VIII

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INTERVIEW WITH PROFESSOR RICHARD JOSEPH

Interview with Professor Richard Joseph

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Professor Richard Joseph, director of Northwestern University’s African Studies Department, migrated from the Caribbean to the United States when he was just 12 years old. After graduating from Dartmouth College, he received a Fulbright Scholarship to study in France. One year later he was awarded a Rhodes Scholarship to study at Oxford University. With a distinguished scholarly career devoted to the study of development and governance in Africa, he became the John Evans Professor of Political Science at Northwestern in April 2003. He is the author of numerous books and articles on social and political conflict, state building, and emerging democracies in Africa. In January 2006, Prof. Joseph announced that the African Studies Department would receive a $3 million grant from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation to help improve HIV prevention programs in Nigeria.

1. What do you plan to do with the grant you recently received from the Gates Foundation?

The program with the Gates Foundation involves the greatest amount of work since I arrived here. I have had ideas about developments on the prevention of HIV/AIDS, and I have brought these ideas to Northwestern.

The main frame of the project involves prevention of HIV/AIDS and the appropriate international response to the issue, which requires mobilizing the knowledge of the social science community. An adequate response to the issue has to go beyond the science research community to get social science researchers involved as well.

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INTERVIEW WITH PROFESSOR RICHARD JOSEPH 2. This past summer, Live 8 and the effort to bring international aid to Africa picked up, with mass rallies encouraging the rich governments of the world to donate billions of dollars to the continent. However, political instability makes the proper allocation of this money difficult. What steps can the global community take to ensure that the money is spent effectively if African governments are dysfunctional or tyrannical?

The key challenge here is for the African countries to establish effective systems of governance to make use of the resources available. One common misunderstanding of Africa has been that it is a continent deprived of resources. In fact, there is a wealth of resources in countries such as Nigeria, Congo and South Africa. But the resources have been mismanaged. After decades of humanitarian aid, there needs to be a new approach.

3. In 2005 President Bush pledged $25 billion dollars to AIDS relief in Africa. What is the prognosis of the President’s AIDS program? Does AIDS relief run into the same problems as overall economic relief (that is, how do you get corrupt regimes to properly allocate billions of dollars)?

The President’s plan is to focus on the treatment of those already infected with AIDS. Different parts of this $25 billion dollar amount go to different organizations like the Harvard School of Public Health and some faithbased organizations. Our program is focused on the prevention of AIDS. This is an area in which very few have had success, but more are putting attention into it.

4. Malaria is almost as big a problem in Africa as AIDS, but it gets a fraction of the coverage in the media. Why is that the case and what can the international community do to fight it? Should we bring back DTD to help kill malarial mosquitoes?

Malaria and tuberculosis are the two main diseases in Africa besides AIDS. The Gates Foundation has been providing funds to improve treatment of those patients. Yet to many pharmaceutical companies, these are called “neglected diseases” because the countries with these diseases are very poor and provide very little financial incentive for companies to produce new drugs to deal with them.

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INTERVIEW WITH PROFESSOR RICHARD JOSEPH DTD might not be the optimal solution as it has negative effects on the environment, yet there are other forms of treatment. To fight these problems would require a strong public/private partnership to handle the lack of new drugs towards these diseases.

5. We all hear a lot about how much trouble Africa is in—politically, economically, and in health care. But what is the good news coming out of Africa? Where are we seeing real progress on the continent?

There is always good news, but it has been drowned out by the bad news.

Some of the good news would involve the cultural and artistic wealth of Africa. Also many countries such as Ghana, Madagascar and South Africa have been making significant progress socially and economically.

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6. Many researchers in Africa say that what the continent really needs is more great leaders to buck the trend of corruption and bad governance. Do you think there will be another great leader like Nelson Mandela in Africa’s future?

That’s just like saying, “Will there be another Lincoln or Martin Luther King Jr.?” I don’t think there will be another Mandela. But many of the changes can be carried through without such a charismatic figure.

7. How can Africa most effectively utilize the business opportunities and natural resources it possesses?

In recent years, most countries have liberated their economic models, both by their citizens and outside investors. The challenge is to create an environment that will facilitate these investments, especially with the growth of private sectors. More effective governments and more effective legal systems will be crucial for economic development in Africa.

8. There is a lot of interest on campus about Africa. How can students get involved in some of these projects?

There are already many graduate students involved in forming the Alliance for Combating HIV/AIDS. There are increasing numbers of undergraduate

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INTERVIEW WITH PROFESSOR RICHARD JOSEPH students starting to get involved. Also, there are many programs such as the volunteer teaching and SIT programs that allow students to study or work abroad in Africa. As I have said in some of the talks I gave, universities like Northwestern have a lot of resources. It is up to us to use these resources wisely to answer students’ questions like “What can I do?” or “How can I contribute most effectively?”

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THOMAS R. LANSNER

Covering the Waves Thomas R . Lansner

Thomas R. Lansner is adjunct associate professor at Columbia University’s School of International and Public Affairs, where he has taught on international media and policy since 1994. He has also taught at New York University and been a guest lecturer at universities in Africa and Europe. For ten years until 1990, Lansner was a correspondent, principally in Africa and Asia, for the London Observer, Far Eastern Economic Review, and other media outlets.

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The December 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami was a natural disaster that claimed a human and material toll unprecedented in modern times.

Knowledge and experience of the calamity for most of us was gleaned through mass media reporting of the event. The world’s press offered coverage that grew with recognition of the scope and severity of the tragedy. The global reaction of collective shock, followed by an enormous outpouring of assistance for survivors, was profoundly shaped by the sheer quantity and particular qualities of media coverage.

This media inundation, and the vast public response, far outstripped that evoked by other tragedies. Millions of people have died in recent years, for example, in the Congo’s man-made disaster of war and abuse, with scant media attention or apparent public concern. And ongoing “silent tsunamis” of preventable or treatable diseases each year sweep away millions of people whose deaths are far from headline news.

This is because the tsunami was a news “event” that lent itself vividly to descriptive mass media forms, especially to the “visceral visuality” of dramatic video images. It is because the international cast of victims provided “proximity” to many countries far from the ravaged shores. It is because media audiences were offered the empowerment of

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COVERING THE WAVES empathetic action to respond personally to the survivors’ immediate needs.

Yet these media approaches meant that much-needed-context was little reported. Instead, media-enabled manipulation of survivors for fundraising or political purposes became widespread.

But new information and communications technologies also shaped perceptions. Widespread digital video images offered global audiences the reality of crashing waves carrying away victims via the now endless loop of 24-hour news broadcasts, or streamed to our own computers. First-hand accounts by blogger “witness/participants” gave voice and immediacy unfiltered by traditional media.

Coverage of the tsunami in many ways followed established mass media patterns in reporting disasters and other news, and can be understood in relation to proximity and access. Who was affected and the accessibility of stricken areas were especially crucial in shaping early reports. Portrayals of victims and survivors — with particular emphasis on children, the most “innocent” of those affected — evoked deep emotional reactions from audiences.

PROXIMITY AND ACCESS

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An important way to understand why media report what they do is to consider their audiences’ “proximity” to particular events or issues.

Threats to national or personal security usually receive the most urgent and expansive media attention. Other types of proximity — geographic, economic, ethnic — also engender increased coverage. In the tsunami, “touristic” proximity helped drive the Western media response. Who among us has not relaxed on beaches, enjoying sunshine and tranquil waters, or dreamt of doing so? Much of the early coverage of the disaster focused on the fate of Western tourists in Thailand. This can be understood in part by the unsurprising desire of European and American media to report on their own nationals to home audiences. Foreign journalists had relatively easy access to affected beaches in Thailand, where they could interview people from their home countries. And the many amateur videos available from tourists meant that images of vacationer-victims dominated television news shows which have an insatiable demand for dramatic and distressing footage.

News from far more severely-affected areas emerged much more slowly, because telecommunications were cut, and in Indonesia’s Aceh

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THOMAS R. LANSNER Province, because it was already a conflict zone not immediately accessible to foreign media. The small number of non-Indonesian victims there reduced an important element of proximity for Western audiences, and the very limited video of the actual wave striking (it hit during predawn in an area with few tourists) minimized initial broadcast attention.

When the area was opened to outsiders, much of the American media focus was on U.S. military relief efforts, as will be discussed below.

“VICTIM QUOTIENT”

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Media coverage of disaster or violence often tends to focus on “worthy victims,” whose innocence is indisputable, and with whom audiences can most easily identify and empathize. Tsunami victims were utterly innocent, quite literally swept away by forces seemingly beyond human intervention. Were Westerners considered more worthy victims than Asians affected by the tsunami? Racial or cultural bias was claimed by some observers, but the combination of access and technology issues mentioned above were influential. And more important was proximity; all media play to their own audiences, and news about home, or people “from home,” usually receives top billing. The overall global predominance of Western media serving their prime audiences is a better explanation of the prominence of Western victims than overt biases.

Children, regardless of race, are typically the most “worthy” victims for media attention in disaster reporting. Their loss and their innocence can evoke deep emotions among audiences otherwise seemingly inured to the litany of disaster and conflict that is a large portion of the international news diet. The “victim quotient” of children would surely top the chart if a formal measure were made. The large majority of tsunami dead included women and children. Transnational and domestic coverage around the world emphasized the plight of the children, whose innocent worthiness commanded both media attention and public empathy.

The suffering of victims and survivors was not only the most immediate, but also by far the most compelling media story.

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COVERING THE WAVES CITIZEN JOURNALISM AND VISCERAL VISUALITY Television coverage in particular was driven by the “visceral visuality” of video. The stunning images of nature’s power, and of human loss and grief, struck like physical blows. Even the still images published in many newspapers around the world, sometimes of dead children, were very powerful. Whether such depictions of the dead should be published at all remains controversial. Yet because most of the tsunami victims had drowned, their corpses were often outwardly unscathed. For the American press, which is far more reluctant than the media in most other countries to offer gory photos, the “unmarked dead” of the tsunami were not too gruesome to put in print; they were even more heartbreaking for their apparently calm repose in the midst of anguished relatives.

The experience of the tsunami was also made much more accessible for the world’s “wired” population by text, photo and video postings by bloggers from affected countries and others around the world.

Bloggers offering first-hand accounts of events are sometimes called “citizen journalists.” But few of them pursue the traditional journalistic role of gathering and filtering information; many are better described as “witness/participants” who post their own accounts and opinions. Open access to amateur video and first-person reports provided intimate stories and allowed unmediated accounts that voiced issues or concerns not always reflected in the mainstream media. The blogosphere is challenged by very important issues of credibility, however, since the provenance of its reporting is often uncertain. Much misinformation and wild rumors were circulated, along with outlandishly doctored photos which purported to be tsunami scenes.

ETERNAL VIGILANCE; ETERNAL COMPLACENCY The volume and immediacy of media coverage created a psychological shockwave worldwide. News consumption increased dramatically, even among audiences usually inattentive to international affairs. The scale and drama of the event, the impact of the associated images, the almost global proximity, and the evocation of innocent victims and heroic rescuers combined for a nearly perfect media storm. But added to this, crucially, was that audiences everywhere were told that they could do something to help.

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THOMAS R. LANSNER

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A venerable adage holds that “eternal vigilance is the price of liberty.” Media scholar Marshall McLuhan adapted this to our mass media age in warning that “the price of eternal vigilance is indifference.” Since McLuhan coined that phrase over 40 years ago, it has been argued that the continual reporting of disasters and humanitarian crises and their attendant horrific images have produced “compassion fatigue,” “outrage fatigue,” and general desensitization to suffering of others in the broad public.

The “indifference” that McLuhan’s postulates, however, rises not from eternal vigilance, but from perceived powerlessness before complex challenges. It may certainly be a rational response to problems that are presented by policymakers or media as insurmountable. But in December 2004, people were shocked into awareness, and were very quickly mobilized into action. Viewers and readers were assured that their contributions could help victims now, and that their help would bring direct and demonstrable results. The tsunami was offered as a quickly remediable tragedy. Media heavily publicized charity appeals and the public response.

Celebrities and children were mobilized to reinforce and legitimize the need. Politicians and royals chimed in. People worldwide were empowered to offer empathetic action by cash or in-kind.

The tsunami escaped McLuhan’s predicted apathy only because it was depicted as a discrete and hugely atypical event to which we all could effectively respond. Other more complex or less accessible disasters, those with less proximity to broad publics, and those without a “simple” response generate far less attention.

DESCRIBING EVENTS AND IGNORING PROCESS The agonizing loss of life and tales of survival and rescue provided ample material for a media that generally thrives on reporting the most dramatic international news.

The Indian Ocean tsunami was an immense and arresting event, in human and visual terms, which American and other media worked hard to describe to their audiences. Yet much coverage, especially on television and in the tabloid press, made little effort to move beyond the spectacle of tragedy to explain the social, economic and political conditions in which victims lived. This is neither new nor surprising; short media formats, especially television, allow little room to ponder processes. Here, form often dictates content, and even very complicated issues are frequently

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COVERING THE WAVES portrayed according to the most dramatic imagery available. And it must not be forgotten that most media enterprises are commercially driven; programming that will not attract audiences because it cannot be presented with the dramatic simplicity that television generally demands likely will not make the airwaves.

The framing of the tsunami story, for most media, remained resolutely in the “unavoidable disaster” category. This is not unreasonable given that a massive tsunami had not hit the Indian Ocean in at least a century. The suffering of victims and survivors was not only the most immediate, but by far the most compelling media story.

CONTEXT LOCAL AND GLOBAL The broader context of grossly disparate development and priorities between the global north and developing countries, and within the tsunamiaffected countries themselves, was rarely addressed. In both Indonesia and Sri Lanka the emergency response was complicated by long-running ethnic-based insurgencies that made both physical access and relief distribution problematic. Yet this background was briefly mentioned in only a few publications.

It is also worth noting that the United States and India were the two countries best able to quickly mobilize resources for reaching tsunami victims — but that the assets deployed were largely military forces designed to attack the enemy. The contrast between sleek, high-tech military machines and the impoverished survivors receiving their help was striking. The deployment of American and other military forces doubtless saved many lives, but the fact that massive military budgets consume resources desperately needed for development was a rarely noted irony.

Some commentators took exactly the opposite view, seizing on the availability of nearby U.S. military forces as an unexpected benefit of America’s “global war on terror” and as justification for increased military spending. In Indonesia’s Aceh province, American soldiers and sailors provided desperately-needed logistical, technical and material aid. They

The fact that massive military budgets perpetually consume resources desperately needed for development was an irony rarely noted.

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THOMAS R. LANSNER flew thousands of helicopter missions that brought the first relief to isolated villagers and carried injured people to treatment. For American audiences, images of U.S. soldiers offering welcome help provided a “home-town” link to the relief efforts. But U.S. officials were also keenly aware of the opportunity for broader “public diplomacy”. Many humanitarian flights also carried television crews and other journalists who could be expected to report on the U.S. military as heroic rescuers. The contrast to U.S. military engagement in Iraq and Afghanistan could not be more striking. U.S. officials sought to show that this proved America can

18 be a good friend to Muslims and that U.S. military boots on Muslim ground can be quite benign. Images of U.S. soldiers helping children were especially popular on the Department of Defense’s website.

Contrasted to this were warnings in some Indonesian media outlets against Western and Christian “interference” in Aceh and even sensational accusations that Christian groups were intent on “stealing” tsunami orphans. Chauvinist and xenophobic reporting by local media based in Indonesia’s capital, Jakarta, revealed gaps in understanding and biases as glaring as anything found in Western media.

MANUFACTURING DRAMA Like governments and militaries, non-governmental groups moved quickly to draw media attention to their own good works. On 25 January 2005, for example, the Save the Children Fund facilitated the reunion of five-year old Rina Augustina with her father, Mustafa Kamal, in the city of Banda Aceh. Here was an all-too-rare “good news” story that the assembled reporters, photographers and television crews were happy to

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COVERING THE WAVES transmit to the world, with prominent mention of the charity’s role.

Staging media events to gain attention is hardly new, and using children as emotionally evocative props is not unusual. The Save the Children Fund, it could be argued, was offering some positive news to encourage people to support tsunami relief. The case of “baby 81” from Sri Lanka was exploited more cynically by ABC News in the United States.

“Baby 81” was four-month old Abilass Jeyarajah, who miraculously survived after being swept from his mother’s arms when the tsunami struck their home village in eastern Sri Lanka. In a compelling drama followed closely by global media, nine women earnestly claimed Abilass as their own child. DNA tests eventually determined the genuine parents were Murugupillai and Jenita Jeyarajah, and ABC News enticed them and baby Abilass (bearing “expedited” U.S. visas) to New York to appear on “Good Morning America”.

Their first stop in New York City was the Statue of Liberty, after which they were taken to and photographed at the World Trade Center “ground zero” site. “We had 9/11. They had the tsunami,” the ABC website quotes one of its producers as saying. “There’s a certain camaraderie.” It is not evident that the Jeyarajahs grasped the connection. Their home area in Sri Lanka has for years been a brutal battleground of an enduring insurgency. The family was not paid for their story, and their fame and trip to America has reportedly made life difficult for them back home in Sri Lanka. But the “Amazing Journey of Baby 81,” as a photo essay on ABC’s website still describes Abilass’s story, was clearly a huge media success.

