The Attaché Anniversary Edition by The Attaché University of Toronto

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In Association with International Relations Society

The

Dawn of a New Era: Post Cold War State Security Threats (2002) By: Silvester Komlodu

th Anniversary Edition

The Rwandan Genocide and the Politics of Identity (2001) By: Jenna Slotin And Many More...

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Table of Contents

15th Anniversary Issue Editor-in-Chief Sarah Wang Managing Editor Christian Medeiros Design Editor Ben Crase Editors Hayden Rodenkirchen Emily Tsui Reid Dobell Taha Shah

The Value of Theories in Understanding the Cuban Missile Crisis (?) David Rudin

Ores el il modi ditatumquo od qui dition core, nos ipit velessi musdae voluptatis estionet prem eture et vero quis ant adigenist quidus endit remporibus et quibus, qui que dessum et plantibus restiae venim eatiis eaque num sini derae volorem rae. Ut officium si idendam, odis dolore miliquiam dolumquias quid ut iunt. Offic tem ullori que nam volorio. Nam quo modis adi quo explibustemo bero beatentin esedis di dolorehenis solupta tiisto ium fugia nimpor mod molor minverumquid molorro voluptate volorio

Kaleem Hawa

pg. X

The Rwandan Genocide and the Politics of Identity (2001) Jenna Slotin

pg. X

Credibility (2003) Josh Rice pg. X When Peacekeepers Become the Perpetrators (2011) Justine Johnston pg. X

Junior Editors

Dawn of a New Era (2002)

Liam Brister

Silvester Komlodi pg. X

Tracy Wang

‘Patriotic History’ and Psycho-Cultural Factors in Zimbabwe’s Continuing Conflict Since 2000 (2009)

Max Laurin Alex Cohen ? Sarah Harrison

Thank you: Arts & Science Student Union & Trinity College Meeting

Travis Coulter pg. X

15th Anniversary Edition

The Value of Theories in Understanding the Cuban Missile Crisis A Review of Essence of Decision

David Rudin

In the wake of the horrors of the Vietnam War, the traditional assumption that decisions made by the American government were preeminently rational came under fire. Harvard political scientist Graham T. Allison’s 1971 first edition of Essence of Decision is part of this movement to question the rationality of governments. Allison contends that the pure cost benefit analyses that one would expect from a rational actor do not occur because negotiation between individuals and the behavioural patterns of bureaucracies together limit the options available to the head of state. Although these theoretical models of decision making are suited for the political scientist, Allison makes it clear in his introduction that he is also writing for the historian of international relations. Accordingly, each model is paired with an explanation of what Allison deems to be the central questions of the Cuban missile crisis: why the Soviet Union Author: Harchil iusam intem eaquiscid modipsam ea dis aut hilleni sciminctem qui autatemquo quos mossimus alit que nitiisqui niet fuga. Osae porpores eseque prae. Nemquatias mod et parum inctotatas et quam harum ius sunt expe dolessum quo tem quis ut ommolori berum. 4

installed missiles in Cuba, the United States responded with a blockade and the missiles were ultimately removed. This review focuses on Allison’s historical aspirations, arguing that Essence of Decision is of limited historiographical value due to its overreliance on American sources and the subordinate role of the historical chapters. Since one of Allison’s key questions about the Cuban missile crisis is why the Soviet Union opted to install missiles in Cuba, it can be inferred that he seeks to explain American and Soviet decision making during the crisis. However, Allison’s bias in favour of American sources undermines virtually all analysis of the USSR. In addition, some of the claims he makes about America limits the historiographical value of his work. The substitution of American predictions for actual Soviet views is the first area where this bias appears. In the rational actor model’s explanation for the Soviet installation of missiles in Cuba, Allison compares this decision to all the other possibilities to demonstrate that the decision fared best in a cost-benefit analysis. The only problem is that the options discussed are not the actual list of options but the best guess as to what the Soviets were thinking as calculated by the Executive Committee (ExCom), which was the group of advisers Kennedy consulted with during the crisis. Since no reference was made to substantive differences between an American guess and actual Soviet documentation, it can be assumed that Allison believes them to be perfect substitutes. However, using the American list only truly explains what Americans were thinking, not Allison’s initial question of “[why did] the Russians undertake such a drastic, risky departure from their traditional policy?”1 Such overt privileging of American sources does not advance our knowledge of the Soviet decision-making because it only repeats what America guessed in 1962. Moreover, all the theoretical chapters are uniquely based off western sources that focus on the American government. While some of their insight is transferable, it difficult to believe that Allison’s theories applies equally to the United States and the Soviet Union when their universality 1

Graham T. Allison, Essence of Decision: Explaining the Cuban Missile Crisis (Boston: Little Brown, 1971), 1.

15th Anniversary Edition is simply asserted. In all fairness, most Soviet documents had yet to be released in 1971. This was not inherently problematic; Allison could have demonstrated the merits of his argument by focusing on American politics alone. The problem is that instead of acknowledging the shortcomings of his evidence and limiting his argumentation accordingly, he simply assumed that American sources could adequately explain Soviet politics. The privileging of American views does not only lead to biased analysis of the Soviet Union, it also undermines the analysis of American politics. At no point does Allison question the motives or veracity of the statements by American officials upon which almost all his historical analysis is based upon. Such trustfulness regarding the potential biases of sources is even at odds with Allison’s own analysis of how the individuals who make up a government behave since he notes, “a player’s [stance] will depend on his personal interests.”2 Indeed, it seems entirely conceivable that members of the Kennedy administration would wish to overemphasize their own contributions or the wisdom of the administration. However, Allison never translates his theoretical apprehension as to the motives of politicians into any analysis of why his own sources might not be fully objective. Ultimately, Allison’s treatment of public figures as being infallible is counterproductive since it lessens the value of the interviews that Allison conducted with ExCom members. After so much blind faith, it becomes hard to believe anything. The utility of the historical analysis in the Essence in Decision is not only limited by bias, it is also affected by Allison’s historiographical approach. Despite the fact that he aims to answer historical questions about the Cuban missile crisis, Allison’s focus is theoretical. His central argument is uniquely about conceptual models as opposed to advancing a historical interpretation of the Cuban missile crisis. The result of this tension is that historical analysis is quite weak so as to better support the conceptual elements of the book. This can be seen at the level of each model where the use of evidence is constrained by already-formed conclusions and on a broader level in Allison’s refusal to combine the 2 Ibid., 167. 6

various insights that the models offer. As such, Essence of Decision only offers a minimal contribution to our understanding of the Cuban missile crisis. The primacy of the conceptual models in Essence of Decision limits the historical analysis of individual pieces of evidence. If it were a book about the Korean War, not a single conclusion would have to be changed. While this may be an achievement from a political science standpoint, it greatly diminishes the role historical interpretation of evidence – facts, documents, interviews and the like – in the work as a whole. The major conclusions in Essence of Decision that appear in the theoretical chapters are derived from models used in sociology, economics and political science. The sole function of the historical chapters is to illustrate those points.Thus, if a model’s conclusion is not supported by a piece of evidence, Allison opts to leave that evidence out of the explanation instead of discussing what can be learned from this tension. Thus, despite its central importance in the crisis, President Kennedy’s decision to respond to Kruschev’s initial offer of a settlement as opposed to his less favourable second proposal is completely ignored in two of the models. While this proves Allison’s point that different models will produce different explanations, it also results in two explanations with gaping holes. Moreover, in a historical analysis so driven by theory, context is effectively marginalized. Pressure from congressional committees is briefly referenced as an example of the ‘background effect’. The only source of public pressure discussed is the Bay of Pigs fiasco. Otherwise, the broader political climate, elements such as fears of communist or Soviet expansion, does not fit into any of the models. The main problem with history by categorization is that elements are put into conceptual boxes to produce internally coherent and plausible explanations but, in the end, each accounting has little value in and of itself because it is so narrowly shaped. Beyond the problems with how each individual explanation is constructed, there remains the problem of what to make of the three stories of the Cuban missile crisis that Allison presents. Aside from a concession that “the models seem to complement each other” in the final 7

15th Anniversary Edition pages of the conclusion, they are treated as being mutually exclusive throughout the book. Indeed, this separation is necessary so as to show that different models produce divergent explanations. However, to the more historically minded audiences, the failure to combine these explanations into a more cohesive whole does not just exclude important elements; it makes it difficult to build a more complex picture of what happened and why. Explaining what factors were present can only take an analysis so far. What is missing in Essence of Decision is an assessment of the significance and relative merits of each explanation. For instance, Allison never examines whether bureaucratic routines had a greater effect than bargaining or if these dynamics varied on both sides of the conflict. Rather, he creates an environment where interesting ideas are raised but are never in conflict. As an intellectual exercise, this is not particularly satisfying insofar as the greater challenge comes in understanding how variables interact as opposed to just naming them. Admittedly it would be unreasonable to expect Allison to present the one and only right answer to all the lingering questions about the Cuban missile crisis. However, Essence of Decision would make a much greater historiographic contribution to the study of the Cuban missile crisis if it were anything more than a series of disparate parts.