HEROES AND VILLAINS The media sought human stories to relate the tale of the tsunami’s terrible toll, and there were certainly many heroes in the midst of the terror.

But the tsunami’s biggest media heroes might have been four-legged.

Animals, like children, are popular media subjects. Friendly and photogenic animals like pandas, whales, and elephants share children’s innocent worthiness. Reports that animals sensed the impending tsunami soon surfaced, along with many highly-exaggerated reports that elephants had heroically saved people in the path of the raging waters. A single credible report that a British child was placed on an elephant’s back to escape rushing waters exploded into a frenzy of similar but usually more elaborate tales that quickly circulated to credulous audiences by email and

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THOMAS R. LANSNER blogs. In April 2006 a Google search for “elephants and tsunami� produced over 1.8 million hits. Some of the latest are reports of protests by elephant rights groups that the animals are being abused in their tsunami relief work.

For a major media story, there were notably few villains to be found.

Nature was the nemesis, an unfathomable force that might be explained but not truly understood. Yet some media outlets were quick to seek an opening to criticize favorite targets. Fox News, for example, almost instantly launched scathing personal attacks on United Nations Secretary-General Kofi Annan for what it charged was his slow response to the emergency.

LESSONS IN THE WAKE OF DISASTER

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On 1 April 1946, a tsunami struck the small town of Kahuku on the north shore of Oahu in Hawaii. Sadly, one child from the local elementary school was lost. But the rest of the community had escaped to higher ground overlooking the town after several townspeople noticed the sea receding rapidly and far beyond its normal range. This, they had learned from their elders, was the sign of a tsunami. Local knowledge that here saved many lives was virtually unknown along the Indian Ocean shores devastated by the tsunami.

Since December 2004 many media outlets, especially those in tsunami-prone regions, have sought to educate people regarding tsunami warning and disaster preparedness. Taking up the traditional watchdog role, some media outlets have pressed for transparency regarding the billions of dollars spent in tsunami relief. And many media outlets have committed resources to follow-up stories on rebuilding efforts.

Emerging communications technologies also shaped the media and public response to the disaster. The stunning video that emerged with survivors captivated a watching world, and helped spiral attention by keeping the tsunami story on television screens. Blogs and email that allowed faster and broader communication also revealed the weakness of open access in spreading incomplete, distorted or utterly fabricated information.

But for the most part, the media followed their old practices of seeking proximity, human connections and drama to describe events.

Public indifference still attends the silent tsunamis of chronic diseases and underdevelopment.

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COVERING THE WAVES Media manipulated images of the most innocent to attract audience interest, and groups sought media attention to promote their own agendas.

There was little context or analysis that could have led to deeper understanding of not only the natural but also the man-made forces at play in natural disasters.

But public indifference still attends the silent tsumanis of chronic diseases and underdevelopment. The media can promote awareness and encourage effective global responses to crises and emergencies, but behind many stories are complex causes that are difficult to explain and address.

The tsunami — with its sudden and remarkable media-friendly drama, visceral visuality, and almost global proximity — was perhaps unique in evoking and enabling enormous empathetic action. The belief that individuals could and should participate to help survivors, even at a great distance, invited attention. It is a great tragedy to think that only another massive and perfectly-framed calamity will rouse the media vigilance to help pierce the public indifference that greets many disasters.

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THOMAS R. LANSNER REFERENCES The concept of proximity as an important determinant of international media coverage is discussed in Tsan-Kuo Chang and Jae-Won Lee, “Factors Affecting Gatekeepers Selection of Foreign News,” Journalism Quarterly, Fall 1992, 554-571.

Please see Susan D. Moeller, “A Hierarchy of Innocence: The Media’s Use of Children in the Telling of International News,” The Harvard International Journal of Press and Politics, Fall 2001, and Mike Jempson “Children and media — a global concern,” www.comminit.com/ctrends2003/sld-8161.html, accessed 12 April 2006.

Marshall McLuhan, Understanding Media, The Extensions of Man (New York: McGraw Hill, 1965).

“Tsunami coverage dwarfs ‘forgotten’ crises-research,” www.alertnet.org/thefacts/reliefresources/111044767025.htm, accessed 12 April 2006

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Rony Brauman, “When Suffering Makes a Good Story.” In Edward Giardet, ed., Somalia, Rwanda, and Beyond The Role of the International Media in Wars and Humanitarian Crisis. (Geneva: Crosslines Global Report, 1995).

For example, Robert D. Kaplan, “A Force for Good,” New York Times, 03 March 2005. http://www.defenselink.mil/photos/Archive/EmergAssist/Disaster/page2.html, accessed 12 April 2006 Andreas Harsono, “Indonesian Media Bias in Covering the Tsunami in Aceh,” Neiman Reports Vol. 59 No. 1/Spring 2005. http://abcnews.go.com/GMA/Tsunami/story?id=542200&page=1, accessed 12 April 2006 www.ksdk.com/news/news_article.aspx?storyid=89699, accessed 12 April 2006 For a dissection and nearly complete debunking of the elephantine claims, please see http://www.snopes.com/critters/defender/elephant.asp, accessed 12 April 2006

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NO QUICK FIX FOR DARFUR

No Quick Fix For Darfur Roberta Cohen

Roberta Cohen is a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution where she co-directs the Brookings-Bern Project on Internal Displacement and specializes in humanitarian and human rights issues.

On May 5th one of Darfur's main rebel groups signed an agreement with the government of Sudan following African Union mediation efforts backed by the United States and European governments. But it is questionable whether the Abuja accord will protect the people of western Sudan from genocidal acts by their own government and the Arab militias (the Janjaweed) it supports. When asked whether the agreement would lead to a significant decline in violence, then-US Deputy Secretary of State Robert Zoellick, a key negotiator in the talks, responded that while the agreement is "an opportunity for peace," Darfur "is going to remain a dangerous place."1 Under the peace accord, a cease-fire will be followed by the disarmament of the Janjaweed (a process that will take months), the integration of most rebel forces into the Sudanese army and police and the establishment of protective buffer zones around internally displaced persons (IDPs) camps and assistance corridors. In addition, there will be power and wealth sharing arrangements, including a fund to reconstruct and develop Darfur, a commission to help IDPs and refugees to return home and a compensation fund for victims of the conflict.

The Darfur insurgency began in 2003 when rebels attacked government outposts, in response to a history of grievances and neglect from the central government. The government's response was the massacre of tens of thousands of African farmers, the rape of unknown numbers of women and girls and the torching of an estimated 2,000 villages. The government dealt with the three Darfur rebel tribes the same way it had dealt with earlier rebellions by black Africans in the South who complained of marginalization. Over the next few years, an estimated 450,000 black

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ROBERTA COHEN African men, women and children in Darfur died from violence, starvation and disease, with more than 75 percent of their villages and farms destroyed. More than 2 million became internally displaced while some 200,000 fled to Chad where they recently came under attack as the conflict spread over the border. At least 3.5 million Darfurians are dependent on international food aid. Darfur continues to be described as the world's "worst humanitarian disaster."2 Bringing this disaster under control and ensuring that the terms of the peace agreement are carried out is a challenge that will require continued international pressure and troop involvement. During 2004 and 2005, international pressure sometimes stemmed the violence and secured entry for humanitarian aid operations, which stopped a good deal of starvation and disease. But by the end of 2005, the situation deteriorated. The Janjaweed began to attack people inside the IDP camps and to burn down the remaining black African farming villages. Darfur's rebel groups began to splinter and fight among themselves, and as their command structures disintegrated, they looted aid convoys and raided Arab nomad communities. Rebels from Chad became active on both sides of the border, and armed banditry and robbery became rampant, leading to attacks on African Union (AU) peacekeepers and humanitarian workers, undermining their operations and weakening the only protection and assistance IDPs and villagers had.

An estimated 450,000 black African men, women and children in Darfur have died from violence and disease.

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SECURITY COUNCIL DIVISIONS The Sudanese government initially agreed to allow an international peacekeeping force into Darfur following the signing of a peace agreement, but is now trying to obstruct the Security Council's deployment of a force. The Council has long been divided when it comes to action on Darfur. It took until July 2004 — more than a year after the mass killings, rapes and uprooting began — for the Council to adopt its first resolution on Darfur. In March 2005, only symbolic sanctions were introduced (personal travel bans and asset freezes) even though the Sudanese government had failed to disarm the Janjaweed and halt attacks against its civilian

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NO QUICK FIX FOR DARFUR population. By April 2006 the Council finally agreed to apply sanctions, but against only four individuals. The Council also failed to enforce a military embargo and dragged its feet in calling for the deployment of a UN peacekeeping force in Darfur after the African Union requested one in January 2006 to reinforce its own troops on the ground. A resolution in March called only for "preparatory planning" for the deployment of a force.3 It took until June 2006 to send to Darfur a needs assessment mission, which will make recommendations to the Council on the strength and mandate of a force.

China has been one of the biggest stumbling blocks to strong Security Council action on Sudan. The China National Petroleum Corporation holds a 40 percent share in the international consortium extracting oil in Sudan, making China the main foreign investor in Sudan's oil industry.4 As the world's second largest oil consumer, China has been looking for new resources wherever they can be found. Over the past eight years, Sudan has become a base in Africa for Chinese oil operations and a bridge to oil resources in other African countries. Every time strong action against Sudan is proposed, China has abstained, or threatened to use its veto to delay or weaken action.

Russia, which like China wields a veto in the Council, has also slowed up and opposed strong action against the Sudanese government.

Evidently it fears that a precedent could be set applicable to its own scorched earth campaign against the Chechens. Moreover, Russia has been selling arms to Sudan. States like Pakistan, Algeria and Qatar, with traditionally close political ties to Arab and Islamic governments, have also protected Sudan in the international arena.

Although the United States initiated action against Sudan in the Security Council, and was the catalyst behind the May agreement, it too has had reasons to avoid head-on confrontation. Mainly, the U.S. fears that pressing Sudan too far on Darfur would jeopardize the peace agreement that the United States and European Union had spent years trying to achieve in ending the 21-year civil war between the government and the rebel groups in the South. Thus efforts at holding the Sudanese government to account in Darfur have often been upstaged by U.S. "engagement" with the Sudanese government to encourage finalization and implementation of the January 2005 Comprehensive Peace Agreement (CPA). September 11th has also proved to be a complicating factor for the U.S. In strengthening cooperation with Sudanese intelligence agencies in its "war against terror,"

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ROBERTA COHEN the U.S. reportedly blocked the inclusion of Sudan's intelligence chief and other government officials from the list of people UN sanctions could target.5 CHALLENGES TO AN INTERNATIONAL FORCE

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Beyond the geopolitical interests of the members of the Security Council, another key challenge to the deployment of an international force to Darfur is the absence of ready international machinery to protect civilians threatened with genocide, mass killings and crimes against humanity. In his 2005 reform plan, "In Larger Freedom," UN SecretaryGeneral Kofi Annan underscored that when "national authorities are unable or unwilling to protect their citizens, then the responsibility shifts to the international community." He called for developing "strategic reserves that can be deployed rapidly," when diplomatic methods fail and Chapter VII enforcement is decided upon.6 At the World Summit, however, heads of government urged only the "further development of proposals" to build such reserves, although they did ask regional organizations (i.e. NATO) to "consider the option" of placing their military capacity under UN standby arrangements.7 In the absence of a standing police or military capacity or rapidly deployable reserves to bolster international political efforts, the "collective responsibility to protect" endorsed at the World Summit is slowed considerably.

It could take up to a year to mobilize the troops and police required to put an effective UN force on the ground in Darfur. In the interim, IDPs, civilians and aid workers in Darfur must rely upon the African Union Mission in Sudan (AMIS), which has been on the ground since 2003.

Initially, it was composed of 60 unarmed observers to monitor a cease-fire between the government and rebels. Gradually it expanded to 7,000 troops, police and observers and offered to provide a modicum of protection for IDPs, civilians and humanitarian workers.

A Brookings Institution study by William G. O'Neill and Violette Cassis has documented how AMIS forces on occasion have deterred the rape of women (indeed, many displaced women would only collect firewood outside the camps on the days of AU patrols), protected humanitarian corridors and aid convoys, stopped the looting of animals belonging to Arab nomads, and helped some displaced persons return to their fields. In late 2004, it secured the release of Catholic Relief Services

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NO QUICK FIX FOR DARFUR workers who had been taken hostage by rebels.8 But the study also determined that AMIS' small numbers, weak mandate and lack of equipment rendered it incapable of protecting millions of people in an area the size of France. It called for an increase in troop strength to at least 20,000 as well as increased logistical, transport and communications support; additional aircraft and vehicles; satellite surveillance to enable night patrols; clearer rules of engagement to authorize the use of force to protect civilians; increased female police and military to handle cases of sexual and gender-based violence; and improved coordination and communication among AU troops and police and between AU forces and humanitarian workers.

In January 2006, the AU recognized the need to bolster AMIS and called for "a transition" to a UN operation. "We are like sitting ducks," said an AMIS army captain as he appealed for armored personnel carriers and more ammunition.9 Clearly, AU troops did not have enough firepower to defend themselves from the growing attacks to which they were being subjected. In October 2005, AMIS suffered its first casualties-four soldiers and two civilian drivers were killed in an ambush. In January, another soldier was killed and ten other troops were injured.10 As a result, AMIS began to scale down its patrols and no longer was providing the minimal protection it offered earlier.11 Yet, not only do IDPs and civilians need AMIS' protection, but so do more than 14,000 humanitarian workers on the ground who are delivering food, medicine and shelter and who have come under increasing harassment by the government and even attacks by military forces, rebels and bandits. In April 2006, Sudan expelled the Norwegian Refugee Council from the biggest IDP camp, Kalma, where it was caring for more than 100,000 IDPs. Earlier, a security guard and staff member of the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) were killed and two staff members wounded by unknown assailants.

The government of Sudan has consistently tried to thwart the AU mission by delaying the delivery of equipment, or by opposing the expansion of the force or the strengthening of its protection mandate. The AU Peace and Security Council's decision to delay any changeover to a UN force until September 2006 was at Sudan's behest. Even AU patrols must regularly include members of the Sudanese military.

African governments, for their part, cannot easily increase AMIS' troop levels. They have neither the trained and experienced personnel to

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ROBERTA COHEN spare nor the transport capability to bring them quickly to Darfur. They also lack the proper equipment. Given the situation on the ground, the governments have not wanted to put their troops in harm's way.

U.S. and European Union support to date has been limited. The United States and EU have provided financial and logistical support to

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AMIS and have helped to airlift AU troops into Darfur, to build AMIS camps, and to provide basic supplies and training. But the help has often been slow and insufficient. A donors' conference in May 2005 pledged

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NO QUICK FIX FOR DARFUR $300 million to fund the AU force, whereas at least $460 million was required to cover its expansion to only 7,700 troops.12 Mindful of the growing budget deficit, the U.S. Congress rejected a bill in December 2005 to renew $50 million in aid for Darfur, despite pleas from the administration. At present, Congress is considering a new supplemental bill that would provide about $175 million for AMIS. Deputy Secretary Zoellick in April 2006 called upon interested citizens to press for passage of this bill.13 Despite Zoellick's involvement in Abuja, Darfur is not a matter of strategic or national interest for Western governments. For a long time, the West strongly endorsed the slogan, "African solutions for African problems," in great part because it relieved them of responsibility to become directly involved. More recently, President George W. Bush and UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan have looked to NATO for help, in particular to send some 500 advisers to AMIS. However, NATO has indicated that any advisers would be deployed only at AMIS headquarters and would not directly participate in field operations-far short of initial expectations that NATO might provide a "bridging" force until a UN force could be deployed.

Western military involvement in Iraq and Afghanistan has overshadowed any consideration of military action in Darfur, whether in the form of establishing a "no fly zone" or providing combat helicopters and crews to back up AMIS. Western governments have also been mindful of Arab reaction. The U.S. led invasion of Iraq has made many in the Arab world highly suspicious of any discussion of a Western-led humanitarian intervention in Sudan. Although Iraq was not occupied for humanitarian or human rights reasons, the Bush Administration fell back on this rationale when no weapons of mass destruction were found. U.S. expressions of concern about Darfur have met with much skepticism in the Arab and Muslim worlds, making it easy to rally sentiment against Western military involvement in another Islamic country.

The Abuja agreement requires monitoring the disarmament and disengagement of the Janjaweed and rebel forces, ensuring that they remain in restricted areas, establishing buffer zones around IDP camps and humanitarian assistance corridors, and making conditions secure for IDPs and refugees to return home. Since this far exceeds AMIS' current capacity, the force will need to be strengthened even before a UN force is deployed.

Moreover, the Janjaweed under the agreement will not have to disarm until

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ROBERTA COHEN mid October, which makes the protection of IDPs and civilians as urgent as ever.

The UN force, of which AMIS will be the core, will need to have a far more robust mandate than AMIS' so that it can directly protect IDPs and civilians under threat and maintain the cease-fire. Sudan, however, is doing all it can to prevent a Chapter VII UN force. The composition of the force will be important as well. There have been reports that AMIS troops coming from Arab countries like Egypt or Tunisia have met with resistance from black African Darfurians, who may be Muslim but are not Arab and who have suspected them of favoring the Sudanese government.14 This suggests that peacekeepers should be rather of non-Arab Muslim background, for example from Bangladesh, Pakistan or Turkey. It might also be important to have some Western troops in the force to demonstrate commitment not only in words but also in deeds.

POLITICAL SOLUTIONS

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Of course, no number of troops will resolve the root causes of the Darfur conflict. That solution will require willingness by both the government and the rebels to execute the terms of the peace agreement in good faith. The government did agree to contribute substantial sums to reconstruct and develop Darfur. The government will also allow the people of Darfur to choose their own leaders and determine (although not until 2010) their status as a region. There will be a senior assistant to Sudan's President from Darfur, albeit not the Vice Presidential position sought by rebel negotiators, and a certain number of seats will be set aside in the national assembly for Darfur's rebel movements.

Fundamentally, the Sudanese government is being asked to give up its monopoly of power and wealth and share it with black Africans on the periphery of Khartoum. Democratization, however, will not come easily to a government that is growing rich on oil and whose "relations with the rest of Sudan have been one of ruler, manipulator, exploiter."15 For Francis M. Deng, a South Sudan scholar who was Minister of State for Foreign Affairs in Khartoum in the 1980s, the country is suffering from a crisis of identity.

The ruling Arab-Islamic minority government has long depicted Sudan as an Arab-Muslim country, but the majority of the population of Sudan is African and not all Muslim. The resistance to moving Sudan in the direction of a multi-ethnic, multi-racial and multi-religious society stems

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NO QUICK FIX FOR DARFUR from fear that the Arab minority will lose control of its political, cultural and economic dominance.16 Complicating matters further has been the untimely death of John Garang, the former southern rebel leader who became Sudan's new Vice President, and who promised that he would promote a fair and just settlement in Darfur as part of a new Sudan. Unfortunately, his successors in the government do not have the same stature or commitment to make a unified state work.

Darfur's rebel groups remain splintered and at war with one another. Their lack of overall unity puts into question whether the Abuja agreement can be successfully implemented. Yet the growing scarcity of land and water in the region and the destruction caused by the war make it essential that the black African farming communities reach a compromise with the Arab herders and their government supporters.

Darfur has become a test case for the ability of the AU and the UN to protect people at risk within their member countries. The complexity of the issues, the rivalries among the Darfur rebels, the deviousness of Sudan's government and the competing interests of the great powers have made a solution difficult to achieve. If the North-South agreement is any model, it has lagged in its implementation. The government, it is reported, "is now reneging on commitments to draw down southern garrisons, share power meaningfully with rebel leaders, and settle disputes over provincial borders and the sharing of revenue from oil."17 The Representative of the UN Secretary-General on the Human Rights of IDPs found no preparations to enable internally displaced persons and refugees to return home in safe and sustainable conditions on a 2005 visit.18 Moreover, it took more than a year for the UN force deployed in the South to reach 80 percent of its desired strength.

The same diplomatic pressure required to achieve implementation of the North-South accord will also be needed for Darfur. Against great odds, the AU, the UN, the United States and others involved must work to make the Abuja agreement succeed. As Nigerian President Olesugun Obasanjo warned: "Unless the right spirit, unless the right attitude and right disposition is there, this document is not worth the paper it is signed on."19

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NO QUICK FIX FOR DARFUR REFERENCES 1 Glenn Kessler, “Sudanese, Rebels Sign Peace Plan For Darfur, Washington Post, May 6, 2006.

2 UN Regional Information Networks, April 5, 2006. 3See Statement of the President of the Security Council, S/PRST/2006/5, 3 February 2006, and UN Security Council, Resolution 1663, S/RES/1663, 24 March 2006.

4 Peter S. Goodman, “China Invests Heavily in Sudan’s Oil Industry,” Washington Post, December 23, 2004.

5“APresident’s Promise,” Editorial, Washington Post, April 11, 2006.

6 United Nations General Assembly, In larger freedom: toward development, security and human rights for all, Report of the Secretary-General, UN Doc. A/59/2005, 21 March 2005, paras. 135, 112.

7 UNGA, 2005 World Summit Outcome, paras. 92-3, 170.

8 William G. O’Neill and Violette Cassis, Protecting Two Million

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November 2005.

9 Roberta Cohen and William G. O’Neill, “Last Stand in Sudan,” Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, March/April 2006, p.55.

10 Ibid.

11 Brookings Institution, Transcript, “Policy Options for Darfur,” April 13, 2006, www.brookings.edu/comm/events/20060413.htm 12 Cohen and O’Neill, p. 58.

13 Brookings Institution, Transcript.

14 Cohen and O’Neill, p.58.

15 Robert Zoellick, Brookings Institution, Transcript.

16 Francis M. Deng, “ The Darfur Crisis in Context,” Forced Migration ReviewNo. 22, Oxford, January 2005, pp.44-45.

17“Peace in Darfur?” Washington Post, Editorial, May 6. 2006.

18 UN Commission on Human Rights, Mission to the Sudan, Report of the Representative of the Secretary-General on the Human Rights of Internally Displaced Persons, E/CN.4/2006/71/Add.6, 13 February 2006.

19 “Darfur Gets a Fighting Chance,” New York Times, Editorial, May 6, 2006.

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CORPORATIONS AND KATRINA

Corporations and Katrina: Why Companies Offered Better Hurricane Relief than Government Agnes Norvich Agnes Norvich is a graduate student of integrated marketing communications at Medill School of Journalism. A former public relations coordinator for the French International School of Hong Kong, she now works as a communications consultant for a corporation. Her degrees are from the University of Michigan (BA) and University of Jean Moulin in Lyon, France (diploma in French and European studies).

With over $97 billion dollars in damage1, Hurricane Katrina has been named the “single costliest insured event in the U.S. history.”i2 About 90,000 miles of coastline have been destroyed; more than 1.1 million people were displaced; at least 1,300 died; and more than 2,000 lives are still unaccounted for.3 This alone should have been disturbing enough; but even more alarming was the glaring inability of the public and nonprofit sector to organize a fast and effective response to the crisis. From breakdowns in communications and logistics, to coordination and (most importantly) accountability, the overall effort was demonstratively chaotic.

Despite the “blame game” played by government officials for a number of weeks following the hurricanes, these facts remain: National Guards didn’t arrive on site until Wednesday, 31 August 2005, or two whole days after the levees overtopped and flooded New Orleans.4 The Federal Emergency Management Agency, responsible for coordinating relief response, proved incapable of giving hurricane victims access to all federal relief resources in any single location and eventually collapsed under its own bureaucracy.5 The Red Cross, equally unprepared for the extent of the damage, dispatched six times its previous peak of 40,0006 volunteers to the disaster site, resulting in a logistical, error-laden

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AGNES NORVICH nightmare for the victims trying to access Red Cross services. (The organization itself later acknowledged that it stumbled in “technology, logistics and coordination.”7 Since then, it has been cooperating with the Federal Bureau of Investigation on allegations that volunteers were diverting money and supplies meant for New Orleans hurricane victims to the black market.)8 Red Cross president Marsha Evans resigned from the organization shortly after the hurricanes swept through the Gulf coast.

CORPORATIONS STEP UP RELIEF

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Contrast this with the unprecedented response from the private sector. U.S. businesses mobilized quickly and in the end contributed a total of $1.2 billion in aid with 254 companies donating $1 million or more in cash and in-kind giving.9 In fact, the corporate response in the wake of the hurricanes was the single largest outpouring of private donations on record.

(The second largest was donated in the wake of the Sept. 11 attacks, recorded at $750 million.)10 And this time, companies went beyond the customary writing of checks to nonprofits. Many leveraged their core resources and actively contributed to the relief effort. Anheuser-Busch

donated 9.4 million cans of safe drinking water. Ford Motor Company donated 275 vans, pickup trucks and SUVs to law enforcement agencies in Louisiana and Mississippi. Retail giant Wal-Mart contributed $3.5 million in merchandise. Companies also found various creative ways to bring relief without sending tangible or in-cash donations. For example, Walt Disney dispatched Disney characters to hurricane shelters, offering “emotional reprieve to [hurricane] victims.”11 Alleviating mental anguish has always been a critical, though often underappreciated, component of a

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CORPORATIONS AND KATRINA comprehensive relief effort.

What made the corporate response such a success? Business Civic Leadership Center thinks it’s because businesses “employed pre-disaster planning and had protocols in place to facilitate involvement; blended cash and product donations and used their core competencies to make a difference; relied on local expertise; built on relationships with trusted nongovernmental organization (NGO) partners and demanded accountability and transparency.”12 Few of these key success factors seem to have been present in the government’s response. But there is another critical issue to consider, more a sweeping change than a single factor: the escalating commitment of U.S. businesses to corporate social responsibility (CSR) truly helped drive the response effort to new heights.

CSR underwent a revival in the early 1990s. Defined as the “practice of improving the workplace and society in ways that go beyond what companies are legally required to do,”13 it made corporations aware of the societal implications of their actions. In a post-Enron era of general corporate mistrust, customers, employees, suppliers, trade unions, governments, communities and other stakeholders demanded greater responsibility from the private sector. And companies listened. For example British Petroleum has significantly reduced its greenhouse gas emissions and reinvented itself under the umbrella of sustainability; General Motors’ launched its Live Green Go Yellow campaign focusing on alternative car fuels; Ikea now requires its rug suppliers in India to prohibit the employment of children; and Timberland allows its employees to take one week off with pay each year to work with local charities.14 Almost every large corporation today has its own foundation or has partnered with a nonprofit to support a social cause. Market indices such as the Dow Jones Sustainability Index today publish lists of socially responsible companies and encourage the ethical investor to buy their stock. Companies are increasingly aware of the implications of their business on communities – and the importance of strong and vital communities to the success of their business.

Companies exercised textbook CSR in the aftermath of the hurricanes. They were critical to the response mix. But the growing

Greater corporate involvement - tempting as it may be since it was done so well - is not the answer.

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AGNES NORVICH visibility and scope of corporate intervention has some experts worried.

Are the lines between public and private management of catastrophe response beginning to blur? Should publicly traded companies stop hemorrhaging their shareholders’ money trying to take on the job that taxpayers expect from the government? The result of increased emphasis on CSR and the ability of businesses to efficiently mobilize a wide range of resources is that companies are poised to take on even more responsibility in future catastrophe response. This is a risky proposition.

THE LIMITATIONS OF CORPORATE RELIEF

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Hurricane Katrina, considered the country’s most devastating natural catastrophe on record, represents a fraction of the worst that could happen. The United States has numerous catastrophe-prone areas. The massive New Madrid fault in the Midwest has the potential to cause devastation in 20 states. Since 1900, earthquakes have occurred in 39 states and caused damage in all 50, according to the Insurance Information Institute. And what’s more disturbing is the fact that the frequency and severity of mega-catastrophes is increasing. Eight of the 10 most expensive disasters in U.S. history occurred within the past four years15 and nine of those 10 were natural disasters (the Sept. 11th terrorist attack being the 10th). With more than half of Americans now living in coastal counties, an increase of 33 million people since 1980, the potential for huge human and financial losses is skyrocketing. According to Brookings Institute, if a Category 5 hurricane were to hit Miami, the estimated damages would reach $155 billion; if a Category 8 earthquake were to strike San Francisco, the estimated damages could reach $200 billion or more.16 Greater corporate involvement – tempting as it may be since it was done so well – is not the answer.

The answer is a public/private partnership. Only the combined resources of both these sectors can handle the job. Consumers should be educated about the risks of living in catastrophe-prone areas. Building and housing codes should be tightened to protect lives and property. Antigouging laws should be enacted so scam artists cannot prey on families at their time of greatest need. Front-line response should be strengthened so that fire fighters, police and civil authorities can mobilize quickly and guard effectively against chaos and collapse in the wake of a catastrophic event. Last but not least, privately funded, government-sponsored

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CORPORATIONS AND KATRINA catastrophe funds should be created to allow America to save in advance for earthquakes, hurricanes and other mega-catastrophes.

While we can’t control the weather, we can – and must – control its impact on our lives and our economy. And while disaster response is critical, what America needs more than anything is to be better prepared. A public/private partnership on catastrophe management is the only answer.

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REFERENCES

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1 Federal Response to Hurricane Katrina: Lessons Learned, February 2006 2 http://www.brookings.edu/comm/policybriefs/pb150.pdf 3 “From Relief to Recovery: The 2005 US Business Response to the Southeast Asia Tsunami and Gulf Coast Hurricanes” Business Civic Leadership Center, http://www.uschamber.com/bclc/programs/disaster_response.htm 4http://www.boston.com/news/weather/articles/2005/09/11/chronology_of_errors_how_a _disaster_spread/?page=2 5 http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2006/03/24/national/main1438713.shtml 6 http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2006/03/24/national/main1438713.shtml 7 http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2006/03/24/national/main1438713.shtml 8 http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2006/03/24/national/main1438713.shtml 9 “From Relief to Recovery: The 2005 US Business Response to the Southeast Asia

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Tsunami and Gulf Coast Hurricanes” Business Civic Leadership Center, http://www.uschamber.com/bclc/programs/disaster_response.htm 10 “From Relief to Recovery: The 2005 US Business Response to the Southeast Asia Tsunami and Gulf Coast Hurricanes” Business Civic Leadership Center, http://www.uschamber.com/bclc/programs/disaster_response.htm 11 “From Relief to Recovery: The 2005 US Business Response to the Southeast Asia Tsunami and Gulf Coast Hurricanes” Business Civic Leadership Center, http://www.uschamber.com/bclc/programs/disaster_response.htm 12 “From Relief to Recovery: The 2005 US Business Response to the Southeast Asia Tsunami and Gulf Coast Hurricanes” Business Civic Leadership Center, http://www.uschamber.com/bclc/programs/disaster_response.htm 13 “The Market for virtue: The Potentials and Limits of Corporate Social Responsibility”

by David Vogel 14 “The Market for virtue: The Potentials and Limits of Corporate Social Responsibility”

by David Vogel 15 http://server.iii.org/yy_obj_data/binary/749407_1_0/Disaster_Risk.pdf 16 http://www.brookings.edu/comm/policybriefs/pb150.pdf

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IN OUR OWN BACKYARD

In Our Own Backyard Philippe R. Girard

Philippe R. Girard is an assistant professor of Caribbean history at McNeese State University (Lake Charles, Louisiana). He obtained his Ph.D. from Ohio University and specializes in Haitian history. He is the author of Clinton in Haiti: The 1994 US Invasion of Haiti (New York: Palgrave MacMillan, 2004) and Paradise Lost: Haiti's Tumultuous Journey from Pearl of the Caribbean to Third World Hot Spot (Palgrave MacMillan, 2005). He is currently working on a monograph on the 18021803 Leclerc-Rochambeau expedition to Saint-Domingue.

Hopes that the end of the Cold War would usher in a “New World Order” (George H. W. Bush) marking the “end of history” (Francis Fukuyama) had been dashed by the early 1990s. The threat of nuclear Armageddon receded; but political, ethnic, and religious conflicts multiplied from the Caribbean to the Balkans to Central and East Africa.

The violent breakup of Yugoslavia led to a Bosnian War that killed 100,000 people and displaced two million between 1992 and 1995. Civil strife and famine killed 200,000 Somalis as their country imploded in 1991. Hutu extremists killed over 800,000 Rwandans, most of them Tutsis, in the spring of 1994.

In Haiti, following President Jean-Bertrand Aristide’s ouster in September 1991, a military junta led by Raoul Cédras targeted Aristide loyalists, killing at least 900 and up to 5,000.1 Human rights abuses were prevalent, though the death toll never reached the horrific heights of the Rwandan genocide or the Somali famine; in fact, more Haitians died as a result of an international embargo created to punish the Cédras junta than at the hands of the junta itself.2 Surprisingly, the intensity of the Clinton administration’s response was inversely proportional to the intensity of each specific crisis. The

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genocide in Rwanda merely elicited timid protests, with administration spokesmen famously refusing to even use the term “genocide.” U.S troops sent to Somalia under Clinton’s predecessor were withdrawn following an October 1993 firefight in Mogadishu that left 18 Rangers and Delta forces dead. The United States preferred to let its European allies respond to the Bosnian crisis until the summer and fall of 1995, when U.S. planes finally bombed Bosnian Serb targets as a prelude to the U.S.-sponsored Dayton Peace accords.

The U.S. response to the Haitian crisis was much more immediate and massive. When Aristide was overthrown in 1991, Bush immediately called for an economic embargo that was intensified under his successor.

Coast Guard cutters and the U.S. base in Guantánamo, Cuba were mobilized to keep Haitian boat people off American soil. Bill Clinton sponsored peace agreements in July 1993, tried to send peacekeepers to Haiti in October of that year, then started planning for war when those peacekeepers were turned away. After a UN resolution authorized the use of force in July 1994, 20,000 U.S. troops and two aircraft carriers were summoned for an invasion plan that included the largest use of paratroopers since Operation Market Garden in World War II.3 The Cédras junta backed down hours before the invasion was scheduled to start, but U.S. troops landed nonetheless and remained in Haiti until 2000. The operation cost the U.S. treasury $2 billion. In all, the international community pledged $3.5 billion in foreign aid for 1994-1997 alone.4 The disconnect between the gravity of each crisis and the strength of the Clinton administration’s response in 1991-1994 is striking.