"It is limited by both a proAmerican bias and a rigid approach to historical analysis."

At the outset of Essence of Decision, Allison states that he is writing for five “representative readers”: a colleague, a student, an informed layman, a journalist and a general reader.3 His book tries to be too many things to too many people and, in doing so, is very uneven. Its strength lies in the sections geared more towards political scientists, 3 Ibid., VIII. 8

which clearly demonstrate that governments are not purely rational and that different conceptualizations will lead to different conclusions. Thus, Allison proves his central argument regarding the effect of assumptions on analysis. However, in doing so, Essence of Decision is unsatisfying from a historiographical perspective. It is limited by both a pro-American bias and a rigid approach to historical analysis. Whereas Allison sets out in the introduction to explain the big questions of the Cuban missile crisis, in the conclusion he is reduced to conceding, “This study has obviously bitten off more than it has chewed.”4 Essence of Decision is not without value insofar as it raises interesting questions. However, Allison’s inability to turn these questions and the pieces of evidence he possesses into a cohesive whole means that his analysis contributes little to our historical understanding of the Cuban missile crisis.

Works Cited Allison, Graham T. Essence of Decision: Explaining the Cuban Missile Crisis. Boston: Little Brown, 1971.

Ibid., 263.

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The Rwandan Genocide and the Politics of Identity Jenna Slotin

In 1994, Rwandan President Juvenal Habyarimana was returning from sessions of the fifth phase of the Arusha Peace Process - talks intended to bring peace between Rwanda’s Tutsi and Hutu populations - when his plane was shot down. After the president’s assassination, extremist factions in the Rwandan Hutu government instituted a policy of genocide and mobilized a large section of the population to slaughter over half a million people within a month. This paper argues that the Arusha Peace Process and the resulting Arusha Peace Accords exacerbated longstanding ethnic tensions in Rwanda and motivated Hutu extremists to pursue their genocidal

Author: Harchil iusam intem eaquiscid modipsam ea dis aut hilleni sciminctem qui autatemquo quos mossimus alit que nitiisqui niet fuga. Osae porpores eseque prae. Nemquatias mod et parum inctotatas et quam harum ius sunt expe dolessum quo tem quis ut ommolori berum. 10

solution. The Arusha Accords failed to address Rwanda’s ethnic tensions in two important ways. First, the terms of the Accords marginalized and excluded powerful, extremist factions in the Hutu government. This led to a perception that the Hutus were on the losing end of the peace process and heightened their fears of Tutsi domination. Second, the Accords failed to acknowledge the legitimacy and distinctiveness of the Hutu and Tutsi identities. Identity recognition has emerged as a key element in settling intrastate conflicts between rival ethnic groups in the last ten years. While we cannot know whether identity recognition would have averted the genocide, it is clear that ethnic identity was a key element of the Rwandan conflict that should have been addressed at Arusha. Before we can examine the Arusha Accords and the violence of the 1990s, it is essential to understand the history of ethnic tensions in Rwanda. While clear distinctions did exist between the minority Tutsis and the majority Hutus in pre-Colonial Rwanda, there is no evidence of tensions or conflict between them. Tutsis dominated Hutus in a complex system of agrarian stratification based on each group’s role in the economy. Tutsis owned cattle and acted as patrons towards Hutus, who were generally farmers and cultivators. Despite the well-entrenched patronclient relationship between Hutus and Tutsis, the ethnic boundaries between the two groups were permeable since intermarriage was allowed and high-status Hutus were included in the upper echelons of Rwandan society.1 Under German and later Belgian colonial rule, the ethnic identities of Hutu and Tutsi became increasingly entrenched and politicized. The Germans used the existing hierarchy in Rwandan society to execute their colonial administrators. The Tutsis were established as the ruling group under the system of indirect rule and were given certain privileges, including posts in the bureaucracy, access to some education, and the opportunity to own land. In contrast, the Hutus were excluded entirely from the 1

Joseph Mullen, “From Colony to National: The Implosion of Ethnic Tolerance in Rwanda, “ in Ethnic Hatred: Genocide in Rwanda, ed. Obi Igwara (London: Association for the Study of Ethnicity and Nationalism, 1995).

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“The Germans used the existing hierarchy in Rwandan society to execute their colonial administrators.”

state structure and became a subject people. The colonial government’s issuing of identity and residence cards further entrenched Hutu and Tutsi identities and made the boundaries between the groups impermeable, to the point where upward mobility for Hutus was virtually impossible. These colonial policies heightened Hutu discontent and led to the assertion of a new pan-Hutu identity in Rwanda. For their part, the Tutsis supported both German and Belgian policy throughout the colonial era because it provided their group with privilege and security.2

After the Second World War, Rwandan Tutsis followed the example of many other colonized people and began agitating for independence. As the privileged group under colonial r ule, the Tutsis felt they had the right to govern an independent Rwanda, although the rhetoric of their National Rwandanese Union (UNAR) spoke of forming an independent state that would incorporate all Rwandans regardless of ethnicity. Meanwhile, Hutu leaders established their own Party for the Emancipation of the Hum People (PARMEHUTU). Concerned by the assertiveness of the UNAR, the Belgians switched allegiances in 1959 and abruptly ended Tutsi dominance in Rwanda. In the years of violence that followed, the Hutus established an independent government in Rwanda with Belgian support, and the first exodus of Tutsis to neighbouring Uganda. Burundi and Zaire took place.3 Attacks against

Dixon Kamukama, Rwanda Conflict: Its Roots and Implications (Kampala: Fountain Publishers, 1997). Also see Mullen, 1995.

African Rights, Rwanda: Death Despair and Defiance (London: African Rights,

Tutsis inside Rwanda continued after independence in 1962, and Tutsi guerrilla forces based in neighbouring countries began regular raids and incursions against the Rwandan government. In 1973, a Hutu army general from the north named Juvenal Habyarimana mounted a coup, ostensibly to restore order and to put an end to ethnic politics. He did succeed in quelling much of the overt violence, but his rule was marked by the same repression, cronyism, and corruption as that of many of his African counterparts. The result was an increasingly discontented Tutsi population, the majority of which had fled and were consolidating their power in refugee camps across the border.4 In the Ugandan camps in particular, Rwandan Tutsis who had defected from the Ugandan National Liberation Army were forming a cohesive fighting force and political party known as the Rwandan Patriotic Front (RPF). 5 On I October 1990, the RPF launched an attack into northwestern Rwanda from Uganda, and five days later France and Belgium were sending troops to help the Rwandan Armed Forces (FAR) repel the rebels. The RPF claimed that they were “fighting on behalf of all Rwandans to establish democracy and end corruption,” while the lIutu-led government argued that the “rebels [sought] a reversal of history and a return to forced labour and servitude” that characterized colonial and pre-colonial Rwanda.6 A tenuous ceasefire, which President Habyarimana regarded as illegitimate, was negotiated in 1991, and over the next year several protocols were signed on issues including refugee repatriation and political powersharing. These protocols only served to facilitate the birth of numerous political parties that would come into conflict during the Arusha process. By 1992, 1995).

Christopher Clapham, “Rwanda: The Perils of Peace Making,” Journal of Peace Research 35:2 (1998): 193-210.

5 6

African Rights, Rwanda, 1995.

Anonymous, “Africa’s Tribal Wars: The Return of the Tutsi,” Economist 317:7676 (1990): 44-46.

15th Anniversary Edition the weaknesses of these protocols was so evident that the RPF renewed their offensive. These developments finally motivated regional and international parties to encourage the establishment of a peace process in Arusha, Tanzania.7 The Arusha Peace Process of July 1992 to August 1993 consisted of a number of phases during which periodic meetings were held between the negotiating parties and neutral observers. Five general items were to be addressed: a) terms for a ceasefire; b) the principles of human rights and the rule of law; c) the structure of a new power-sharing government, including the roles and the composition of the highest political institutions; d) the repatriation of refugees and the resettlement of displaced people, and; c) a formula for integrating the rebels into the FAR and determining the composition of the senior ranks. 8 It is unnecessary to delve into the all the intricacies of the Arusha Accords, but it is essential to identify the key points that made the Accords a “victor’s deal” for the RPF.9 Under pressure from the RPF, Habyarimana was forced to make a number of fatal concessions. The first was excluding the Coalition for the Defence of the Republic Party (CDR) from the Transitional Assembly and Cabinet. The CDR was the most extreme Hutu party in Rwanda and the RPF fought hard against their inclusion in the government, but the exclusion of the CDR only radicalized Hutu extremists who would later instigate the 1994 genocide. 10 The second fatal mistake was the RPF’s insistence that political power reside with a council of ministers instead of the president. This made President Habyarimana a mere figurehead and 7 8

African Rights, Rwanda, 1995.