Objective factors such as the number of human victims could not have helped predict a specific U.S. policy, as the earliest and most forceful measures dealt with the least deadly crisis: Haiti. Emphasizing the United States’ economic and strategic interests in Haiti would be equally unhelpful. U.S. exports to Haiti reached a paltry $200 to 500 million a year in the 1980s and early 1990s.5 The Haitian military—7,600-man strong, poorly trained, under-equipped, and devoid of any powerful patron— presented no strategic threat.6 U.S. policy seems paradoxical if one

A nexus of domestic political pressures from Congress to K Street put pressure on the administration to act in Haiti.

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IN OUR OWN BACKYARD assumes that it was fashioned along idealist or realist lines.

But, as this essay will show, the main factors that convinced Bill Clinton to intervene in the Haitian crisis were of a very different, and highly political, nature. First, domestic repercussions of the refugee crisis put Clinton at odds with his Congressional allies. Second, Aristide cleverly used lobbyists and friends to put pressure on the administration to act.

Third, the United States’ inability to impose its views on a puny neighbor undermined its international credibility.

POLITICS AT THE WATER’S EDGE: THE REFUGEE CRISIS The most visible consequence of Aristide’s overthrow was the exodus of Haitian boat people. From 1991 to 1994, an estimated 50,000 to 150,000 Haitians tried to leave their country; an additional 300,000 Haitians lived in internal exile.7 Haitian emigration itself was not new, but for many years it had been primarily motivated by Haitian poverty. U.S.

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presidents like Ronald Reagan had thus signed agreements with their Haitian counterparts and legally turned away all economic migrants.8 But political repression after 1991 meant that many boat people now had reasonable grounds for seeking political asylum. Under widely accepted international norms, they should thus have been allowed inside the United

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States. Clinton was unwilling to adapt to the new legal environment, however, for he feared that welcoming a flood of Haitian refugees would have adverse political consequences in Florida and elsewhere.9 Obstacles to Haitian immigration thus multiplied from 1991 to 1994. Some Haitians were told to apply for asylum in Haiti itself; others were intercepted at sea and turned away. Still others were sent to Guantánamo, Cuba, for processing. But denying Haitian claims to political asylum was difficult to justify given the Cédras junta’s poor human rights record, and many Democrats—the Congressional Black Caucus in particular—lambasted the U.S. refugee policy as a racist policy aimed at keeping black immigrants out of the country.10 Losing the Black Caucus votes would have eliminated Clinton’s slim majority in Congress and imperiled key items of his domestic agenda such as his health care plan.

The result was a vacillating immigration policy that changed a total of seven times in 1991-1994. Every loosening of immigration rules raised fears that Florida would be swamped with new refugees; every tightening led to renewed accusations of a racist double-standard.

Ultimately, the only solution to this political quandary was a military invasion designed to bring Aristide back to power. Aristide’s return would quench the flood of refugees at its source; it would also make it easier legally to turn away Haitian refugees who could then be labeled as economic migrants, no asylum-seekers. “The use of force,” concluded Richard Feinberg, the Latin American specialist in the National Security Council, was “the only way to get out of a box. Clinton was trapped.

Politically, he could not send the immigrants back, and he could not accept them either.”11

Contrary to established stereotypes about U.S. imperialism over its Caribbean clients, Aristide was more often the puppeteer than the puppet from 1991 to 1994.

EMPIRE BY INVITATION: ARISTIDE AND U.S. POLICY The United States’ historical role in the Caribbean has often been hegemonic, as nationalist leaders who stood up to U.S. domination were

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IN OUR OWN BACKYARD overthrown and replaced with submissive leaders more attentive to U.S. advice. The 1991-1994 crisis, however, did not fit this pattern. Junta leader Raoul Cédras was a conservative officer trained in the United States, and could have been expected to be a close match for U.S. interests in the region. But the United States supported president-in-exile Jean-Bertrand Aristide, a leftist populist prone to denounce Yankee imperialism in his many books.12 Despite his strong misgivings about past U.S. policies in Haiti, Aristide quickly realized that U.S. diplomatic and military help would be essential if he ever was to return to as president of Haiti. In 1991-1992, Aristide spent fruitless months appealing to the Organization of American States, the United Nations, and France, only to receive non-binding promises of assistance.13 Aristide thus swallowed his pride, moved to a Georgetown apartment near Washington’s centers of power, and abandoned his anti-American rhetoric in favor of pro-democratic platitudes.14 He garnered influential friends, including Hollywood liberals who shared his political agenda and Black Caucus members who felt a sense of racial kinship with Haitians.15 He also gained access to $53 million in Haitian government funds held in U.S. banks which the U.S. government had frozen after the 1991 coup.16 These and other monies allowed Aristide to hire prominent lawyers such as Michael Barnes, Burton V. Wides, and Ira Kurzban who lobbied their administration contacts on his behalf.17 Aristide used this privileged access to insist on an economic embargo in a vain hope that it would convince Cédras to relinquish power; but Cédras was not moved by his starving people’s plight. By 1994, with only eighteen months to go in his scheduled five-year term, Aristide concluded that nothing short of the use of U.S. military force would be sufficient to bring him back to the presidential palace, and he made a series of speeches asking his reluctant ally to plan “a surgical action” and “swift and determined action” along the lines of the 1989 invasion of Panama.18 His words could easily have been construed as treasonous; but it saved Aristide’s imperiled political future and helped convince the administration to intervene.19 Contrary to established stereotypes about U.S. imperialism and its Caribbean clients, Aristide was more often the puppeteer than the puppet from 1991 to 1994.

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PHILIPPE R. GIRARD PAPER TIGER: REASSERTING U.S. CREDIBILITY

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Given the United States’ reputation as the leading power in its Caribbean sphere of influence, Clinton’s inability to solve the Haitian crisis was particularly vexing. The economic embargo was put in place in early 1991 under Bush, then tightened under Clinton. It remained in place with a short hiatus until 1994, but embarrassingly failed to sway the Cédras junta.

In July 1993, Clinton threw his country’s considerable diplomatic weight into negotiations aimed at bringing Aristide back to power. In exchange for a promise of immunity, Cédras promised that he would allow Aristide to return the following fall. The so-called Governors’ Island agreement initially looked like a U.S. diplomatic triumph. But in October 1993, as the U.S.S. Harlan County sailed to Port-au-Prince with a contingent of peacekeepers charged with preparing the ground for Aristide’s return, pro-Cédras paramilitaries lined up on the dock, chanted anti-American slogans, and refused to let the U.S. troops land.

The men were little more than a mob armed with machetes; but, singed by the firefight in Mogadishu a few days earlier, Clinton ordered the Harlan County home rather than risk U.S. casualties. The event, broadcast on the nightly news worldwide, was rightly construed as a national humiliation. Senator Tom Harkin reflected his countrymen’s mood when he concluded after the standoff that “the mightiest nation on Earth, one that just beat Saddam Hussein, being faced down by a rag-tag element of no more than 100 drug traffickers, smugglers, and murderers, and turned around and tucked our tail and ran…. If we cannot support duly elected democratic governments 800 miles from our shores, again what kind of message will we send to potential coup leaders?”20 Aware that Cédras’ continuing audacity was eroding his and his country’s credibility, Clinton announced on 2 May 1994 that the use of force was now an option. This veiled threat was designed to sway Cédras,

Given the United States' reputation as the leading power in its Caribbean sphere of influence, Clinton's inability to solve the Haitian crisis was particularly vexing.

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IN OUR OWN BACKYARD but it had no discernable impact in Haiti, so the U.S. military made public its elaborate plans to invade Haiti and invited the press to a series of maneuvers. Again, Cédras remained unimpressed. Even from July to September 1994, when the United Nations authorized the use of force and Clinton formally announced that he was on the verge of invading Haiti in a televised address to the nation, Cédras refused to budge. Instead, he ordered his army and militia to conduct drills and announced his intention to “defend ourselves until death.”21 By 19 September 1994, after six months of ineffective saber rattling, Clinton was now forced to make good on his threats or look hopelessly weak. The United States’ limited interests in Haiti were not the matter at stake; the country’s worldwide credibility as a superpower was now imperiled. “Haiti,” National Security Adviser Anthony Lake declared, “will send a message far beyond our region—to all those who seriously threaten our interests.”22 Only then, with the planes in the air and the first paratroopers due to land within minutes, did Cédras agree to a last-minute agreement brokered by former President Jimmy Carter. U.S. troops landed peacefully, Cédras left for a Panamanian exile, and Aristide returned to Haiti on 15 October 1994.

CONCLUSION: ONLY IN OUR BACKYARD In the end, Haiti’s proximity to the shores of the United States, more than the intrinsic nature of the events that unfolded there, shaped Clinton’s response to this crisis. In nominal terms, the human toll was much more disastrous in Rwanda; the need for nation-building was much greater in Somalia; U.S. strategic interests were much more significant in Bosnia. But what set Haiti apart in many administration speeches was, as Clinton explained in February 1993, that it was “in our backyard.” Similar terms peppered his speeches.23 On a practical level, Haiti’s proximity meant that the logistical and military aspects of the invasion could easily be solved, but geography had profound political implications as well. Because Haiti was so close, the aftershocks of each army massacre in Haiti were reflected in a new wave of boat people approaching the shores of Florida. Because Haiti was so close, Aristide was able to tap into a network of sympathizers and lobbyists such as the Black Caucus that was more extensive than the Tutsis or Bosnian Muslims could ever muster. Because Haiti was so close, the U.S.

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PHILIPPE R. GIRARD inability to impose its views in its neighborhood immediately led to insulting suggestions that the American superpower was weak-kneed. The Haitian example showed that an administration’s response to a crisis cannot be correlated to the gravity of the crisis overseas in terms of lives lost and interests imperiled; rather, it is devised based on the domestic perception of the foreign crisis. A product of media coverage, political interests, lobbying and geographic proximity, this perception can be at odds with a more clinical assessment of the facts and lead to unexpected policy responses.

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IN OUR OWN BACKYARD REFERENCES 1 Commission Nationale de Vérité et de Justice, Si M Pa Rele (1996; reprint, Port-auPrince: Ministry of Justice, 1997).

2 G. Berggren et al. Sanctions in Haiti: Crisis in Humanitarian Action Working Paper No. 93.07 (Harvard U. Center for Population and Development Studies: November 1993).

3 Philippe Girard, Clinton in Haiti: The 1994 U.S. Invasion of Haiti (New York: Palgrave MacMillan, 2004), 1-8, 103-120.

4 World Bank, Haiti: External Financing (December 1997), 1, microenterprise collection, USAID library, Port-au-Prince.

5 U.S. Bureau of the Census’ web site at www.census.gov/foreign-trade.

6 Colin L. Powell and Joseph E. Persico, My American Journey (New York: Random House, 1995), 544, Col. David H. Hackworth, “A Soldier’s-Eye View,” Newsweek (22 August 1994): 33, Hackworth with Tom Mathews, Hazardous Duty: America’s Most Decorated Living Soldier Reports from the Front and Tells it the Way it is (New York: William Morrow, 1996), 229-230.

7 Hérold Jean-François, Le coup de Cédras (Port-au-Prince: L’Imprimeur II, 1995), 451, 463, Clinton, “U.S. Interests in Haiti,” U.S. Department of State Dispatch, vol. 5, no. 38 (19 September 1994), 606.

8 Proclamation 4865 and Executive Order 12324 (29 September 1981), National Security Decision Directive 220 (2 April 1986), NLS-NSC-NSDD-220, Ronald Reagan Library.

9 Dick Morris, Behind the Oval Office: Getting Reelected Against All Odds (Los Angeles: Renaissance Books, 1999), 4-6. See also Morris, The New Prince: Machiavelli Updated for the Twenty-First Century (Los Angeles: Renaissance Books, 1999), 165-166 10 US Human Rights Policy Towards Haiti, Hearing before the Legislation and National Security Subcommittee of the Committee on Government Operations, House of Representatives, 9 April 1992 (Washington: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1993), 4, US Policy toward Haiti, Hearing before the Subcommittee on Western Hemispheric Affairs, Committee on Foreign Relations, U.S. Senate, 8 March 1994 (Washington: USGPO, 1994), 16, US Policy toward Haiti, Hearing before the SWHA, CFR, USS, 8 March 1994 (Washington: USGPO, 1994), 5, 9.

11 Richard E. Feinberg telephone interview with the author (10 December 2001).

12 Aristide, In the Parish of the Poor (New York: Orbis Books, 1993), 59, Pierre Mouterde and Christophe Wargny, Apre bal, tanbou lou: cinq ans de duplicité américaine en Haïti, 1991-1996 (Paris: Austral, 1996), 63, Aristide and Wargny, Jean-Bertrand Aristide: A n Autobiography (New York: Orbis Books, 1993), 67, 47, 56, 76, 87, 116, 123, Aristide, Dignity (Charlottesville: U. Press of Virginia, 1996), 49, 56, 61, 79.

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13 Organization of American States, “Apoyo al gobierno democratico de Haiti” (30 September 1991), CP/RES 567 (870/91), “Informe del secretario general a la reunion ad hoc de ministros de relaciones exteriores sobre Haiti” (14 May 1992), OEA/Serv. F/V.1 MRE/Doc.4/92, “Acta de la séptima sesión,” 16 (6 June 1994), OEA/Ser. F/V. 1 MRE/ ACTA 7/94, “Promotion of Democracy” (10 June 1994), AG/RES. 1280/XXIV/94, Organization of American States Archives, Washington, DC, “Haïti: la France n’est pas disposée à participer à une intervention militaire,” Le Monde (14 May 1994): 5, “President Aristide to Secretary-General Boutros-Ghali” (3 June 1992), UN Doc. S/24340 (22 July 1992), 4-5, United Nations Archives, New York.

14 “I Am President of Haiti,” Time (14 October 1991): 36, “It’s not if I Go Back, but When,” Time (1 November 1993): 28, Haiti: The Agreement of Governor’s Island and its Implementation, Hearing before the SWHA, CFA, HR, 21 July 1993 (Washington: USGPO, 1993), 37.

15 Tim Robbins and Susan Sarandon, “Our 23 Seconds at the Oscars,” L A Times (5 April 1993): F3, US Human Rights Policy Towards Haiti, Hearing before the Legislation and National Security Subcommittee of the Committee on Government Operations, HR, 9 April 1992 (Washington: USGPO, 1993), 57.

16 George Bush, Message to the Congress Reporting on Economic Sanctions against Haiti (7 April 1992), http://bushlibrary.tamu.edu/papers/1992/92040703.html, “Scandale financier,” Haïti Observateur (24 November 1993): 7.

17 Folder “Hogan and Hartson (#2244),” folder “Arent Fox (#2661),” folder “Kurzban and Kurzban (#4604),” Foreign Agents Registration Archives, Washington, DC. 18 Howard W. French, “Doubting Sanctions, Aristide Urges US Action on Haiti,” New York Times (3 June 1994): A3, “Pdt. Aristide’s Address to TransAfrica’s 13th Annual Foreign Policy Conference” (3 June 1994), blue folder, box 320.04 SIT, Collège St. Martial library, Port-au-Prince, “Acta de la séptima sesión,” 5, 6 June 1994, OEA/Ser. F/V. 1 MRE/ ACTA 7/94, OAS archives.

19 Anthony Lake, Six Nightmares: Real Threats in a Dangerous World and How America can Meet Them (New York: Little Brown, 2000), 133, Richard E. Feinberg telephone interview with the author (10 December 2001).

20 U.S. Policy toward Haiti, Hearing before the SWHA, CFR, USS, 8 March 1994 (Washington: USGPO, 1994), 10, 12.

21 Interviewed in “Eye to Eye with Connie Chung,” CBS News (15 September 1994).

22 Quoted in Doyle McManus, “Clinton’s Call to Arms Based on Credibility,” L A Times (16 September 1994): A1, Fred Barnes, “Oh, All Right Then,” New Republic (10 October 1994): 12.

23 Public Papers of the Presidents of the United States: William J. Clinton vol. 1 (Washington: USGPO, 1993), 56, 162, ibid., vol. 1 (1994), 954, ibid., vol. 2 (1994), 1549, 1560.

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WOMEN’S RIGHTS AS HUMAN RIGHTS

Women’s Rights as Human Rights: The United States’ Reluctance to Ratify the International Bill of Rights for Women Jennifer Manne A graduate of Northwestern University, Jennifer Manne is currently a Fulbright Grantee in South Korea conducting research about mandatory STD testing for sex workers in U.S. military camptowns. This coming fall she will begin a Masters program at Harvard University School of Public Health in the department of Population and International Health. She would like to express her appreciation to Professors Mark Bradley and Carl Smith for their assistance with this article.

Why is the United States particularly reluctant to ratify major international treaties that bind countries to uphold human rights while claiming to be the world’s champion for these rights? Unlike many of its closest allies in Western Europe and much of the non-Western world, the United States since the mid-1950s has been exceedingly slow to ratify many of the most important international human rights conventions and covenants. The United States for example first signed the Genocide Convention in 1948 but did not officially ratify it until four decades later; similarly, although every other member state in the United Nations (UN) has ratified the Convention on the Rights of the Child, the United States still fails to even engage in a serious debate about the merits of this treaty.