9 10

Ibid.

Bruce Jones, “The Arusha Peace Process,” in The Path of a Genocide: The Rwandan Crisis from Uganda to Zaire, ed. Howard Adelman et. al (London: Transaction Publishers, 1999). Clapham, “Rwanda.”

weakened the influence of his moderate National Revolutionary Movement for Development (MRND), for they were only awarded the presidency in the party-by-party division of cabinet posts.11 Third, the Hutu-dominated FAR was marginalized during the process of integrating rebel forces into the Rwandan army. During the negotiations, President Habyarimana offered the RPF 15% of the command posts in the integrated armed forces, which corresponds to the proportion of the Rwandan population that the Tutsis represent. RPF negotiators rejected this offer and secured a 50-50 distribution of command posts between the RF T and government forces. Some 40% of the new army’s soldiers would come from the RPF, while the balance would be drawn from the existing FAR.12 This disproportionate distribution of power between the RPF and the various — and competing — factions in the Rwandan government further marginalized the Hutus and increased their sense of impotence, frustration, and relative deprivation.13 Having looked at the history of the Rwandan conflict up to and including the Arusha Peace Process, now we must analyse how the terms of the Accords failed to address the identity struggle underlying the conflict, thereby intensifying tensions and contributing to the organization of a genocide. Numerous social psychology studies have found that people generally define themselves in terms of their group memberships. This leads individuals to construct one or more group identities within them. In a given circumstance, the context and the constraints of the situation will make one group identity relatively more salient for the individual, so he/she will act and react in terms of that identity. Additionally, cohesive groups tend to seek “positive distinctiveness” for their own group, since the individual need for positive self-identity can generally be satisfied by a positive group identity. Therefore, groups will develop distinctions between the “ingroup” and the “outgroup”, engage in comparisons between 11 Jones, “The Arusha Peace Process.” 12 Ibid. 13 Ibid. 15

15th Anniversary Edition their group and relevant outgroups, and search for ways they can positively differentiate themselves. This differentiation can often take the form of ethnocentrism, discrimination, derogation of outgroups, and sometimes outright violence. Research shows that these behaviours can develop between groups that are not engaged in overt material competition; however, they are much more likely to occur between groups that find themselves in direct competition. When two groups find themselves competing for a scare resource, each group will view the situation as zero-sum (i.e. a gain for the outgroup is a loss for the ingroup); and it is in such situations, where power and status are scare resources, that acute conflict can develop.14 These social psychological processes of group identity and intergroup relations are an effective framework through which to view the Rwandan conflict and the Arusha Accords. The Hutus and the Tutsis form two distinct groups in Rwanda, and during the Arusha Peace Process these two groups found themselves competing for power at the bargaining table. Since the terms of the Arusha Accords represented a significant loss of power for the Hums, it is not surprising that they felt their identity was threatened by the these Accords.15 By excluding the extremist CDR party from participating in the transitional government, Habytiamana’s MRND party was robbed of a significant support base in controlling the assembly. Additionally, reducing the president’s power and dispersing it across the cabinet and between various parties made Hutu leaders in the former government perceive a loss of powers that they once held. These factors contributed to a sense of threatened identity which, in turn, fed fears of Tutsi dominance over the Hutus.16 Finally, the grossly 14

For a review of this literature see M. Brewer and R. Kramer, “The Psychology of Intergroup Attitudes and Behaviour,” Annual Review of Psychology 36 (1985): 219-243. Also see D. Messick and D. Mackie, “Intergroup Relations,” Intergroup Relations Annual Review of Psychology 40 (1989), 45-81.

Tatien Musabyiman, “Massacres in Rwanda: Ethnic Crisis or Political Crisis?” In Ethnic Hatred: Genocide in Rwanda, ed. Obi Igwara (London: Association for the Study of Ethnicity and Nationalism, 1995).

African Rights, Rwanda.

disproportionate representation of Tutsis in both the regular ranks and the upper echelons of the new amalgamated army represented a clear articulation of Tutsi and RPF strength, which necessarily resulted in feelings of inadequacy and insecurity among Hutus. 17 The natural reaction of a group in a threatened or insecure position, like that of the Hutus, is to pursue some means of differentiation or a reassertion of the group’s strength and power. 18 Thus, it is not surprising that the extremist CDR party turned to genocide, for this is the ultimate act of dehumanizing the outgroup and asserting the ingroup’s dominance. It may be relatively simple to explain how the Arusha Accords marginalized and limited the power of a particular group and facilitated their pursuit of genocide, but the question remains whether the Arusha Accords motivated the population to a similar end. W hile the lack of explicit recognition of the legitimac y and distinctiveness of both groups in the Arusha Accords did push the population towards genocide, it is wrong to assume that it is the only factor that led to the Rwandan tragedy. It does, however, form the social psychological component that interacted with numerous economic and political issues to lead to genocide. The aforementioned political losses suffered by the Hums created fears of Tutsi dominance, and the failure to explicitly recognize the legitimacy and distinctiveness of the Hutus allowed these fears to rapidly spread through the population. Feelings of inadequacy and a threatened group identity made ordinary people increasingly vulnerable to propaganda of Hutu extremists that promoted Hutu nationalism and supremacy. Various theorists in the field of conflict management have noted that “strategies that fail to recognize 17 18

Igwara, Ethnic Hatred: Genocide in Rwanda.

David Carment and Patrick James, “Ethnic Conflict at the International Level: Causation, Prevention, and Peacekeeping,” in Peace in the Midst of Wars: Preventing and Managing International Ethnic Conflicts, ed. David Carment et. al. (Columbia: University of South Carolina Press, 1998).

15th Anniversary Edition peoples’ cultural identities or that fail to address the grievances that animate their political movements, will also fail to reduce conflict.”19 Janice Stein argues that one method leaders can use to recognize identity is to make an irrevocable commitment through a public action or statement articulating that they have benign intentions towards their adversaries. 20 To illustrate her argument, Stein offers the example of Anwar Sadat’s monumental speech to the Israeli Knesset enumerating Egypt’s terms for peace. The risk associated with Sadat’s venture was reduced by secret negotiations between key Israeli and Egyptian elites indicating that both sides were ready to make concessions for peace. Sadat’s speech itself radically altered the images that Israelis and Egyptians had of one another. By going to the seat of the Israeli government, Sadat acknowledged Israel’s legitimacy and the legitimacy of the Jewish people as a nation. Likewise, by accepting him in the Knesset, Israeli leaders recognized the legitimacy of Egypt as a country with which peace was possible, thereby making Egypt distinct from the other Arab states in the region. Returning to Rwanda and the Arusha Peace Accords, there was no effort made on the part of the negotiating parties or the third party mediators to address the identity needs of both the Hums and the Tutsis. The negotiations were simply a race to see who could amass the most power under the terms of the Accords. As the dominant military and negotiating party, perhaps the RPF should have acknowledged the viability and legitimacy of all Hutu parties by limiting their own demands. This would have been a strong public statement that could have altered hostile intergroup perceptions that existed among Hutus and Tutsis. Alternatively, perhaps the third-party “neutral” mediators (which included France, Belgium. 19 Ted Robert Gurr, “Minorities, Nationalists, and Ethnopolitical Conflict,” in Managing Global Chaos: Sources and Responses to International Conflict, ed. Chester A. Crocker et. al. (Washington, D.C.: United States Institute of Peace Press, 1996).

Janice Gross Stein, “Image, Identity, and Conflict Resolution,” in Managing Global Chaos: Sources and Responses to International Conflict, ed. Chester A. Crocker et. al. Washington, D.C.: United States Institute of Peace Press, 1996).

Tanzania, Zaire, the United States, the Organization of African Unity, and others) should have stepped in to limit the RPF’s gains and the Hum factions’ losses. By preventing the RPF from attaining all their demands, it may have been possible to have a more proportional distribution of power on the basis that both groups are legitimate and distinct.