In some cases, the United States is in the company of such rogue nations as Syria, North Korea, and Iran in its refusal to support these human rights instruments.

Beyond the failure of the United States to ratify the Genocide Convention, the existing scholarship on the American relationship to international human rights law is underdeveloped.1 In this essay, I examine the opposition to the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW) in order to illuminate the larger factors shaping America’s problematic relationship with international human rights treaties.

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CEDAW is often referred to as the “international bill of rights for women.” This major UN human rights convention consists of thirty articles that “protect the right of women to enjoy fundamental human rights on an equal basis with men.”2 CEDAW defines gender discrimination in both public and private life and suggests methods for improving the status of women in areas as diverse as healthcare, prostitution, the role of women in the family and equality in the workforce. The UN Commission on the Status of Women (CSW) began drafting the UN Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women in 1975, and the General Assembly adopted a final version of the treaty in 1979. The monitoring mechanism used to enforce CEDAW requires that states party to the treaty submit a monitoring report during the first year after ratification and every four years following the first report. Ratifying nations are also expected to implement policies that foster gender equality in areas where the monitoring reports show that it is lacking.

In 1980 President Jimmy Carter signed CEDAW on behalf of the United States, but the Reagan Administration ignored the Convention until 1988, when Senator John Kerry presided over the first congressional hearing on the treaty.3 In 1990, 1994 and 2002, the Committee on Foreign Relations again held hearings on CEDAW.4 Two of these hearings led to the approval of the treaty by the Committee, but the full Senate has never ratified it.

The failure of the United States to ratify CEDAW is due to a complex dynamic of American concerns surrounding international law and domestic politics. Three singular characteristics of American human rights policy – fear, reluctance, and unilateralism – figured significantly in the CEDAW debates. After briefly framing the historical, legal and structural issues that affect ratification, this essay focuses on the domestic debates over CEDAW in the United States. Exploring the domestic politics that have prevented the United States from ratifying CEDAW reveals the ways in which a socially conservative agenda on women’s issues has shaped the contours of the CEDAW ratification debates and the nature of American

The failure of the United States to ratify CEDAW results from concerns surrounding international law and domestic political controversy.

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WOMEN’S RIGHTS AS HUMAN RIGHTS leadership, both real and perceived, in global human rights politics.

EXCEPTIONALISM AND INTERNATIONAL HUMAN RIGHTS In an apparent paradox, most American policymakers believe that the United States leads the international community in the advancement of human rights while maintaining an “exceptionalist” status outside of that community. Through both rhetoric and policy, many American policymakers promote the notion domestically and internationally that the United States willingly assumes the role of a global leader in international human rights and regards this commitment as a priority when constructing foreign policy. These policymakers simultaneously undermine this role by frequently failing to fulfill the responsibilities that a leadership position necessitates, including participating in international organizations, honoring international law, providing resources and support for humanitarian interventions, and ratifying and complying with international treaties. The justification they offer is that America is somehow morally superior to other nations and thus must follow its own noble purposes.5 The use of “country reports” provides one illustration of the “exceptionalist” attitude of the United States with respect to international human rights. Created by the Carter administration, these annual reports rate other countries’ compliance with international human rights norms.

While these reports may be a pragmatic way for the United States to include human rights standards in its foreign policy, the fact that America is critiquing the domestic affairs of other nations reflects the United States’ self-image as a moral arbiter on these issues.

Similarly, the United States’ failure to ratify CEDAW and other major human rights conventions creates a puzzling inconsistency between the self-perception of the United States as an exemplary leader on international human rights issues and actual U.S. human rights policy.

Despite all the controversies surrounding it, the fact that the United States still refuses to ratify CEDAW raises many questions about the U.S. commitment to women’s rights as a human rights issue. When placed in the context of US human rights policy, the American response to CEDAW provides a lens with which to probe the reality behind America’s selfimage as the global leader on international human rights issues.

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JENNIFER MANNE RATIFICATION AND ITS DOMESTIC LEGAL RAMIFICATIONS

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The complexity and uncertainty of international treaty ratification contribute to the United States’ failure to ratify CEDAW. While the length and difficulty of the ratification process presents a clear obstacle to ratification, uncertainty about the exact impact of an international treaty on United States domestic law further prolongs the process. This gives rise to many hypothetical concerns about the treaty among policymakers and creates a general hesitance among American officials to ratify.

American policymakers and citizens frequently misunderstand the domestic legal implications of treaty ratification. The principle of selfexecution in United States law often leads to confusions about the ability of a treaty to alter existing federal or state law once ratified.6 Historical precedent suggests that like most other human rights conventions, CEDAW would be non-self-executing. In the case of CEDAW, the United States government specifically proposed a legal addendum in the form of a declaration that identifies CEDAW as a non-self-executing treaty.

Despite these legal realities, many senators, government officials, and political activists nonetheless fear that CEDAW ratification could lead to immediate radical changes ranging from the legalization of prostitution to state-sponsored abortion.

Though ratification cannot by itself alter U.S. law, the fear that CEDAW may have an indirect or long-term impact on domestic law is in fact a realistic one. As a non-self-executing treaty, CEDAW would not become a part of domestic law upon ratification, but it would establish norms that may be used to further specify general concepts in the U.S. Constitution.7 Frequently, language contained in treaties such as CEDAW influences judicial interpretations of existing U.S. laws.8 In order to safeguard against any unforeseen consequences for domestic law that could arise from the treaty, the United States has drafted numerous reservations, understandings and declarations that clarify its own interpretation of the CEDAW text in areas where the treaty’s language is vague. These nine proposed legal addenda include four reservations, three understandings and two declarations that address many issues of deep concern to CEDAW opponents.

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WOMEN’S RIGHTS AS HUMAN RIGHTS CEDAW AND THE STATUS OF WOMEN Despite these reservations and limitations, CEDAW has continued to attract considerable opposition in the United States and remains unratified today. The fears that emerge in the arguments by CEDAW’s opponents reveal the powerful ways in which domestic politics shapes American engagement with CEDAW and the global human rights agenda.

CEDAW opponents most often employ two contradictory arguments regarding the treaty’s potential effect on domestic law. The first of these arguments raises concerns about the long-term effects of ratification on American laws. A second point of contention among CEDAW opponents is that the treaty will not eliminate gender discrimination in the United States.

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The “Helms Understanding” attached to CEDAW provides an excellent case for examining a curious paradox: policymakers draft specific legal addenda to protect existing United States domestic law and yet continue to claim that a treaty poses a radical threat to American law.

The “Helms Understanding” states that “the United States understands that Article XII permits states party to the treaty to determine which health care services are appropriate in connection with family planning, pregnancy, confinement and the post-natal period, as well as when the provision of free services is necessary and does not mandate the provision of particular services on a cost-free basis.”9 Considering that Senator Helms actually drafted this understanding, it seems impossible that he or his fellow CEDAW opponents would interpret this clause as imposing an obligation on the United States to fund abortion, birth control, or other health services for women should the Senate ratify CEDAW. Despite these clear indications of CEDAW’s inability to directly affect abortion laws in the

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JENNIFER MANNE United States, Helms and his supporters continually portray CEDAW as a likely catalyst for the expansion of legalized abortion in the United States, leaving some puzzling questions about the actual intentions of some CEDAW opponents.

CEDAW opponents also argue that the treaty will not advance the status of women in the United States. However, they undermine the sincerity of this argument by claiming that CEDAW could radically alter United States law on issues such as abortion and gay rights. These contradictory arguments are based on a significant but puzzling perception of the domestic implications of U.S. ratification on the part of CEDAW opponents. As Harold Hongju Koh, the former Assistant Secretary of State for Human Rights during the Clinton Administration and longtime CEDAW supporter has argued: “On the one hand they are saying this convention does not do anything at all. It is nothing. On the other hand, they are saying it would have this sweeping effect and force a radical change in our society.”10 CEDAW AND THE SOCIAL CONSERVATIVES 54

Domestic arguments against CEDAW focus on five major areas of particular interest to those who ascribe to a socially conservative agenda: abortion, prostitution, gay and lesbian rights, the rights of women within the family and the status of women in the economy. Although gay and lesbian rights and abortion are the only particularly visible gender-related political controversies in American society, the CEDAW debates provoked equally intense controversy over all five areas of concern. This article will examine the arguments surrounding abortion and gay and lesbian rights in order to briefly demonstrate the complexity of such controversy.

The CEDAW text does not directly address abortion, let alone its moral underpinnings or potential government support; even so, those who oppose CEDAW ratification interpret Articles XII and XVI as encouraging abortion. They even claim that these articles require ratifying states to provide this service to all women for free.11 Article XII of CEDAW requires that states “take appropriate measures” to eliminate discrimination against women in the field of health care by providing equal access to health services “including those related to family planning.” Article XVI states that:

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WOMEN’S RIGHTS AS HUMAN RIGHTS States Parties shall take all appropriate measures to eliminate discrimination against women in all matters relating to marriage and family relations and in particular shall ensure, on a basis of equality of men and women: e) The same rights to decide freely and responsibly on the number and spacing of their children and to have access to the information, education and means to enable them to exercise these rights

The term “abortion” does not appear in the text of either article.

Most policymakers recognize that both abortion and birth control fall under the category of family planning services. But while these clauses can be interpreted as a reference to abortion, they clearly do not require that a nation provide free abortion for its female citizens.

The CEDAW Committee clarified Article XII in its 1999 General Commentary on CEDAW, arguing that “other barriers to women’s access to appropriate health care include laws that criminalize medical procedures only needed by women and mandate punishment for women who undergo those procedures.”12 This clarification of the CEDAW text specified that Article XII encourages states to decriminalize medical procedures for women, presumably including abortion. The recommendation goes on to state that “…if health service providers refuse to perform such services based on conscientious objection, measures should be introduced to ensure that women are referred to alternative health providers.” These recommendations do not instruct states to fund abortions but instead suggest that the state should not prevent women from receiving necessary medical procedures. Several nations that ratified CEDAW and participate regularly in the CEDAW monitoring process, including Ireland and Burkina Faso, maintain laws that prohibit abortion. The CEDAW Committee has never mandated that these nations repeal their laws.

Fears of CEDAW opponents regarding abortion in the United States focus on two aspects of extant law. First, they say that CEDAW would support legalized abortion and thus undermine the pro-life movement’s efforts to outlaw this practice in the United States. Second, they argue that CEDAW would require the U.S. government to support the cost of abortions to women as part of “equality in healthcare.” Though ratification of CEDAW could not mandate government-funded abortion in the United States without additional Congressional legislation, conservative opposition groups fear that this would inevitably follow ratification. These opponents claim that CEDAW ratification would lead

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directly to the expansion of abortion in the United States.

Statements by conservative policymakers, think tanks and journalists clearly indicate that CEDAW opposition groups believe that ratification would affect U.S. abortion laws. In the 2002 Senate Foreign Relations Committee hearing on CEDAW, Katherine Balmforth, the former director of the World Policy Institute, states that “the [CEDAW] committee routinely instructs countries to liberalize their abortion laws.

They have issued an interpretive document which coyly states that Article XII of CEDAW prohibits criminalization ‘of medical procedures only needed by women.’”13 In 1994 Cecilia Royals of the National Institute of Womanhood testified that Article XVI(e) of CEDAW “seeks to establish an international right to abortion.”14 In a commentary from the Chicago SunTimes, Thomas Roeser wrote that “because the treaty obliges nations to legalize abortion as a woman’s right, if the Senate passes a partial-birth abortion ban as the House has done, these actions could well be adjudged by the treaty as null and void.”15 The perception that CEDAW ratification would weaken the pro-life movement has become more influential since the treaty was first formulated. In 1978 the Director of International Women’s Programs at the U.S. Department of State reviewed a preliminary UN Draft of CEDAW. Though reproductive rights were included in this version of the CEDAW text, the Director’s report does not interpret any clause as endorsing abortion. It was only in 1994 that Ellen Smith of Concerned Women for America stated that Article XVI “could quite reasonably be construed to mandate public financing of abortion on demand without restrictions.”16 The conservative anti-abortion activist Phyllis Schlafly also prepared a statement for the 1994 hearing that cited Article XVI(e) as an “abortion-on-demand” clause. In the 2002 hearing and the media coverage of this event, CEDAW opponents regularly cited expanded abortion laws as a plausible consequence of ratification.

Conservative opponents of CEDAW also claim that the treaty encourages “lesbianism” and could require the United States to legalize

There is a contradictory fear that CEDAW will both fail to eliminate U.S. gender discrimination and radically alter American law in this area.

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WOMEN’S RIGHTS AS HUMAN RIGHTS gay marriage. The belief that CEDAW promotes gay marriage does not result from any clause in the text of CEDAW but rather from recommendations the CEDAW Committee made in response to several monitoring reports. Specifically, the CEDAW Committee recommended to Kyrgyzstan in 1999 that “lesbianism be reconceptualized as a sexual orientation and that penalties for its practice be abolished.”17 During the 2002 hearing, Katherine Balmforth stated in her testimony, “The committee has instructed Kyrgyzstan to legalize lesbianism.” Senator Joseph Biden responded to this claim by noting that decriminalization does not mean legalization. Biden said, “You decriminalize something, you say you do not go to jail for it…All that calls for is what the American Constitution says about lesbianism…We have not legalized being a lesbian in a way that we have affirmatively passed legislation saying, by the way, to be a lesbian is a good thing…We have said, the fact that you may be a lesbian does not allow this country or any State to lock you up in jail.”18 While Senator Biden’s response to Ms. Balmforth seemed to clarify this misconception of CEDAW, opponents still claim that CEDAW would encourage or mandate the practice of gay marriage. Some conservatives may truly be misinformed or lack an understanding of the power of CEDAW to alter international law, but it seems more likely that many of them exaggerate the consequences of passing CEDAW in order to guarantee CEDAW’s failure and provide an opportunity for them to draw attention to their social agenda. The usefulness of such propaganda to ensure the treaty’s defeat is evident in several media commentaries. For instance, in an article titled “CEDAW means Cede Law,” the well-known conservative columnist David Limbaugh said, “Does irrespective of marital status mean lesbian relationships must be elevated to marital status or am I reading too much into this? Well, we needn’t speculate, because we already have real life interpretations of the treaty’s provisions.”19 Controversy regarding CEDAW ratification involves a wide range of gender discrimination issues that address both the social and economic equality of women. Because several of these issues, namely abortion and gay rights, are among the most contested topics in contemporary American politics, the United States’ reluctance to ratify this treaty may be understandable. However, it is important to remember that nearly all members of the UN have successfully ratified CEDAW, including both Western democracies that ascribe to cultural and societal traditions similar to those of the United States as well as Islamic nations that often enforce

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JENNIFER MANNE sharp gender distinctions and do not readily embrace social change or foreign customs. Thus, America’s failure to ratify CEDAW is curious as well as potentially damaging to its international authority in both human rights in general and women’s rights in particular.

AMERICA, LEADING WITHOUT RATIFICATION

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Many CEDAW supporters believe that the United States’ failure to ratify CEDAW demonstrates an unwillingness to participate in global efforts to codify human rights law and thus undermines the leadership role of the United States in the international community. In response to such arguments, some policymakers such as Ambassador Jean Kirkpatrick, the U.S. Ambassador to the UN under President Reagan, argue that each nation has the right to choose which treaties it will ratify and that this decision does not change the fact that the United States acts as an example to the international community through its observance of human rights domestically In addition, many opponents of international treaties such as CEDAW claim that while many nations will ratify a treaty, few actually observe its principles.20 While the United States may take the principles of these treaties more seriously than other nations, the lack of formal commitment to international human rights law calls into question American leadership in the international community.

Even though ratifying international agreements will not automatically make a country a leader in international human rights, the choice of the United States not to ratify these treaties makes such leadership difficult, if not impossible. Ambassador Linda Tarr-Whelan, the US representative to the UN Commission on the Status of Women (CSW) during the second Clinton Administration, observed an increasing resentment toward the United States at the CSW, particularly because of the United States’ failure to ratify CEDAW.21 The leadership of former First Lady Hillary Rodham Clinton and Secretary of State Madeline Albright in UN gender equality initiatives, like the Beijing Fourth World

We cannot be an international leader on gender equality without a more consistent commitment to international legal institutions.

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WOMEN’S RIGHTS AS HUMAN RIGHTS Conference on Women, complicated the reaction to United States policy.

Nevertheless, Tarr-Whelan argues that the United States’ failure to participate fully by ratifying the central convention on gender equality did not go unnoticed.

The United States’ failure to ratify CEDAW is unfortunately not surprising in many respects. International fears, domestic consequences of treaty ratification and the uncertainty of how international law and domestic law may conflict have created an unfortunate pattern in dealing with human rights. Even a compelling issue such as genocide cannot seem to penetrate the entrenched fears of international law. Unfortunately, there is no sure method to counteract such inaction or to reverse the trend of American “exceptionalism” on human rights issues. The most promising way for the system to change would be for the American public to become actively aware and involved with policymaking decisions.

The United States may provide American women with unparalleled opportunities, but it cannot maintain a role as an international leader on gender equality and human rights issues without a more consistent commitment to the formal, legal institutions that govern the international community. The United States cannot lead an international community that it is not a part of. Ultimately, it cannot be a model for the international community if it does not agree, both in principle and in practice, to the standards of human rights that it exemplifies so well.