“the Arusha Peace Accords neglected These suggestions come to recognize the with the benefit of hindsight, however, and it is impossible to legitimacy and know whether they would have helped. Nevertheless, it is plain distinctiveness of that the notion of group identity was central in the minds of Hutus Tutsis, and it is obvious both the Hutus and that the Arusha Accords directly at the heart of and Tutsis, which struck the issue by threatening the identity and thereby resulted in a crisis Hutu intensifying feelings of fear frustration. Therefore, of identity for the and while identity recognition may not have been a panacea in this Hutu people.” situation, it could have helped counter the identity issues that led a significant portion of the Hutu population to undertake genocide as a way of reasserting their power.

From the beginning of colonial era, Rwandan Hums and Tutsis have found themselves in direct competition for power and status. The Arusha Peace Process established in 1992 was an attempt to end the perpetual cycle of violence between these two 19

15th Anniversary Edition groups, but its terms were grossly skewed in favour of the RPF. Hutu factions were marginalized by unbalanced allocation of seats in the Transitional Assembly, the decline in the powers of the president, and most significantly, in the composition of the new, integrated armed forces. Furthermore, the Arusha Peace Accords neglected to recognize the legitimacy and distinctiveness of both the Hutus and Tutsis, which resulted in a crisis of identity for the Hutu people. Identity insecurity is a very real social psychological phenomenon that has been largely ignored in conflict management and resolution, but the events following the Arusha Peace Process show that it was a key element in the escalation to violence and genocide in Rwanda in 1994. Most intergroup conflict operates within the framework of the human psyche, where group identities are deeply entrenched, so this is an element that must be addressed in any strategy to manage such conflicts. Otherwise, we risk conflicts degenerating into the most heinous of all actions ever conceived by human beings. Works Cited African Rights. Rwanda: Death Despair and Defiance. London: African Rights, 1995. Anonymous. “Africa’s Tribal Wars: The Return of the Tutsi.” Economist 317:7676 (1990): 44-46. Brewer, M. and R. Kramer. “The Psychology of Intergroup Attitudes and Behaviour.” Annual Review of Psychology 36 (1985): 219-243. Carment, David and Patrick James. “Ethnic Conflict at the International Level: Causation, Prevention, and Peacekeeping.” In Peace in the Midst of Wars: Preventing and Managing International Ethnic Conflicts, edited by David Carment and Patrick James. Columbia: University of South Carolina Press, 1998. 20

Clapham, Christopher. “Rwanda: The Perils of Peace Making.” Journal of Peace Research 35:2 (1998): 193-210. Gurr, Ted Robert. “Minorities, Nationalists, and Ethnopolitical Conflict.” In Managing Global Chaos: Sources and Responses to International Conflict, edited by Chester A. Crocker, Fen Osler Hampson, and Pamela Aall. Washington, D.C.: United States Institute of Peace Press, 1996. Jones, Bruce. “The Arusha Peace Process.” In The Path of a Genocide: The Rwandan Crisis from Uganda to Zaire, edited by Howard Adelman and Astri Surke. London: Transaction Publishers, 1999. Kamukama, Dixon. Rwanda Conflict: Its Roots and Implications. Kampala: Fountain Publishers, 1997. Messick, D. and D. Mackie. “Intergroup Relations.” Intergroup Relations Annual Review of Psychology 40 (1989), 45-81. Mullen, Joseph. “From Colony to National: The Implosion of Ethnic Tolerance in Rwanda,.“ In Ethnic Hatred: Genocide in Rwanda, edited by Obi Igwara. London: Association for the Study of Ethnicity and Nationalism, 1995. Musabyiman, Tatien. “Massacres in Rwanda: Ethnic Crisis or Political Crisis?” In Ethnic Hatred: Genocide in Rwanda, edited by Obi Igwara. London: Association for the Study of Ethnicity and Nationalism, 1995. Stein, Janice Gross. “Image, Identity, and Conflict Resolution.” In Managing Global Chaos: Sources and Responses to International Conflict, edited by Chester A. Crocker, Fen Osler Hampson, and Pamela Aall. Washington, D.C.: United States Institute of Peace Press, 1996. 21

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Credibility Josh Rice

As debates continue over the wisdom of waging war, the logic guiding the Bush Administration’s policy toward Iraq has created some confusion, as well as a great deal of skepticism. Unconvinced of Baghdad’s terrorist links or the imminence of an Iraq threat, some critics of American policy have speculated that ulterior rationale, namely great power “interests” such as oil and geopolitics, have framed the logic behind Washington’s apparent thirst for regime change. Yet, without discounting these, another consideration might be viewed as more significantly informing American policy. Imponderable and immeasurable, yet consistent relevant in post1945 American diplomacy, the perceived psychological impact of regime change may be playing a major role in Washington.

Throughout the post-World War II period, American leaders have consistently sought to achieve not just concrete foreign policy objectives, but also less tangible, psychological ones.1 Most significantly, American leaders have stressed the importance of demonstrating American “credibility” to the rest of the world. Since 1945, the notion has often been invoked, both publicly and privately, to defend and explain official decisions in Washington.2 An elusive concept, American policymakers have typically understood US credibility as a mixture of the nation’s resolve, reliability, believability, and decisiveness, as well as a notion of representative of America’s image and reputation.3 American involvement in Vietnam, for example, was heavily influence by Washington’s desire to demonstrate sufficient strength and resolve to its allies and enemies alike.4 The relevance of the concept also appears to have survived the end of the Cold War. Former President Richard M. Nixon explained the psychological importance of dealing with Iraq’s invasion of Kuwait in the early 1990s: “If we fail to roll back [Saddam Hussein’s] aggression peacefully if possible, by force if necessary - no potential aggressor in the future will be deterred by warnings from the US or by UN resolutions.”5 In calculating the potential impact of their foreign policies, American leaders have gauged not only the direct, concrete effects, but also their broader, psychological consequences. 1

Robert J. McMahon, “Credibility and World Power: Exploring the Psychological Dimension in Postwar American Diplomacy,” Diplomatic History 15:4 (1991).

McMahon outlines the importance of psychological factors, including American credibility, in US diplomacy since 1945. ibid. Thomas Lairson demonstrates the influence of credibility during the early Cold War in “Revising Post-revisionism: Credibility and Hegemony in the Early Cold War,” in Rethinking the Cold War, ed. Allen Hunter (Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1998).

3 4

McMahon, “Credibility and World Power,” 455.

Nixon, quoted, in MacMahon, “Credibility and World Power,” 455.

George C. Herring, for example, is critical of Washington’s preoccupation with credibility. See America’s Longest War: The United States and Vietnam, 1950-1975 (Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1986).

15th Anniversary Edition Historically, Washington’s preoccupation with its credibility has rested on the assumption that US action (or inaction) sends signals to other international actors, friendly or unfriendly, about American strength, determination, and probable future behaviour. 6 The influence this principle may exert within the current Bush Administration should not be dismissed. In recent months, Washington has publicly stressed the importance of sending ‘appropriate’ international political signals. On Iraq, President George W. Bush has warned the UN Security Council that its credibility is at stake, and that by failing to enforce UN resolution 1441 it runs the risk of fading, “into history as an ineffective, irrelevant, debating society.” 7 While the sincerity of the Bush Administration’s concern for the UN’s credibility might be debatable, it does appear that the American leadership has placed significant value in the psychological impact of its own policies and in the resulting influence its actions might have on the future behavior of other international actors. Bob Woodward’s recent work on Washington’s response to the September 11 attacks reveals an administration acutely cognizant of the psychological dimensions of US power. 8 The logic behind US military action in Afghanistan, claimed the President, was not only to eliminate terrorists, but also to “signal a change from the past” and persuade countries with a history of supporting terrorists, such as Syria and Iran, to “change their views.” 9 In a National Security Council (NSC) meeting, referring to the then-Afghani government, Bush stated, “[we]’re going to hurt them [the Taliban] so bad so that everyone in the world sees, don’t deal with [Osama] bin Laden.” 10 By 6 7

Ibid., 457.

8 9 10

Bob Woodward, Bush at War (Toronto: Simon & Schuster, 2002).

Bush, quoted n Ron Fournier, “Bush Urges UN to Confront Saddam, Iraq,” Associated Press, accessed February 13, 2003. Ibid., 81, 98. Ibid., 63.

using its military might in Afghanistan, the Bush Administration attempted to alter future decisions of other states by credibly signaling America’s own likely future response.

In this light, the Bush Administration’s tough stand on Iraq could be interpreted less as an effort to acquire immediate and essential gains for US security and more as a severe message directed toward other regimes Washington considers potentially dangerous. While references to such rationale have been rare, on 20 February 2003 the President declared that by disarming Iraq, “we will show other dictators that the path to aggression will lead to their own ruin.” 11 Moreover, by demonstrating its willingness to depose a sovereign government, Washington is likely attempting to convince other states in which terrorists and weapons of mass destruction may potentially cross paths to alter their course of behavior. If some regimes have failed to voluntarily and decisively reform in the past, the Bush Administration’s current policy may be an effort to compel internal change by undermining those governments’ belief in future

“Throughout the postWorld War II period, American leaders have consistently sought to achieve not just concrete foreign policy objectives, but also less tangible, psychological ones.”

White House Press oFfice, http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/ releases/2003/20030220-2.html.

survival. Throughout the current Iraqi crisis, the Bush Administration has consistently argued that its policy has been motivated by the realities of a post-September 11 world. In a recent speech to the Chicago Council on Foreign Relations, Canadian Prime Minister Jean Chrétien made reference to the international communities doubts concerning US motives. “Great strength is not always perceived by others as benign,” Chrétien said, “[not] everyone around the world is prepared to take the word of the United States on faith.” 12 The apparent disconnect between the Iraqi regime and international terrorism has contributed to speculation about America’s real motives. However, if history serves as any guide, the current US administration may be placing significant value in the psychological demonstration of American power and resolve as part of a broader strategy directed toward improving, among other things, US national security. From this perspective, the Bush Administration’s war on Iraq might be just what it says it is.

Controversial Conflicts American NGOs and Central America in the 1980s

Judith Rae

tThe interference of the United States’ government in the Central American internal conflicts of the 1980s is well known. However, the U.S. government was not the only international actor in this drama, nor even the only American actor. While the roles of a few other states, particularly the USSR, have been much discussed, the activities and influence of various non-state actors have generally remained in the background despite the large number and vigorous activity of such groups. U.S. hegemony in the Latin American region meant that American NGOs in particular became important actors in the Central American conflicts.

From Jean Chrétien’s speech before Chicago Council on Foreign Relations (13 February 2003). Full text at http://cbc.ca/news/iraq/documents/chretien030213.html.

This paper aims to explore the activities and political influence

15th Anniversary Edition of U.S.-based international non-governmental organizations (NGOs) in the Central American crisis, focusing on the cases of El Salvador and Nicaragua. Nicaragua, a leftist state with rightist guerrilla insurgents, and El Salvador, a rightist state with leftist guerrilla insurgents, represent both extremes of the political spectrum and were heavily affected by U.S. foreign policy during this period, thus stimulating a great deal of American NGO interest. It is argued here that U.S.-based international NGOs were dramatically politically polarized by the Central American crisis, and that they intentionally affected the conflicts in El Salvador and Nicaragua both directly and indirectly. The term “U.S.-based” NGOs is intended here to include organizations that are not directly controlled by the government (though they may have significant governmental links), and that originate from the United States or have a very substantial base in the United States. The qualifier “international” is used very loosely here, to indicate that these NGOs devoted substantial time and attention to issues, activities or partners outside the U.S., in Central America in this case. “Direct” influence on the ongoing civil wars includes activities such as refugee relief work, linking with local human rights organizations, or providing aid to combatants, while “indirect” influence involves attempts to affect U.S. foreign policy or the behaviour of other actors, for instance through lobbying or publicity campaigns. The goals, actions and impact of these NGOs tended to group according to their political position relative to the conflicts. It is therefore useful to separate them into the “Centre”, “Left”, and “Right”, and then examine some of the organizations involved, their ideologies, their activities, and their direct and indirect influence, accordingly. The Centre The political centre was a rare and difficult position to occupy and maintain in such a polarized political environment. And polarized it certainly was; the quantity of organizations on each side, vast array of 28

actions they pursued, and the radicalism of some of those actions, attest to that fact. Furthermore, this debate did not remain in the margins, raging only among a tiny minority of the American population; Central America became a national issue of some importance. For instance, polls indicated that in 1985 around 70 percent of Americans were against the U.S. support for the contras in Nicaragua.1 And though only twenty-one New York Times articles contained the phrase “Central America” between 1970 and 1978, in the next eight-year period, 19791986, some 5343 articles can be found.2 The American organizations that remained the most neutral and un-biased tended to be well-established, large organizations with significant experience in international work. Americas Watch, now part of Human Rights Watch, played a key role, as did the Washington Office on Latin America (WOLA). Other organizations in the political centre tended to be more firmly rooted in Europe though they had American offices, such as the United Nations High Commission for Refugees (UNHCR), Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF), or Amnesty International, and these deserve some mention in this section though the focus will be on Americas Watch. Susan Burgerman is the author of a book on the activities and

“The political centre was a rare and difficult position to occupy and maintain in such a polarized political environment.”

Washington Post, “The Administration: Fighting For the MX and the Contras,” The Economist, last updated: March 9 1985, 41.

Lexis-Nexis database, author’s search.

15th Anniversary Edition impact of international human rights organizations. She noted that during the Central American crisis the “more reputable” NGOs, such as Amnesty International, Americas Watch, and WOLA, made stringent efforts to be carefully selective in choosing their local affiliates, trying to distinguish between “solidarity organizations” that were more “blatantly political” and strict “human rights” groups that they considered “nonpartisan”.3 Another way these groups held onto the centre was to diligently report abuses by all sides, even if this necessitated changes to the organization’s original mandate or structure. For instance, Americas Watch began working with the International Committee of the Red Cross in 1983-84 to monitor and report human rights abuses by El Salvador’s FMLN (Frente Farabundo Martí para la Liberacíon Nacional), though human rights organizations had previously focused almost exclusively on state actions.4 Despite their best efforts, centrist groups came under some attack from both the right and left. For instance, the UNHCR, a refugee relief agency involved in coordination and service delivery, decided to move La Virtud refugee camp, which sheltered Salvadoran refugees in Honduras, farther from the border, possibly in order to limit FMLN involvement. In response, other relief NGOs working in the camp protested the move and accused UNHCR of harbouring pro-U.S. sentiments.5 Similarly, MSF, another on-the-ground relief organization, often clashed with the more leftist international organizations working in the refugee camps it was operating, who likewise accused MSF of sympathizing with the American government when MSF disputed the groups’ support of the Salvadoran guerrillas.6 In contrast, a 1986 article in Newsweek reported (sympathetically), that “Reagan administration officials and other conservatives” accused Amnesty International and Americas Watch of

“hedg[ing] their condemnation” or “qualif[ying] their disapproval” of the Sandinistas.7 Even late in the decade, at least two letters to the New York Times made similar accusations against Americas Watch, which prompted a detailed response by the Human Rights Watch executive director the following week.8 That even the most diligently non-partisan organizations were so heatedly attacked from all sides testifies to the polarization of American organizations and citizens regarding the Central American civil wars of the 1980s. Despite the difficulties, ultimately the centrist strategy seems to have paid off in terms of mainstream legitimacy and public voice, which meant that major human rights organizations like Americas Watch were able to have a big impact in terms of indirect political influence. Americas Watch was frequently cited by authoritative American media outlets such as the New York Times, Newsweek, and The Economist in ways which suggest acceptance of the validity of its information, pointing to the likelihood that their views were gaining currency in the American mainstream. In fact, Americas Watch material was frequently used in news articles as the only source of information disputing the U.S. government’s account of events, and the issuing of its reports often received national coverage in their own right.9 For instance, “Salvador Rights Violations Charged,” covered the 1985 release of Americas Watch’s eighth report on human rights in El Salvador, right on page three of the New York Times.10 The report itself heavily criticizes Salvadoran government, military and paramilitary abuses and strongly critiques U.S. foreign policy,

For examples of the former, please see: Judith Miller, “Reagan Certifies Salvador for Aid: Hails Progress Despite ‘Obstacles’,” New York Times, last updated: Jan. 22 1983, A1; Mark Whitaker, “The Sandinista Threat,” Newsweek, last updated: Apr. 29 1985, 44; “O’Neill Assails Aid Request for Contras,” New York Times, last updated: Mar. 5 1986, A4; Larry Martz, “The Contra Crusade,” Newsweek, last updated: March 17 1986, 20.

Susan Burgerman, Moral Victories: How Activists Provoke Multilateral Action (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 2001), 24-25.

4 5

Burgerman, Moral Victories, 23.

Terry, Condemned to Repeat? 97-99.

Fiona Terry, Condemned to Repeat? The Paradox of Humanitarian Action (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 2002), 94-95, 99.

1986, 19.

Chistopher Dickey, “Nicaragua and Human Rights,” Newsweek, last updated: Aug. 18

Aryeh Neier, “Not All Human Rights Groups Are Equal,” New York Times, last updated: May 27, 1989, A22.

Associated Press, “Salvador Rights Violations Charged,” New York Times, last updated: Sept. 13 1985, A3.