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REFERENCES 1 Power, Samantha. 2002. “A Problem from Hell”: America and the Age of Genocide.

New York, NY: Basic Books.

2 Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women.1991.

Washington, DC ed. Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office.

3 This hearing was held by the Senate Foreign Relations Subcommittee on Terrorism, Narcotics, and International Operations 4 I make reference to the hearings from 1988 and 1990 less often than the testimony from 1994 or 2002 because the former hearings did not include any testimony against CEDAW

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while the latter hearings included testimony both for and against it.

5 For a recent discussion of these issues, see American Exceptionalism and Human Rights, edited by Michael Ignatieff (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2005) 6 For one relevant example in the human rights realm, see the discussion of United States opposition to the Genocide Convention in the 1950s see Eyes off the Prize: The United Nations and the African American Struggle for Human Rights, 1945-1955 by Anderson, Carol (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2003).

7 Trimble, Phillip R. 2002. International Law: United States Foreign Relations Law. New York, N.Y.: Foundation Press (p. 177).

8 Trimble, 177 9 This text was taken from the webpage titled “Appendix 3: Reservations, Understandings and Declarations at http://www.womenstreaty.org 10 2002 Senate Committee on Foreign Relations Hearing Transcript, p. 64 11 CEDAW treaty text 12 CEDAW Committee General Recommendation No. 24, p.14 13 2002 Senate Committee on Foreign Relations Hearing Transcript, p. 41 14 Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women (Ex. R, 96-2). Senate Committee on Foreign Relations Hearing, 1995. Washington, DC ed.

Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office.

15 Roeser, Thomas. 2002. Feminists Wrong on “Rights’ Treaty”. Chicago Sun-Times Editorial, August 17, 2002:14.

16 1994 Senate Committee on Foreign Relations Hearing Transcript, p. 34 17 2002 Senate Committee on Foreign Relations Hearing Transcript, p.88 18 2002 Senate Committee on Foreign Relations Hearing Transcript, p. 29 19 Limbaugh’s reference to “real life interpretations” refers to the committee recommendation to decriminalize being a lesbian.

Limbaugh, David. 2002. “CEDAW means ‘Cede Law’.”Human Events Vol. 58, no. 36.

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WOMEN’S RIGHTS AS HUMAN RIGHTS 20 Interview with Ambassador Jeane Kirkpatrick, December 2003 21 Interview with Ambassador Linda Tarr-Whelan, August 2003

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Lessons from Crisis Case Studies Bob Roemer Bob Roemer is an adjunct lecturer teaching crisis management in the Integrated Marketing Communications graduate program at Northwestern University's Medill School of Journalism. He has 20 years of public relations and crisis response experience in the oil and chemical industry. This article is an excerpt from his new book, When the Balloon Goes Up: The Communicator's Guide to Crisis Response, written for public relations and communication professionals.

62 Students in the Crisis Response Practicum in Northwestern University’s Integrated Marketing Communications (IMC) graduate program are required to analyze a crisis and present their findings to their colleagues.

Over the past seven years they have researched more than 100 crises and, as you might imagine, have identified some similarities that shed light on why organizations succeed or fail in crisis response. Here are some of their findings.

EVENT VS. BEHAVIOR In many cases, an organization’s response to an event can shape public opinion even more than the event itself.

In the wake of Hurricane Katrina, the focus of media coverage quickly shifted from rescue and recovery operations to the government’s slow response to the disaster. Basing their opinions primarily on that coverage, most of which was critical of the response efforts, two in three Americans (67 percent) believed that President Bush could have done more to speed up those efforts. About half of those surveyed (51 percent)

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LESSONS FROM CRISIS CASE STUDIES were also critical of the response by state and local governments in Louisiana and Mississippi. They formed those opinions in less than one week after the storm. 1 When Swissair Flight 111 crashed off the Nova Scotia coast en route from New York to Geneva, Switzerland, in 1998, the airline was given high marks for its attentiveness to the needs of the passengers’ families, its willingness to communicate the actions it was taking to support the families and its cooperation with Canadian and United States authorities. Two years earlier, when TWA Flight 800 crashed into the Atlantic Ocean shortly after take-off from Kennedy Airport in New York City, the airline was widely criticized for not providing sufficient information and support to the families of the passengers. Media reports about the Swissair crash favorably compared the company’s response to that of TWA, emphasizing Swissair’s open and compassionate public response. 2 MOST CRISES ARE PREDICTABLE Although hindsight is usually 20/20, more than three-quarters of the crises IMC students analyzed could have been predicted based on the organization’s business or sector.

That’s not to say that crisis planning and preparation should focus solely on those scenarios that are common to your industry, but it is a good starting point. Given its business, TWA should have been better prepared to effectively respond to a crash of one its aircraft.

In addition to being predictable, most of the crises analyzed had warnings of impending trouble that, in many cases, were dismissed or ignored. Companies failed to heed these warnings for two main reasons: 1) Corporate culture was reluctant to bear bad news; and 2) Employees were neither trained nor expected to recognize the indications of trouble.

Consider the following examples: Three years before Ford announced a massive recall in the United States involving the Explorer sport utility vehicles equipped with Firestone

In many cases, an organization's response to an event can shape public opinion even more than the event itself.

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BOB ROEMER Wilderness A/T tires, officials at the company were aware of a growing number of fatal accidents due to tire tread separation on the popular SUVs in Venezuela and Saudi Arabia. Within three years the problem spread to 16 countries. 3 In 1985, Boston’s Cardinal Bernard Law was a sponsor of a study for the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops on the nature and scope of clergy engaging in pedophilia. The report was “laced with clear and dire warnings – often in capital letters – about the incorrigible nature of priests who sexually molest youths.” The bishops essentially ignored the report.

Seventeen years later, Law was accused of covering up the very same behavior that rocked the American Catholic Church. He subsequently resigned. 4 The New York Times senior editors Howell Raines and Gerald Boyd received repeated warnings from supervisors about the questionable reporting and unprofessional behavior of reporter Jayson Blair for more than a year. The scandal involving Blair damaged the venerable newspaper’s reputation and cost the two editors their jobs. 5 64

LITIGATION IS NOT ALWAYS THE BIGGEST COST OF A CRISIS There is no question that liability, damage awards, settlements and associated legal fees resulting from a crisis can be staggering. However, the costs of an inept response to a crisis and the impact of a damaged reputation can equal, and in many cases exceed, those stemming from litigation. Compared against a reported $590 million legal set-aside, the Firestone tire recall cost Ford Motor Company $209 million to halt production during the third quarter of 2000 to make additional replacement tires available, $30 million in administrative costs and $2.1 billion to fund an additional, unilateral tire recall announced in May 2001. 6 ACTIONS AND COMMUNICATIONS Neither actions nor words alone can successfully defend an organization’s reputation in a crisis.

In its response to the 1989 Exxon Valdez oil spill in Alaska, the oil giant poured an enormous amount of resources into the cleanup project, including people, equipment and money. However, the company went out of its way to avoid the media. As a result, people around the world who

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LESSONS FROM CRISIS CASE STUDIES received information about the environmental disaster via the media assumed Exxon was shirking its responsibility or was hiding the true extent of the disaster. This lack of information translated into thousands of outraged customers cutting up their Exxon credit cards, sending the shards to the company and taking their business elsewhere.

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In December 2002, then-Senate Majority Leader Trent Lott attended South Carolina Senator Strom Thurmond’s 100th birthday party.

During the festivities Lott made a comment referencing the honoree’s 1948 presidential campaign in which he ran as a segregationist candidate. “I want to say this about my state. When Strom Thurmond ran for president, we voted for him. We’re proud of that. And if the rest of the country had followed our lead, we wouldn’t have had all these problems over all these years.” 7 The remarks, viewed to be an endorsement of racism, set off a firestorm of criticism, with many of the Mississippi Republican’s colleagues in the Senate calling for his resignation as majority leader and, in more than a few cases, his resignation from the Senate altogether. Public opinion polling showed a majority of Americans shared their outrage. At first Lott ignored the hubbub, hoping it would all blow over. When it didn’t, he launched a campaign to save his job, centering on a series of public apologies.

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BOB ROEMER Even though he was a gifted public speaker, Lott spoke in generalities. His lack of specific examples demonstrating his commitment to equal opportunity and his voting record on the issues – in other words, his actions – betrayed him.

SAYING “I’M SORRY” IS NOT ENOUGH

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Over the past decade a formulaic approach to extracting an organization or oneself from a crisis has emerged called “The Public Act of Contrition.” It works like this: if you are caught doing something wrong, you face the media’s cameras and bright lights and issue an apology for your transgressions. If you are truly sorry for what you have done and can demonstrate the actions you are taking to correct the situation, you may receive the benefit of the doubt from your stakeholders.

However, like Senator Lott, if all you have to offer are flowery words, you will only dig yourself deeper into trouble.

The case of Don Carty, the former chairman of AMR, the parent company of American Airlines, is a good example.

In April 2003, with the airline teetering on the verge of bankruptcy, Carty browbeat the pilots, flight attendants and mechanics to accept significant salary cuts. Within a few days it was revealed that he and five other top executives had approved bonuses that would triple their salaries for the year and had funded a special retirement plan that would shield executives’ benefits should the company enter into bankruptcy. 8 The outrage from the rank-and-file was immediate. Carty made several attempts at apologizing to employees, but the bombastic executive had earned little equity during his tenure at the airline’s controls and his acts of contrition were viewed as insincere.

In response, the unions representing the flight attendants and mechanics said they would ask their members to vote again on the contracts they previously ratified. The Airline Pilots Association refused to sign the contract its pilots approved. They entered into a bargaining session, with four Texas congressmen acting as mediators. After 12 hours,

If a picture is worth a thousand words, a videotape of someone behaving badly could be worth a few days or weeks on television.

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LESSONS FROM CRISIS CASE STUDIES two unions agreed to amended contracts. However, the Association of Professional Flight Attendants held out, citing Carty’s continued presence as the reason.

The board of directors accepted the chairman’s resignation shortly thereafter.

CONFLICT FUELS COVERAGE Like throwing gasoline on a fire, internal conflict in a crisis will only attract more media attention. In some instances, reporters have been known to fan the flames of conflict by baiting each side with statements the other made about the situation. Another source of conflict is the victims’ reaction to a decision (or lack thereof) by the organization that caused the crisis. The Ford/Firestone saga again provides some examples.

Conflict erupted the minute the two companies announced details of the recall. Because there were not enough Firestone tires available to replace the estimated six million Wilderness A/Ts covered under the action, the company had to be selective. Since tire engineers believed that heat contributed to the failure, customers who lived in the hottest climates would have their tires replaced first. Explorer owners who did not live in the priority areas were outraged at the implication that their safety was somehow less important. This issue quickly became a major story in media coverage of the recall, forcing the companies to include other tire brands for replacement in order to meet the needs of all owners.

No sooner had the conflict over geography and replacement tires subsided than both sides started a public mud-slinging contest over what was to blame for the deadly situation. Ford maintained it was a tire problem, insisting that Explorers with other tire brands did not experience the type of failures which prompted the recall. Firestone claimed that the failures were caused by a design flaw in the SUV, exacerbated by the carmaker recommending tire pressures lower than Firestone’s specification in an effort to achieve a smoother ride. When two industrial titans clash,

Any organization, regardless of its size or purpose, can experience a crisis that has the potential to damage or destroy its reputation.

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BOB ROEMER their conflict makes headlines; this aspect of the story provided good copy for more than eight months.

As if that wasn’t enough, the personal conflict between Ford’s Jacques Nasser and Firestone’s John Lampe was grist for business columnists and television business show hosts for weeks. It was captured in a photograph of the two executives glaring at each other while shaking hands at a congressional probe into the crisis Statements in the media can fuel coverage, especially if other parties are blamed, accurately or not, for the company’s misfortunes. The high road should always be taken with public statements.

VIDEO CAN MAKE A STORY

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If a picture is worth a thousand words, a videotape of outrageous behavior could be worth days or weeks of television. In May 2003, home videos emerged showing wealthy suburban girls at Glenbrook North High School in Northbrook, Ill., pouring a witch’s brew of fish entrails, pig intestines, feces and blood on underclassmen while assaulting them in a hazing ritual gone berserk. The images transformed what was a local Chicago story into international news, eventually reaching more than 40 countries around the world.

In the United States, segments of the videos featured prominently on news programs for more than a month. The media reported on the school’s initial response and investigation, the decision to suspend participants, the search for the parents who provided beer to the underage seniors and the state’s attorney bringing charges against students whose names were conveniently displayed on the back of their jerseys. The relentless broadcasting of the images and the revulsion they generated were factors in the school’s response to an event which they had ignored in previous years.

One of the student cinematographers admitted to a reporter that she shot the video with the intention of selling it to the media. The consensus among reporters was that without the videos, it wasn’t much of a story. 9 CONCLUSIONS These case studies illustrate some important principles of crisis management:

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LESSONS FROM CRISIS CASE STUDIES Any organization, regardless of its size or purpose, can experience a crisis that has the potential to damage or destroy its reputation.

In today’s 24/7 media environment, news of that crisis can travel around the world almost instantaneously.

Effective crisis response requires action to protect people and correct the cause of the crisis. Effective communications is then necessary to explain those actions. These two components must be accomplished simultaneously, not sequentially. Stakeholders will form their opinions of the organization based on the response to the crisis.

Because a crisis is different from most other situations an organization is likely to encounter, a high degree of planning and preparation is required for a successful response. That includes a detailed crisis response plan, a crisis management team, training (especially for spokespeople) and practice exercises. The most dangerous attitude is to believe that preparations are not required. Once a crisis occurs, it will be too late.

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BOB ROEMER REFERENCES 1 The Pew Research Center For The Public and The Press, September 8, 2005 2 Swissair-Delta Get High Marks for Disaster Response: SR 111 Tests Mettle of Alliance.

World Airline News, Oct. 2, 1998 3 Firestone Tire Recall Timeline. Democratic Staff of the House Commerce Committee, Sept. 2001 New Tire Battleground. CBS News, July 3, 2001 4 Betrayal: The Crisis in the Catholic Church. The Investigative Staff of The Boston Globe, 2002, page 36 5 New York Times Fiasco. Howard Kurtz; CNN transcripts, May 16, 2003 6 Wall Street Journal and Automotive News coverage 7 Trent Lott, Mississippi, U.S. Senator. Official Web site, Dec. 2002; http://lott.senate.gov/ 8 Airline Workers Will Vote Again. CBS News, April 19, 2003 9 Initiation Turned Hazing Investigated. CNN, May 7, 2003

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AIDS AND THE FORGOTTEN ORPHAN CRISIS IN AFRICA

AIDS and the Forgotten Orphan Crisis in Africa Kyoung Yang Kim Kyoung Yang Kim is a Northwestern University senior in the Weinberg College of Arts and Sciences. This paper won first place in NJIA's semiannual essay contest.

Not only does HIV slowly strip away the life of a patient, but it also deforms the social structure around her. Like a stone thrown upon a pond, HIV/AIDS creates ripples that perturb the family. Its effect spreads to every part of society.

Peter McDermott, chief of the Global HIV/AIDS Program under UNICEF, has addressed in an AIDS orphan conference in Asia what he considers the three stages of HIV infection. The first stage is the time of infection. The second stage is what he calls the cumulative factor: people start developing symptoms of AIDS and eventually die. The last stage impacts children left without a mother or father—orphans.

Since the first report of an AIDS case, it has taken governments more than a decade to recognize the gravity of the situation. Some have suppressed the media to deny any evidence that there is an HIV/AIDS epidemic in their countries. In Romania, the government ceased the investigation of children in Bucharest Hospital who were suffering from AIDS; they called AIDS a “plague of the decadent West.”1 Now that the global community sees the destruction caused by AIDS, we are slowly learning the scope of this monstrous disease.

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KYOUNG YANG KIM AFRICAN ORPHANS: THE FORGOTTEN VICTIMS OF AIDS

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Every death from AIDS is a disgrace to human dignity. Leaders of African countries describe deaths from HIV/AIDS as an “extermination,” “annihilation” and even a ‘holocaust.’ Stephen Lewis, U.N. Special Envoy for HIV/AIDS in Africa, expressed with desolation the unimaginable reality of “people [dying] in such hallucinatory numbers.”2 In fact, 2.9 million people have died from AIDS by the end of 2003—2.2 million of these were from sub-Saharan Africa.3 With the highest HIV/AIDS prevalence rate of 64 percent, 74 percent of AIDS deaths worldwide come from sub-Saharan Africa.4 What is also alarming is that the epidemic leaves many children orphaned. In 2001, 2.5 million AIDS deaths produced 11.5 million orphans. In 2003, 2.9 million deaths occurred, increasing the number of orphans to 15 million.5 Even when HIV prevalence rates are reduced, the incubation period between the second and third waves of infection creates many more orphans through time. In Uganda, where the fight against HIV/AIDS is considered a model of success, the number of orphans rose from 884,000 in 2001 to 940,000 in just two years.6 It is noted that the HIV-prevalence rate decreased from 5 percent to 4.1 percent in these years.7 Perhaps as Lewis said, these numbers are just too huge to comprehend.