15th Anniversary Edition yet notably condemns guerilla violence as well. “Rights Group Says U.S. Distorts Nicaragua Reports,” another NYT article from 1985, reports the release of an Americas Watch report specifically about U.S. government propaganda, and “El Salvador: Getting Worse,” showcases the release of another document, this time in The Economist.11 With this reach and authority, Americas Watch influenced debate in the U.S. Congress, within the American public, and among the people and governments of other countries.12 Its documents provided rhetorical and factual ammunition for scores of other NGOs to use in their mobilization and lobbying. This is a formidable indirect impact, particularly since the war of information was critical in Cold War politics. Speaking about Nicaragua and particularly the American political culture surrounding it, Aryeh Neier, the Human Rights Watch (parent organization of Americas Watch) director, warned that, “on both sides, the human rights issue has been a weapon to use against the enemy.”13 The work of Americas Watch and others in channeling reliable, accurate human rights information from Central America to the world was absolutely vital in such circumstances. It may have prevented the crisis from becoming even worse than it was, particularly because it seems to have been instrumental in preventing U.S. allies like the governments of Canada and European nations from signing on to the U.S. agenda.14 Yet, the success of their ultimate goal – influencing U.S. and Central American government policy in order to stop human rights abuse – appears to have been limited. Burgerman and others have noted that human rights pressure alone did not succeed in ending civil wars in 11

Susan F. Rasky, “Rights Group Says U.S. Distorts Nicaragua Reports,” New York Times, last updated: July 16 1985, A6; “El Salvador Getting Worse,” The Economist, last updated: Oct. 8 1988, 48.

12 13 14

Burgerman, Moral Victories, 14-50.

“Not All Human Rights Groups are Equal.”

Laura MacDonald, Supporting Civil Society: The Political Role of NonGovernmental Organizations in Central America (London: MacMillan Press, 1997), 155.

Central America or terminating official (or un-official) American aid.15 Shifts in Nicaraguan, Salvadoran, and U.S. internal politics, and the end of the Cold War, were far more influential. Nevertheless, centrist groups like Americas Watch were able to exert significant indirect influence on the Central American crisis of the 1980s, and their networking doubtlessly strengthened many local NGOs that worked as their counterparts, organizations which continue to address urgent Central American human rights concerns. The Left U.S. foreign policy towards Central America in the 1980s triggered a great deal of dissent, protest, and anger among its citizens. As in Central America, Christian organizations, particularly smaller grassroots groups, played a central role in this resistance. Students, academics, journalists, labour organizations, feminist groups, international development and aid groups, and others were also very active. The groups under the broad heading ‘the left’ used here encompass a wide spectrum of political perspectives, but all took on decisive political stands regarding Central America and particularly regarding U.S. government involvement there. Some actively supported the Sandinistas, occasionally in an effort to “counteract” U.S. state support for the contras. Some supported the FMLN, though this was rare. All opposed U.S. aid to the Nicaraguan contras and to El Salvador, and espoused views pertaining to the importance of social justice, the scourge of economic exploitation, and the rights of ordinary people to security and livelihood. Their activities varied. There were public protests, demonstrations, and letter-writing campaigns.16 They lobbied Congress members, and 15 16

Burgerman, Moral Victories, 50.

For a few examples, please see: Henry Giniger, “’Reagan Reversal’ Dismays Canadians on Eve of Visit,” New York Times, last updated: Mar. 10 1981, A12; Larry Martz, “The Contra Crusade,” Newsweek, last updated: Mar. 17 1986, 20; “Just Between ‘Sisters’: A Helping Hand for Nicaragua,” Newsweek, last updated: Mar 31 1986, 21.

15th Anniversary Edition held teach-ins, seminars, and speaker events.17 “Fact-finding” educational and aid-delivery trips to Central America were organized.18 Journals such as NACLA and the National Catholic Reporter disseminated research articles, first-hand testimonials, and the details of current mobilization efforts.19 Some groups became involved in relief work with certain populations, such as Salvadoran refugees in Honduras, and a handful of individuals even joined the FMLN or assisted them with supplies.20 Many leftist groups believed strongly in the concept of “solidarity”, and this ethic was sometimes used as a rationale for partisan support of a cause felt to be just, even among generally nonpartisan organizations. The intense polarization and politicization of American NGOs due to the Central American crisis is evident in such acts. For instance, the American Friends Service Committee, a Quaker organization, released a statement in July 1985 to the effect that they would attempt to counteract U.S. partiality in Nicaragua with their own, by focusing their assistance

“Some actively supported the Sandinistas, occasionally in an effort to “counteract” U.S. state support for the contras.”

For a few examples, please see: Burgerman, Moral Victories, 40-50; “Just Between

18 19

For example, see Martz, “The Contra Crusade.”

Edward T. Brett, The U.S. Catholic Press on Central America (Notre Dame, Ind.: University of Notre Dame, 2003), 78-80; Fred Rosen, “Focus on Central America,” NACLA Report on the Americas 36:3 (2002): 27-30.

American Friends Service Committee, “Humanitarian Aid to Nicaragua: A Statement by the Board of Directors of The American Friends Service Committee,” (Philadelphia: AFSC, July 1985).

‘Sisters’.”

to civilians on the Sandinista side.21 Oxfam America likewise called for additional counter-support to “Sandinista civilians” the following year, and became involved in the Quest for Peace aid project outlined below.22 Thus despite the official ban on U.S. organizations operating in or giving aid to Nicaragua, a number of groups managed to funnel money, supplies, and volunteers, for social development and/or humanitarian relief purposes, to the Nicaraguan government and/or population. “Although the United States has cut off aid to the leftist regime in Nicaragua,” notes a 1984 New York Times article, “the Partners [of the Americas] in Wisconsin are sending regular shipments of medical supplies to the Nicaraguan people and working on a long-range project of food preservation.” 23 Partners of the Americas were not alone. Even American municipal and state governments defied the ban, often pairing up with “sister cities” in Nicaragua in a special aid relationship. Portland paired itself with Corinto, New Haven and Minnesota with Léon.24 Quest for Peace, one of numerous organizations that actually formed in response to the conflict, pledged to raise as much humanitarian relief money for the Sandinista government and Nicaraguan people as Reagan gave to the contras in so-called ‘humanitarian’ aid in 1987 – a full $100 million. Whether or not they actually met this goal is difficult to say with certainty, however, a July 1987 Newsweek article indicated that they were on their way to meeting that target,25 and the organization’s current website claims that they did achieve it.26 Organizations like Oxfam America and

Terry, Condemned to Repeat? 96.

Bruce Nichols, “Rubberband Humanitarianism,” Ethics and International Affairs 1 (1987): 205; Rod Nordland, “The Other Aid Network,” Newsweek, last updated: July 27, 1987, 37.

Marvine Howe, “Volunteer Agencies Playing Larger Role in U.S. Foreign Aid,” New York Times, last updated: Mar. 12 1984, A1.

24 25 26

“Just Between ‘Sisters.’

Nordland, “The Other Aid Network.”

Quest For Peace website. <www.quixote.com/quest>

15th Anniversary Edition Catholic Relief Services helped with this project, as did the ‘sister cities’.27 For effective lobbying and advocacy, a number of groups coordinated their efforts on joint projects. For instance, a “Statement on the Nature of Humanitarian Assistance,” was authored and signed by twelve NGOs (listed in the footnote) in July 1985, disputing the politicization of Central American foreign aid and the use of the word “humanitarian” by the U.S. government in reference to contra aid.28 In April 1986 a similar coalition of groups published a full page ad in the New York Times on the same issue.29 The vehemence of the repression directed at these largely moderate, non-radical groups who opposed the Reagan agenda on Central America is perhaps the most lucid demonstration of the extreme political antagonism that occurred around the issue. From the U.S. government, left-leaning groups met with much more than just empty rhetorical opposition. In 1981 a State Department White Paper was leaked alleging that charities including Oxfam America, the World Council of Churches, and Catholic Relief Services used donations “to aid leftists [in El Salvador] – in some instances to buy arms.”30 American journalists were skeptical of the report’s veracity.31 In 1986, Oxfam America was denied the necessary licenses to transport agricultural and other implements to Nicaragua for a development project because of their suspected use as weapons (according to the government), despite the fact that the U.S. government did issue permits for a right-wing group to donate a helicopter with military 27 28

Ibid.

Nichols 204. The groups were Oxfam America, World Vision Relief Organization, the American Friends Service Committee, Lutheran World Relief, Church World Service, American Near East Refugee Aid, Christian Children’s Fund, the Board of the World Mission of the Moravian Church, Heifer Project International, and the Medical Mission Sisters.

“U.S. Aid to the Contras: Humanitarian? Logistical? Defensive?” New York Times, last updated: Apr. 7 1986, A9.

Beth Nissen, “A U.S. White Paper Turns a Bit Dingy,” Newsweek, last updated: June 22 1981, 55.

Ibid.

capabilities to a contra area.32 The FBI conducted a secret investigation of the Committee in Solidarity with the People of El Salvador (CISPES) and related organizations between 1983 and 1985, and was later reprimanded by the Senate Intelligence Committee for doing so. The operation was conducted under the “foreign intelligence and counterterrorism section” of the Bureau, though CISPES and its allies were neither foreign nor terrorists.33 One FBI agent admitted to compiling a “terrorist photo album” for the investigation with files on 690 people, and ultimately 2370 people and 1330 organizations came under inspection of some kind, using “wiretaps, undercover agents, informers and photographic surveillance.”34 American NGOs on the extreme right took part in even more egregious repression of the leftist groups. It appears that some may have had the full or tacit support of the FBI, and several supplied surveillance information to the FBI on a regular basis.35 They raided offices and stole documents, infiltrated organizations as spies, and engaged in general harassment of solidarity activists. The Old Cambridge Baptist Church in Massachusetts, which housed the offices of five Central American solidarity NGOs in its basement (listed in the footnote), suffered eight break-ins.36 A lengthy list of other left-leaning groups active on Central American issues also reported suspicious office/church break-ins (please see footnote).37 In the most extreme cases, Central American paramilitary 32 33

Nichols, “Rubberband Humanitarianism,” 204.

Michael Wines, “Panel Criticizes FBI for Scrutiny of U.S. Group,” New York Times, last updated: July 17 1989, A13

Ibid; and Holly Sklar, Washington’s War on Nicaragua (Toronto: Between the Lines, 1988), 353-354.

35 36

Sklar, Washington’s War on Nicaragua, 353.

Sklar 352. The groups were the New England Central American Network (NECAN), the Central American Solidarity Association, the Central America Information Office, Educators in Support of ANDES (the Salvador teachers’ union), and the New Institute of Central America (NICA).

Ibid. Groups cited in Sklar: Central American Historical Institute, MADRE, Calvery United Methodist Church, Veterans Fast for Life, Washington Pledge of Resistance, World Peacemakers (previous three all housed in the Church of the Savior, Washington D.C.), North American Congress on Latin America (NACLA), Wheaden United Church, United Church of Santa Fe, St. Williams Catholic Church, University Baptist Church, and the

15th Anniversary Edition organizations were responsible for the murder of an American activist in New York City, and the deaths of several others in Central America itself, as well as other instances of abduction, torture, and death threats.38 The impact of the left-of-centre groups on the Central American crisis is extremely difficult to ascertain, due to the large number of small groups involved. Scattered reports, such as on Quest for Peace’s aid “matching” in Nicaragua, indicate that the scale of their direct impact may have been quite substantial. Further research would be required to try to assess the overall volume and impact of such donations. Several authors, including Fiona Terry – an MSF field worker who wrote extensively about evaluating the negative impacts of humanitarian NGOs – indicate that foreign assistance to the FMLN was minimal.39 Thus the direct influence of American NGOs in El Salvador seems to have been less than in Nicaragua, but to date neither amount has been quantified with full certainty. Like Americas Watch and other big human rights groups of the centre, the groups of the left worked hard to modify U.S. foreign policy. As with the centrist groups, this impact was both substantial and marginal. It was substantial in that they succeeded in persuading a majority of Americans and sometimes a majority of the House of Representative that aid to the Nicaraguan contras or to the government of El Salvador was wrong. They may have been instrumental in convincing the peoples and governments of other nations, such as in Canada and Europe, not to stand behind the U.S. and isolate Nicaragua or strengthen El Salvador’s military.40 However, the indirect impact of leftist groups was noticeably less than that of the centrist groups. While groups like Americas Watch influenced mainstream public opinion through its growing reputation as a reliable source of information, the leftist groups were not quoted in major Michigan Interfaith Committee on Central American Rights.

38 39 40

Sklar, Washington’s War on Nicaragua, 356-357.

Terry, Condemned to Repeat? 91-92.

MacDonald, “Supporting Civil Society,” 103-104. Statement above based on interviews with Nicaraguan officials on the role of international NGOs in Nicaragua.

media outlets with the same tone of authority and were never respected by the public in the same way. Furthermore, like the groups of the centre, leftist groups remained marginal to the extent that public opinion and, to a shocking extent, Congressional opinion were not enough to deter the Reagan executive from pursuing its ‘anti-communist’ agenda. The Right Private organizations on the far right are seldom referred to as “NGOs”, and are often implicitly omitted from discussions of NGOs in general. Yet they are indeed non-governmental organizations, and it is critical to be reminded that the NGO category includes groups with not only different methods and means, but also wildly divergent goals, constituencies, and values. A fair number of extremely right-wing groups allied themselves with the Reagan government’s Central American policies, and mobilized not only indirect support but a great deal of material aid as well, particularly for the Nicaraguan contras. They were instrumental in generating and delivering money and supplies in the government executive’s covert “IranContra affair”, when contra aid was not officially approved. They also generated and delivered aid independently. One of the most significant groups in this category was the United States Council for World Freedom (USCWF), the American chapter of the World Anti-Communist League. This group has a history of linkages with East Asian dictators, Nazis and white-supremacists.41 A membership flyer proclaimed their purpose was “to promote the cause of Individual and National freedom from International Communism and all other forms of totalitarianism,” and a recruitment package advertised their “support directly to freedom fighters throughout the world.”42 The USCWF was 41

Interhemispheric Resources Centre, GroupWatch files (a database of profiles of U.S. private organizations and churches) on RightWeb. <rightweb.irc-online.org/groupwatch.uscwf. php>

Ibid.

15th Anniversary Edition heavily involved with the contras. Its leader at the time, retired General John K. Singlaub, had close ties to Oliver North and became instrumental in the contra scandal.43 Singlaub used his international connections to secure contra donations in the mid-80s from a variety of right-wing states, including $2 million from Taiwan and South Korea, a pledge of $10 million from the Sultan of Brunei, and more from Saudi Arabia and South Africa.44 He brokered a shipment of $3.5 million in weapons from the East bloc through a company called GeoMilitech.45 All told, it is estimated that Singlaub and the USCWF arranged $15-20 million in direct contra aid in the government-linked contra affair, plus at least another $538,785 in additional fundraising, plus donations in kind such as military boats, a helicopter, and three used military planes.46 The USCWF also established the Institute for Regional and International Studies, which was actually a military training organization designed to “recruit people with skills in intelligence and psychological warfare to train the contras and the Salvadoran police and military.”47 The nature of USCWF’s connections to the U.S. government are contentious, however Singlaub’s testimony in the Iran-contra scandal hearings indicated that he had been selected in 1984 by the White House to be the primary private fundraiser for the contras, and that he continued to have close contact with Oliver North and at least the tacit approval of the U.S. government executive until the scandal broke.48 Friends of the Americas (FOA), a U.S. charity, gave large amounts of “humanitarian” relief supplies to the contras. For instance, a fundraising letter from the period reads: “We intend to start bringing medical care and relief supplies to more than 20,000 refugees who are immediate family members of the soldiers of the Nicaraguan Democratic Forces 43 Ibid, and Sklar, Washington’s War on Nicaragua, 226-236. 44 Ibid., 226-230. 45 Ibid 235. 46 Ibid., 236; IRC’s RightWeb (USCWF). 47 Ibid., 235; Ibid. 48 IRC’s RightWeb (USCWF). 40

(FDN).”49 As well as food and medical supplies, they also arranged the donation of a used military helicopter (mentioned earlier in this paper), and conducted a “Shoeboxes for Liberty” program which encouraged American citizens to make their own package of supplies for ‘freedom fighter refugees’.50 They concentrated their efforts in Miskito refugee areas, to highlight abuses against this group in order to shame the Sandinistas and because of the proximity and links of some of these refugees to the contras.51 Naturally, their pro-U.S. policy agenda did not go unrecognized by the U.S. government. Some of their aid shipments were transported to Nicaragua on Pentagon planes, and Reagan awarded FOA co-founder Diane Jenkins the First Annual Ronald Reagan Humanitarian Award in 1985.52 Many other groups were involved in various ways. Refugee Relief International (RRI) gave medical aid and training to the contras.53 Civilian Material (formerly Military) Assistance provided soldiers, training and arms.54 The evangelical Christian Broadcasting Network used money from its relief organization Operation Blessing to aid the contras, working together with groups such as RRI, Air Commandos, World Medical Relief, the FOA, and the Knights of Malta.55 The Knights of Malta, a kind of paramilitary organization tied to the Vatican, also distributed millions of dollars in aid raised through the development/relief charity AmeriCares.56 AmeriCares was also linked with distributing to the contras over $350,000 raised by the Rev. Sun Myung Moon’s Unification Church (the 49 50

Ibid.