Young women of reproductive age are the main targets of HIV/AIDS. Studies show that women between the ages of 15-24 make up 76 percent of all HIV/AIDS patients in sub-Saharan Africa.8 Marriage at an early age is very common in African countries. In Niger, the average age of a bride is 15.

Moreover, marriages often occur between young girls and older men, and the age gap can be up to 15 years, as it is in Cameroon.9 In this cultural context, women have less power when it comes to sexual relationships and protection from STDs including HIV/AIDS. Since the men usually transmit HIV/AIDS, marriage can be fatal for young women.

HIV not only mutates and slowly strips away the life of the patient, but it also deforms the social structure of the patient's society.

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AIDS AND THE FORGOTTEN ORPHAN CRISIS IN AFRICA What will happen to the children of these women? Prospects for their future are quite uncertain. The orphans are caught in a crisis—what former U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell calls “more devastating than any terrorist attack, any conflict or any weapon of mass destruction.”10 THE ORPHAN CRISIS IN DEPTH McDermott emphasized that orphans experience “disparity on nutrition, education, healthcare, [and] massively on psychosocial impact.”11 Orphans are often passed on to extended families or foster homes. Foster, in AIDS in Africa, notes that these orphans are taken care of by the “poor and elderly.”12 Orphans in Kenya mostly live in foster homes below the poverty line. Orphanages, the last resort, are not well supported by the government.

According to Emma Guest in Children of AIDS, the South African government favors keeping AIDS orphans in foster homes because it costs less than supporting them in orphanages.13 Life expectancy has declined in most sub-Saharan countries due to HIV/AIDS. In a few years, the disease will destroy the most crucial part of the population and distort the population pyramid into the so-called “population chimney.”14 The loss of a parent significantly impacts household income. Foster writes that the difference in per capita income between orphan and nonorphan households in Uganda is 15 percent.15 In rural Zimbabwe, only three percent of orphaned households have a family member who is employed. The orphan shoulders the burden of generating an income. They must quit school to be the breadwinners of the household.

Studies have shown that maternal care correlates to the health of the child. The longer the mother spends time with her children and the more educated she is, the more likely the child will be healthy. Research conducted in Sudan showed that infant mortality rose by 27 percent, ten percent higher than usual, when the mother works in the labor force.16 The more educated the mother, the more assertive she is in taking decisions regarding her child’s health. A child dies from lack of attention—if he/she is malnourished or not taken to receive medical care at the right time, the child’s health will deteriorate. Caregivers may not be well-educated about the child’s needs such as nutrition, ORT (Oral Rehydration Therapy) for diarrhea and in recognizing serious illness.17 A study conducted in rural Zambia found that orphans were more likely to be ill than non-orphans.18

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KYOUNG YANG KIM Another study conducted in Ethiopia showed that children in an orphanage were slightly more likely to suffer from stunted growth than their nonorphan counterparts.19 In the urban Kenya, orphans suffered more malnutrition than non-orphans.20 One of the less recognized effects of orphanhood is the psychosocial impact on the child. This is often neglected as it is not an immediate threat. Many children experience death of more than one family member: “These kids don’t become orphans when their parents die. They become orphans while their parents are dying...I can’t tell you how many huts I’ve entered where a [sick] woman is lying frail and spectral on the floor, unable to raise [her] hand or head to say hello to a visitor…and then I look around me—[there] are her children, standing in the hut, watching their mothers die.”21

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Lewis claims that at a school he visited, the kids wrote about death as the most disturbing thing in their lives.22 The separation of children from their siblings also stresses on them. The children may become more aloof and look distressed.23 Children often fear stigmatization from signs of poverty, especially from their classmates. Studies have shown that depression is highly prevalent in children 10-14 years of age who have experienced maternal loss.24 Longitudinal research shows long-term impacts on orphans. They may grow up and become adults diagnosed with “chronic traumatic stress syndrome,” developing signs of severe depression, alcohol, drug abuse and violent behaviors.25 Aside from the psychosocial impact, vulnerability to HIV infection increases as children are orphaned. As children are taken away from parental homes, lack of adult protection heightens their risk for child labor, sexual abuse, exploitation and HIV infection. Research conducted in a rural part of Zimbabwe showed that young women who have early sexual debuts and marriage are highly unlikely to complete secondary education and have higher risks of HIV infection.26 There is no one solution to help all 15 million orphans around the world. However, by studying the past, we can see examples of effective intervention. The Romanian experience serves as a model that can be used in sub-Saharan Africa and other parts of the world.

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AIDS AND THE FORGOTTEN ORPHAN CRISIS IN AFRICA THE ROMANIAN MODEL In 1989, a media report focused the international community’s attention on Romanian orphanages. The report included disturbing images of babies barely covered in filthy rags, hiding behind iron-wrought beds like prisoners behind bars. Their eyes were diverted from the camera, forlorn and wandering. Scrawny babies were wrapped tightly in bundles.

They were so inert that the journalist asked if they were still alive. In these squalid state-run orphanages set up by the Romanian dictator Nicolae Ceausescu, children were “left to wallow in their own filth and die from malnutrition and disease.”27 Even by 2001, the conditions had not changed much. The European Parliament’s special envoy to Romania, Emma Nicholson, described the orphans’ life as “daily beatings and assaults, food deprivation leading in some cases to starvation, sexual abuse, and lack of proper medical care.”28 Before his assassination in 1989, Ceausescu enacted heartless policies to boost Romania’s population to 30 million by the end of 2000.

Families were forced to have at least five children. Contraceptives, birth control and abortion were banned. Incentives were used to make the policy more appealing. Monthly stipends were given to every household with a new baby, the sum equal to a fifth of a low-income worker’s salary.29 Dire poverty in Romania did not allow for all the newborn children to be raised by their biological parents. As a direct result of Ceausescu’s policy, over 150,000 children went directly into orphanages.30 Shockingly, one of the first cases of HIV infection ever reported happened in one of these orphanages. By 1990, about 94 percent of Romania’s 1168 HIV-related cases were reported from children under 13 years of age.31 Later studies have revealed that nocosomial infections—the use of improperly sterilized needles—was the cause of the mass outbreak.

The lack of well-trained nurses to administer health care and a lack of medical supplies resulted in the reuse of needles and syringes. To make things worse, blood for donations was not tested before 1990 due to the

To accommodate 15 million children in all parts of the world, there will be no one solution or methodology to tackle this problem.

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lack of a national surveillance system for HIV/AIDS.32 Innocent infants became HIV-positive, not as a result of vertical transmission but rather due to an “epidemiological accident.”33 This incident has left between five and seven thousand children living with HIV/AIDS today in Romania.

Children in Romania currently represent half of all European pediatric cases of HIV/AIDS.34 Yet intervention was possible once the Romanian government recognized the extent of the disease and the need for foreign assistance. In a statement that acknowledged the government’s responsibility for the crisis, former Romanian Prime Minister Petre Roman publicly stated, “Blame us, but help us.”35 Once the government recognized the problem, collaboration amongst several entities—a U.S. private academic institution, a Romanian healthcare institution, corporate and private foundations, faith-based organizations and the U.S. government—bore positive results. The Baylor College of Medicine, with funding from other organizations, launched the Baylor International Pediatric AIDS Initiative in collaboration with the Romanian Ministry of Health and Family. The initiative, founded in 1996, provided technical assistance to educate and train physicians and nurses in treating pediatric HIV/AIDS. Subsequent to the preparative efforts, HAART—Highly Active Antiretroviral Therapy— was launched with donated drugs from U.S. pharmaceutical companies.36 The Romanian-American Children’s Center was opened in 2001. It is now home to more than 600 HIV-infected children and has used HAART to treat a large number of them. Casa Speranta, “House of Hope”, was founded by a California-based Catholic group to accommodate abandoned children in a family-style care setting.

What stands out in the Romanian case is the involvement of an academic institution like Baylor in building a medical facility. Foreign aid has empowered the community by training physicians and nurses. It has also lifted the stigma of treating HIV-positive patients. Academic institutions are more dedicated and focused in their work than other organizations and are less likely to take on multiple projects, unlike major donor foundations. Academic institutions also beget future generations of doctors, scientists and scholars who are exposed to the intervention.

Students at the Baylor College of Medicine will likely be interested and involved in the work that the college is doing in Romania. Study abroad programs can be utilized to not only teach students about current events and apply their classroom knowledge, but also to plant seeds so that the

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AIDS AND THE FORGOTTEN ORPHAN CRISIS IN AFRICA next generation of doctors and volunteers can work in Romania.

Furthermore, partnership increases funding capabilities.

Collaboration amongst several entities and the inclusion of major pharmaceutical company — in this case, Merck — has helped in funding.

Merck had lowered the prices for Stocrin and Crixivan, drugs used in the treatment of HIV, to 14 percent of their original cost.37 NGO involvement was also effective in capturing the attention of government officials. ARV (antiretroviral) treatment was possible through funding by the Ministry of Health and Family. Future collaborations may form between the local NGOs and the government, in the absence of a third foreign organization.

LESSONS FROM ROMANIA; CHALLENGES FOR AFRICA Helping AIDS orphans is an overwhelming task for each African government. As in the Romanian case, this burden should be shared by the global community. It is an unfortunate truth that funds are inadequate and that foreign donors favor cost-effectiveness over all else. Can this paradigm be challenged? Organizing health programs in Africa is an enormously difficult job. HIV/AIDS is not only the killer disease in Africa; 1.5 million new cases of tuberculosis, diarrhea and other infectious diseases plague the continent each year.38 Africa cannot face these challenges alone. The average annual health expenditure in sub-Saharan Africa, excluding South Africa, is only $6 per person.21 Only $165 million was spent in 1999 for the prevention of HIV/AIDS; this was 10 percent of the estimated necessary health expenditure.39 Hamoudi, who wrote extensively on the economics of AIDS, states that donors pay less than $1.30 per person in Africa for all health programs.40 This is clearly inadequate, but with enough funding, the situation can improve. Efforts in Romania have proved that ART treatment can be effective in a resourcepoor setting.

While scholars and government officials debate how to use limited funds, we should keep in mind what we have promised for our future. How about our vows to achieve the Millennium Development Goals and uphold the Convention on the Rights of the Child? The global community should base its decisions on the best interest of the children, and quick action should be taken to save lives.

While Guest thanks African governments for not building orphanages, I believe that setting up orphanages in parts of sub-Saharan

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KYOUNG YANG KIM Africa can save the children in most need. Guest expresses that “children rarely thrive in such places” and Gloviczki, in his article about Romanian orphans, states that state-run Romanian orphanages have “failed to provide [children] with adequate education and emotional development.”41 What they are saying is true; orphanages have not provided the nurturing environment in which children need to grow and develop. However, the present situation is untenable. Currently in Africa, orphaned children are first handed over to their immediate relatives. When the relatives can no

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longer take care of them, they are handed over to their grandmothers. In fact, grandmothers are hailed as the heroes saving the future generations of Africans. But for how long can we count on the relatives and the

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AIDS AND THE FORGOTTEN ORPHAN CRISIS IN AFRICA grandmothers of these children? Finding foster homes will also be difficult.

Life expectancy in these countries is declining as a result of HIV/AIDS. As the endemic progresses, child-headed households will become common.

We cannot allow children to face this alone. We need to build orphanages to help them grow, orphanages which will provide them with education, healthcare, emotional support and many other needs. Orphans affected by HIV/AIDS, whether or not they are HIV-positive themselves, will need more care than others.

As one orphanage staff worker implored, “If orphanages don’t exist, what’s going to happen to these children? They’re going to die. I know it’s not right but I can see, like in the old days, huge big orphanages having to open up. Otherwise children will starve and there will be masses of street children.”42 RESCRIPTIONS FOR THE ORPHAN CRISIS African governments need to work with outside NGOs and governments to build orphanages and start programs that help children find foster homes. The government should ensure that children with the greatest need get attention first. While finding foster homes will be extremely difficult, children can at least be placed in orphanages. Research conducted in Malawian orphanages has found that these orphans had better “lodging, health care, food quantity and variety, clothing and school supplies.”43 Orphans in these settings found their caregivers “compassionate and loving.” In Ethiopia, children’s self-esteem was actually higher among those living in orphanages than non-orphans living with their families.15 This can be attributed to the support orphans receive from caregivers and peers. In a famine-ravished country like Ethiopia, living with the family is more “detrimental” than living in an orphanage.44 Orphanages should be integrated into the community. To empower the community so that they can maintain these orphanages, staff workers should be locally hired and trained. One of the challenges that orphanage children face is building a stable relationship with an adult.45 This can be mitigated by maintaining a low child-adult ratio in the orphanage.

In 2001, for example, 2.5 million deaths due to AIDS produced 11.5 million African orphans.

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Following the intervention in Romania, academic institutions in other countries can give a helping hand to African children. Medical facilities can be built next to orphanages so that the children and the community can receive adequate healthcare. Scholars on child development and education can help improve programs in orphanages.

NGOs can also help to provide education, emotional support and other services for these children. NGOs should fund schools to provide education for orphans and also increase awareness of HIV/AIDS. Psychosocial support is important for the well-being of the orphaned children. The Masiye Camp in Zimbabwe provides support for AIDS orphans by organizing camps and outdoor activities.46 The camp also invites non-AIDS orphans to prevent stigmatization. Anthropologists and psychologists should conduct research on how Africans deal with grief and develop a method to help children in a culture where death is still a taboo conversation topic.

The work of NGOs cannot be accomplished without volunteers.

There are many ways for volunteers to get involved. First and foremost, creating awareness in countries where HIV/AIDS is not a common presence is crucial. I believe that visual presentations will have a longlasting impact on those in the developed world. Volunteers with artistic skills, for example, can use photography to produce international photo campaigns exhibited in museums. They can lecture about the situation and describe what ordinary people can do to help AIDS orphans.

Second, volunteers in faith-based organizations can create and work in camps like the one in Zimbabwe. Volunteers in these organizations are compassionate and can provide emotional support to these children.

Energetic student volunteers can help the youth in the camps. They can also help scholars conduct academic research in these areas.

HIV/AIDS strips away human dignity. When asked what she desired for her future, Alina, a street orphan in Romania, shrugged, shook her head and said, “’I want to die…It’s just like that.’”47 I’d like to believe that there is hope for these orphans. I’d like to believe that a hopeful future lies ahead.

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REFERENCES 1. McDermott, Peter. The Next AIDS Generation: Orphans in Asia and the World. Asia Society. February 19, 2006 http://www.asiasource.org/asip/aids_generationt.cfm 2. Hopper, Leigh. Suffer the Children. Houston Chronicle. February 19, 2006 http://www.chron.com/content/chronicle/special/99/hiv/romaniacover.html 3. Stephen, Lewis. AIDS Pandemic in Africa. February 25, 2006 http://www.blackboard.northwestern.edu 4. 2004 Report on Global AIDS Epidemic. Joint United Nations Programme on HIV/AIDS. February 19, 2006. http://www.unaids.org/bangkok2004/GAR2004_html/GAR2004_00_en.htm 5. Kates, Jennifer and Leggoe, Alyssa. HIV/AIDS policy fact sheet. Kaiser Family Foundation. February 19, 2006. http://www.kff.org/hivaids/7391.cfm 6. HIV/AIDS and Agriculture: Impacts and Responses: Case studies from Namibia, Uganda and Zambia. Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations.

February 19, 2006. http://www.fao.org/documents/show_cdr.asp?url_file=/DOCREP/006/Y5145E/ Y5145E00.HTM 7. AIDS Orphans. Avert. February 19, 2006. http://www.avert.org/aidsorphans.htm 8. United Nations Statistics Division-Common Database. United Nations. February 19, 2006 http://unstats.un.org/unsd/cdb/cdb_years_on_top.asp?srID=30008&Ct1ID=&crI D=800&yrID=2001%2C2003 9. Adolescent Sexual & Reproductive Health in Sub-Saharan Africa. Advocates for Youth.

February 19, 2006. http://www.advocatesforyouth.org/publications/factsheet/fssxrepr.htm 10. Hagen, Jonas. More Devastating Than Any Terrorist Attack or Weapon of Mass Destruction.

UN Chronicle, 2003. http://www.un.org/Pubs/chronicle/2003/webArticles/111103_HIV_AIDS.asp 11. Foster, Geoff and Germann, Stefan. The Orphan Crisis. AIDS in Africa, 2nd Ed. Plenum Publishers: New York, 2002.

12. Guest, Emma. Children of AIDS: Africa’s Orphan Crisis. Pluto Press: Scottsville, 2003.

13. Ware H. Effects of maternal education, women’s roles and child care on child mortality. Population Development Review, 1984; 10(Suppl):191-214.

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KYOUNG YANG KIM 14.

15.

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82 21.

22.

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27.

Foster, Geoff and Willamson, John. A Review of current literature of the impact of HIV/AIDS on children in sub-Saharan Africa AIDS 2000, 14(suppl. 3):S275S284 Aboud, Frances; Samuel, Mesfin; Hadera, Alem; Addus, Abdulaziz. Intellectual, Social and Nutritional Status of Children in an Ethiopian Orphanage. Soc. Sci. Med. Vol. 33, No. 11 pp. 1275-1280, 1991.

Gregson, S. et al. HIV Infection and reproductive health in teenage women orphaned and made vulnerable by AIDS in Zimbabwe. AIDS Care, October 2005; 17(7):785-794.

Gloviczki, Peter J. Ceausescu’s Children: The Process of Democratization and the Plight of Romania’s Orphans. Critique: A worldwide journal of politics, 2004.

Hersh, B.S. and Popovici, F. Acquired Immunodeficiency syndrome in Romania.

Lancet 1991; 338:645-49.

Dan, Monica. AIDS in Romania: The perspective from ARAS/ The Romanian Association Against AIDS. Integration Projects. February 18, 2006. http://www.integration-projects.org/c_reports/romania.pdf Mark W. Kline et al. Comprehensive Pediatric Human Immunodeficiency Virus Care and Treatment in Constanta, Romania: Implementation of a Program of Highly Active Antiretroviral Therapy in a Resource-Poor Setting. The Pediatric Infectious Disease Journal 2004; 23:695-700.

Hamoudi, Amar A. and Sachs, Jeffrey D. The Economics of AIDS in Africa.

AIDS in Africa, 2nd Ed. Kluwer Academic/ Plenum Publishers, New York: 2002.

Fighting AIDS. Global Fund. February 19, 2006 http://www.theglobalfund.org/en/about/aids/ Zimmerman, Brigitte. Orphan living situations in Malawi: a comparison of orphanages and foster homes. The Review of Policy Research; 22, Nov 2005: 881(27).

Ruland, Claudia D. Adolescents: Orphaned and Vulnerable in the Time of HIV/AIDS. Youthnet. Youth Issues Paper 6. February 19, 2006 http://www.fhi.org/en/Youth/YouthNet/Publications/YouthIssuesPapers.htm Calabresi, Massimo. Ceausescu’s Orphans. Time International. February 19, 2006 http://www.time.com/time/international/1996/960624/romania.html Gregson, S. et al.

Gloviczki, Peter J. Ceausescu’s Children: The Process of Democratization and the Plight of Romania’s Orphans. Critique: A worldwide journal of politics,

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AIDS AND THE FORGOTTEN ORPHAN CRISIS IN AFRICA 28.

29.

30.

31.

32.

33.

34.

35.

36.

37.

38.

39.

40.

41.

42.

43.

44.

45.

46.

47.

2004.

Hersh, B.S. and Popovici, F. Hersh, B.S. and Popovici, Hersh, B.S. and Popovici, F. Hersh, B.S. and Popovici, F. Dan, Monica. AIDS in Romania: The perspective from ARAS/ The Romanian Association Against AIDS. Integration Projects. February 18, 2006. http://www.integration-projects.org/c_reports/romania.pdf Mark W. Kline et al. Comprehensive Pediatric Human Immunodeficiency Virus Care and Treatment in Constanta, Romania: Implementation of a Program of Highly Active Antiretroviral Therapy in a Resource-Poor Setting. The Pediatric Infectious Disease Journal 2004; 23:695-700.

Mark W. Kline et al.

Hersh, B.S. and Popovici, F. Hamoudi, Amar A. and Sachs, Jeffrey D. The Economics of AIDS in Africa.

AIDS in Africa, 2nd Ed. Kluwer Academic/ Plenum Publishers, New York: 2002.

Dan, Monica. AIDS in Romania: The perspective from ARAS/ The Romanian Association Against AIDS. Integration Projects. February 18, 2006. http://www.integration-projects.org/c_reports/romania.pdf Hamoudi, Amar A. and Sachs, Jeffrey D. Hamoudi, Amar A. and Sachs, Jeffrey D. Hamoudi, Amar A. and Sachs, Jeffrey D. Gloviczki, Peter J. Ceausescu’s Children: The Process of Democratization and the Plight of Romania’s Orphans. Critique: A worldwide journal of politics, 2004.

Gloviczki, Peter J. Zimmerman, Brigitte. Orphan living situations in Malawi: a comparison of orphanages and foster homes. The Review of Policy Research; 22, Nov 2005: 881(27).

Calabresi, Massimo. Ceausescu’s Orphans. Time International. February 19, 2006. http://www.time.com/time/international/1996/960624/romania.html Aboud, Frances; Samuel, Mesfin; Hadera, Alem; Addus, Abdulaziz. Intellectual, Social and Nutritional Status of Children in an Ethiopian Orphanage. Soc. Sci. Med. Vol. 33, No. 11 pp. 1275-1280, 1991.

Ruland, Claudia D. Adolescents: Orphaned and Vulnerable in the Time of HIV/AIDS. Youthnet. Youth Issues Paper 6. February 19, 2006 http://www.fhi.org/en/Youth/YouthNet/Publications/YouthIssuesPapers.htm Calabresi, Massimo.

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MARSHALL MILLER

Rabble-rouser : Why the United States Should Ignore Hugo Chavez Marshall Miller Marshall Miller is a Northwestern University junior in the Weinberg College of Arts and Sciences. This paper won second place in NJIA's semi-annual essay contest.

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The United States is currently engaged in an escalating diplomatic quarrel with President Hugo Chavez of Venezuela. Since Chavez was voted into office with his nationalist platform, he has been an outspoken detractor of the United States, and the United States has reciprocated the rhetoric. The hostile language quickly escalated to diplomatic reprisals, such as the mutual expulsion of diplomats from Venezuela and the United States. It is clear that the United States would like to see the rabble rousing Chavez out of office. But despite the many offensive characteristics of his government, Hugo Chavez does not have the potential to pose a serious threat to the United States. Any hostile response by the United States to his incendiary tactics are unwise overreactions that will not forward the goal of seeing Chavez removed from office. The United States should have no reactions – diplomatic, economic, or otherwise—toward Venezuela until a serious threat materializes.

Hugo Chavez focused on populist policies that help the poor when he was democratically elected president of Venezuela in 1998 . His policies included free health care, subsidized food and land reform. Over his eight years in office, he has remained loyal to democracy, submitting to a 2004 national referendum on his rule, which he won. It is his offensive rhetoric

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RABBLE-ROUSER and accompanying activities that have incited the animosity between the United States and Venezuela.1 HUGO CHAVEZ, HARMLESS DEMAGOGUE In recent years Chavez has been loudly anti-American, frequently denouncing the United States as an imperialist and terrorist government.

He consistently claims that the United States is attempting to overthrow his administration to acquire Venezuela’s vast oil reserves. Chavez has accused the United States of organizing the failed 2002 military coup against his government and funding opposition groups in Venezuela. Most dramatically, while literally standing side by side with longtime U.S. enemy Fidel Castro, Chavez has promised to “do everything possible to shred” what he calls the “U.S. 2 empire.” Many more examples of such rhetoric can be found throughout Chavez’s speeches, such as this particularly vivid quote: “The imperialist, genocidal, fascist attitude of the US president has no limits. I think Hitler would be like a suckling baby next to George W. Bush.”3 The United States has responded to this anti-Americanism with similarly hyperbolic rhetoric of its own. U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice has characterized Chavez as pirating the Venezuelan people against their will with a “Latin brand of populism that has taken countries down the drain.”4 She has also called Venezuela “one of the biggest problems” in the region.5 Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld has compared Chavez to Adolf Hitler as he expressed fears that Chavez threatens democracy and human rights.6 Recently, harmless words have escalated to diplomatic action. On February 2, 2006, Chavez expelled the U.S. naval attaché from Venezuela, on grounds that he was spying on the Venezuelan military from a spy ring based in the United States embassy.7 The next day, in a direct response to this initial expulsion, the United States expelled the chief of staff of the Venezuelan ambassador, who was subsequently honored in a medal ceremony in Caracas.8

Though Venezuela is currently undertaking a large-scale expansion of its military, the effort is only for the purposes of defending itself.

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MARSHALL MILLER In addition to jarring hateful speech, Chavez’s Venezuela has undertaken activities that make the country appear to threaten the United States outside of the diplomatic arena. To prepare for the invasion he is expecting from the United States, Chavez has begun to purchase large quantities of small arms and train thousands of Venezuelan civilians as

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reservists.9 Chavez has also vocally threatened to cut off Venezuelan oil from the United States if relations worsen: “The government of the United States should know that if they go over the line, they are not going to have Venezuelan oil.” Chavez has made an effort to show that this threat is serious by announcing the existence of other potential buyers.10 This is a hefty declaration by Chavez, since 13 percent of crude oil imports to the

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RABBLE-ROUSER United States come from Venezuela.11 Another possible cause for concern is that Venezuela has lately shown a diplomatic closeness with enemies of the United States. Hugo Chavez indeed has a great affinity for Fidel Castro’s Cuba, as seen through his praising rhetoric and his visits to Havana. But he has also shown diplomatic and commercial connections to enemies that the United States considers more dangerous and urgent, specifically Iran and North Korea, who are feared for their zealous pursuit of nuclear technology. Venezuela has shown diplomatic support for Iran on the United Nations’ 35 member International Atomic Energy Agency, where it joined Cuba and Syria as the only nations to vote against a resolution referring Iran to the United Nations Security Council for suspected violations of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty. And commercially, ties between Iran and Venezuela have become stronger, with Iranian industries such as shipbuilding and manufacturing taking root in Venezuela. These commercial and diplomatic ties seem to be a source of concern in the United States, who fear such ties could evolve into something more dangerous. Director of National Intelligence John Negroponte told the Senate Intelligence Committee that Venezuela is “seeking closer economic, military, and diplomatic ties with Iran and North Korea.”12 Finally, the Venezuelan government may appear threatening to the United States because it exhibits many of the same characteristics Cuba showed shortly after its revolution. Like Fidel Castro, efforts at land reform and economic independence are hallmarks of Chavez’s administration, together with increased literacy and healthcare programs. Perhaps these similarities coupled with the similarly populist and nationalist attitudes of the leaders are reminiscent enough of post-revolutionary Cuba to make Venezuela appear as an enemy by comparison.

Hugo Chavez was democratically elected president of a country that remains democratic and at peace.

REACTING TO AN EMPTY THREAT Hostilities currently remain at the level of diplomacy, but historically, the United States has been aggressive in promoting its interests

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in Latin America, frequently resorting to economic or military means. In the last several decades, the United States has acted with a heavy hand in many Latin American countries. For example, the United States has armed guerillas in Nicaragua and organized a coup in Panama. The most visible vestige of the United States’ tendencies in Latin America is the continued economic embargo on Cuba. With such a history, it is not unreasonable to assume the possibility that diplomatic action against Venezuela could escalate to economic or even military action if hostilities progress. But while aspects of Chavez’s Venezuela may appear like it could harm the United States, it does not currently pose any real economic or military threat and does not have potential to in the future. Because of its inability to seriously threaten the United States, any diplomatic, economic, or military action by the United States is unnecessary.

Though they appear serious threats to the United States, the above concerns are empty in reality. Though Venezuela is currently undertaking a large-scale expansion of its military, the effort is only for the purposes of defending itself against an invasion from the United States. Chavez claims that the United States is the only enemy of Venezuela and has shown no intention of using force against any other countries. The United States has no reason to fear the growing Venezuelan military because Venezuela would never invade the United States; it would only use its military to defend itself at home against an invasion.

While Venezuela has loudly threatened to cut off oil from the United States and redirect its petroleum exports to other countries, this sort of economic severance is not feasible for Venezuela. Of the 2.1 million barrels of oil that Venezuela exports each day, 1.3 million are bought by the United States.13 In addition to being by far the largest consumer of Venezuelan oil, the United States is also a vital trading partner in all other markets. The United States purchases 55.6 percent of all goods exported by Venezuela, and 28.8 percent of Venezuelan imports come from the United States.14 It is extremely unlikely that Venezuela would devastate its economy by alienating its largest and most important trading partner solely to insult the United States, who economically does not need Venezuela nearly as much as Venezuela needs it.

Though Venezuela is showing diplomatic and economic closeness to enemies of the United States, these relationships have no potential to harm the United States. The commercial partnerships between Venezuela and Iran do not indicate any sort of real threat to the United States, military

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RABBLE-ROUSER or otherwise. The mere geographical proximity of an enemy does not imply that any sort of violence will commence, and Iran has not reflected any such intention. It seems that Venezuela is cultivating these relationships mainly to further antagonize the United States, and in this respect Venezuela is succeeding.

And while one can draw similarities between Chavez and postrevolutionary Cuba, the major differences between the two show Venezuela’s harmlessness. Fidel Castro was a victorious guerilla warrior who became a dictator through revolution. By contrast, Hugo Chavez was democratically elected president of a country that remains democratic and at peace. Unlike Castro he has shown no intentions to behave undemocratically or to violate the human rights of his people. While Castro cultivated a deep military presence in Cuba via the USSR, the most dangerous enemy of the United States at the time, Chavez has merely created superficial commercial relationships with enemies of the United States that have so far shown no actual chance of aggression.

LEARNING TO IGNORE “EL PRESIDENTE” Looking at the reality of Hugo Chavez’s words and actions, it seems that rather than posing a serious threat, Chavez is merely a rabblerousing demagogue who has succeeded in upsetting the United States. But since he poses no real threat to the United States, any action against Venezuela, including diplomacy, is unnecessary. Even so, it remains the goal of the United States to weaken Chavez. But the current rhetorical and diplomatic reactions of the United States, or any stronger economic actions, will not achieve this goal.

It is likely that reacting to Chavez in any way will enable him to garner more support in his own country and abroad. Chavez continually denounces the United States as being a vicious enemy of Venezuela; when the United States returns hateful rhetoric or threats, Venezuelans side with their ruler.

By responding to Chavez’s goading, the United States gives legitimacy to his ranting. Allowing hostilities to progress will give Chavez a common enemy under which he can consolidate power. Any threat of economic or

Historically, the United States has carried the negative image of an aggressor in Latin America.

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military action will have the same effect, but on a greater scale, as has been seen in relations between the United States and Cuba. The failed Bay of Pigs invasion of Cuba by the United States in 1961 solidified Cuban support of Fidel Castro to a greater degree than ever before.15 Furthermore, the decades-long economic embargo which has devastated Cuba’s economy has not succeeded in weakening Fidel Castro’s power in Cuba, but rather has allowed Castro to keep his people united against a common enemy. It is quite possible that any sort of diplomatic, economic, or failed military actions against Hugo Chavez will have a similar result in Venezuela. Rather than weakening him, any reactions will solidify his power and legitimize his accusations and motivations.

Any reactions from the United States will likely fail to weaken Chavez and even risk our public image. Historically, the United States has carried the negative image of an aggressor in Latin America, and more recently, throughout the world. Unnecessary actions against the nonthreatening country of Venezuela will only serve to perpetuate that image and alienate other nations. Moreover, any economic sanctions from the United States will inflict heavy damage upon the Venezuelan economy, as can be inferred from the large amount of trading between the two countries.

Delivering this hardship to millions of Venezuelans would be unnecessary, since their leader poses no threat to merit such economic devastation.

Any reactions by the United States to Hugo Chavez’s inflammatory rhetoric and superficially threatening actions are unnecessary and unwise at this point in time. In addition to the likelihood that reacting will backfire and strengthen support for Chavez, reactions can damage the international image of the United States and cause unnecessary economic hardship to millions of Venezuelans. Any hostile diplomacy and rhetoric should be discontinued and no further action should be taken unless Venezuela begins to pose a serious economic or military threat. Venezuela remains a democracy. If the United States stops giving Hugo Chavez an object around which to rally support, Venezuelan voters will be more likely to recognize his ineffective policies and vote him out of office.

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RABBLE-ROUSER REFERENCES 1 “Country profile: Venezuela.” BBC News 25 Feb. 2006. <http://news.bbc.co.uk>.

2 “Chavez: Left tilt threat to empire.” Associated Press 4 Feb. 2006. <http://www.cnn.com>.

3 “Venezuela ‘to buy more weapons’” BBC News 5 Feb. 2006. <http://news.bbc.co.uk>.

4 “US warns against Chavez ‘danger’” BBC News 17 Feb. 2006. <http://news.bbc.co.uk>.

5 “Chavez threatens to cut off oil to U.S.” Associated Press 18 Feb. 2006. <http://www.cnn.com>.

6 “Chavez: Left tilt threat to empire.”

7 “Venezuela expels US naval ‘spy’” BBC News 2 Feb. 2006. <http://news.bbc.co.uk>.

8 “Venezuela lauds envoy booted from U.S.” Associated Press 13 Feb. 2006. <http://www.cnn.com>.

9 Morsbach, Greg. “Venezuela trains for guerrilla war.” BBC News 6 Mar. 2006. <http://news.bbc.co.uk>.

10 “Chavez threatens to cut off oil to U.S.” 11 United States. Energy Information Administration. Department of Energy. Top Suppliers of US Crude Oil 2004. 2004. <www.eia.doe.gov>.

12 Dudley, Steven. “Chávez’s wooing of Iran called troubling.” Miami Herald 2 Mar. 2006. <http://www.miamiherald.com>.

13 Top Suppliers of US Crude Oil 2004.

14 United States. Central Intelligence Agency. The World Factbook: Venezuela. 10 Jan. 2006. <http://www.cia.gov>.

15 Hugh, Thomas. The Cuban Revolution. New York: Harper & Row, 1977.

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