51 52

Terry, Condemned to Repeat? 104-105.

53 54 55 56

Sklar, Washington’s War on Nicaragua, 238.

Terry, Condemned to Repeat? 105; Friends of the Americas internet homepage <www.friendsoftheamericas.org> Joel Brinkley, “Nicaragua Scorns Reagan Proposal for Rebel Talks,” New York Times, last updated: Apr. 6 1985, A1; Terry, Condemned to Repeat? 104; IRC’s RightWeb (FOA). Ibid.

Terry, Condemned to Repeat? 105, Sklar, Washington’s War on Nicaragua, 239.

Sklar, Washington’s War on Nicaragua, 239; AmeriCares internet homepage <www. americares.org>

15th Anniversary Edition “Moonies”) through the Moon-founded Nicaraguan Freedom Fund.57 The Nicaraguan Refugee Fund held a $500 per plate fundraising dinner in April 1985, whose attendees included Jeane Kirkpatrick and Ronald Reagan.58 Dozens of other organizations were active in the contra support network, providing money, relief supplies, arms, personnel, lobbying, and publicity/support campaigns (see extended footnote below).59 As described earlier, a number of these groups were involved in the harassment and surveillance of the NGOs that opposed U.S. policy. Groups that have been linked with such activities include the John Birch Society, Young Americans for Freedom, the Council for Inter-American Security, and the Unification Church (“Moonies”).60 The right-wing NGOs described here did not face the kind of persecution experienced by the left, because they supported the government’s policies and were often, in turn, supported by government officials and institutions. They were obviously opposed by leftist groups, who tried to expose their activities (when they knew of them) to the public. 57 58 59

Sklar, Washington’s War on Nicaragua, 241; Terry, Condemned to Repeat? 105. Sklar, Washington’s War on Nicaragua, 241.

Common Cause magazine listed twenty-nine of these NGOs in their Mar/Apr 1988 edition, and many of these groups are also listed in Sklar, Cockburn, and Terry. Some groups not mentioned above include: American Security Council [fundraising and surveillance of leftist NGOs], the Stanton Group [fundraising], Institution on Terrorism and Subnational Conflict [fund delivery], Council for National Policy [planning], Coalition for America [lobbying], Gulf and Caribbean Fund [lobbying], Friends of the Democratic Centre in Central America (PRODEMCA) [speakers, advertising, campaigning], Confederation of the Associations for the Unity of the Societies of America (CAUSA, a “Moonie” organization) [fundraising and aid delivery], Council for Inter-American Security [fundraising], Citizens for Reagan [campaigning], National Forum Foundation [speakers, seminars], American Defense Lobby [advertising], American Defense Foundation [lobbying], U.S. Defense Committee [lobbying, rallies, letter-writing], National Conservative Political Action Committee [“Ortega 33” publicity campaign to try to unseat the thirty-three anti-contra aid Congresspeople], National Conservative Foundation [advertising], American Conservative Union [lobbying], Citizens for America [campaigning, lobbying], Young Americans for Freedom [lobbying, student rallies], American Freedom Coalition (linked with “Moonies”) [campaigning], Conservative Victory Committee [fundraising], Committee for the Free World [campaigning], and Concerned Women for America [lobbying, fundraising].

Sklar, Washington’s War on Nicaragua, 353.

However, these groups met no significant challenges or disruptions until the Iran-Contra scandal fully erupted in the public eye. As with U.S. government’s Central American policies themselves, the activities of these NGOs did not really stop or change until this scandal, the termination of the Cold War, the end of Reagan’s term in office, and the Central American peace processes, all helped close the violent 1980s chapter of Central American history. Again, the overall impact of these groups has not been given adequate attention. The large-scale fundraising by the USCWF, and to a lesser extent Friends of the Americas, contributed somewhere in the tens of millions in direct aid to the contras, while Leslie Cockburn estimates that the other groups raised over $5 million just in the year between April 1984 and March 1985 alone.61 Though in some cases it is difficult to separate covert government activity or impact from those of independent NGOs, and more research is needed on the topic, it is safe to say that the direct impact of right-wing NGOs in the Central American civil wars, particularly in Nicaragua, was fairly substantial. Their indirect impact, on the other hand, was likely minimal, partly because the main actor to influence was already on their side (the U.S. government), and also evidenced by the fact that they did not gain the support of a majority of U.S. citizens nor did they generate support of much note among governments or people outside the U.S. (excepting USCFW fundraising among dictators). Organizations of the U.S. right were clearly very active regarding Central America in the 1980s, and, though they were progovernment, in this case they are not synonymous with government, and must be included in any analysis of American NGOs. Conclusion Hundreds of American NGOs became involved in Central America, and/or Central American policy issues, in the 1980s. Due to the highly partisan nature of U.S. government policy towards Central America at the time, these NGOs operated within, and helped create, a 61 Leslie Cockburn, Out of Control (New York: Atlantic Monthly Press, 1987), 16. 43

15th Anniversary Edition climate of extreme political polarization. Roughly divisible into a small centre, the left, and the right, these groups participated in a wide array of activities, ranging from indirect actions like demonstrations and lobbying to very direct actions like supplying relief materials and arms. The exact degree of their impact on the Central American crisis is difficult to measure, partly because little research has been done on the topic so far, partly because tracing the money trails of hundreds of small organizations is a formidable task, and partly because the real impact of some actions, such as lobbying or channeling human rights information, is hard to discern. However, the analysis of this paper shows that the groups of the centre probably had a important indirect impact in an anti-war / anti-U.S. policy direction, the groups of the left seem to have had a low to moderate indirect impact in the same direction and a relatively substantial material direct impact (particularly in support of the Sandinistas and Nicaraguan civilians), and the groups of the right appear to have made little indirect impact but did make a significant direct impact (largely in support of the Nicaraguan contras). More research attention must be directed at the roles and effects of NGOs. In a context of rapid growth in the number of NGOs, expanding NGO budgets and institutional strength, increasing state reliance on NGOs to carry out policies, and increasing globalization and international NGO linkages, private organizations can no longer be ignored in the analysis of local or international politics and social change. In his 1998 paper “Learning to Live with NGOs,” published in the journal Foreign Policy, P. J. Simmons notes that NGOs may have “growing power”, but we must remind ourselves of “the complexity of the role these groups now play in international affairs.”62 They do not work in any one way or in any one direction, but they have become together a formidable set of political and social actors that must be taken seriously. Laura MacDonald, author of Supporting Civil Society: The Political Role of Non-Governmental Organizations in Central America, argues like Simmons that we must look seriously at the impact of NGOs, yet adds that we should also not get carried away and over-estimate their influence. States and other actors 62 P.J. Simmons, “Learning to Live with NGOs,” Foreign Policy 112 (1998): 82-83. 44

remain powerful, making NGOs “neither completely irrelevant nor the prime movers in social change.”63 The findings of this paper concur with these statements. American non-governmental organizations were not as powerful as actors like the U.S. government, Central American governments, or the contras or FMLN, but overall they had considerable effects on the conflicts raging in Nicaragua and El Salvador. Though local civil society has long been an object of study in Central American history and politics, international non-governmental organizations must also be brought into the analytical fold, because they have already been energetically involved for at least twenty-five years. Furthermore, as the United States continues to exert hegemony in the Latin American region and others, the role of American NGOs might be worth particular attention given their ties to, and potential influence on, such a powerful state.

Works Cited The Economist. “The Administration: Fighting For the MX and the Contras.” March 9, 1985. AmeriCares. www.americares.org. American Friends Service Committee. “Humanitarian Aid to Nicaragua: Statement by the Board of Directors of the American Friends Service Committee, July 1985.” Philadelphia: AFSC, 1985. Associated Press. “Salvador Rights Violations Charged.” New York Times September 13 1985. Biekart, Kees. The Politics of Civil Society Building: European Private Aid Agencies and Democratic Transitions in Central America. Utrecht/ 63

MacDonald, Supporting Civil Society,147.

15th Anniversary Edition Amsterdam: International Books and Transnational Institute, 1999. Brett, Edward T. The U.S. Catholic Press on Central America: From Cold War Anticommunism to Social Justice. Notre Dame, Indiana: University of Notre Dame, 2003. Brinkley, Joel. “Nicaragua Scorns Reagan Proposal for Rebel Talks.” New York Times April 6 1985.

Interhemispheric Resources Center. GroupWatch files on the USCWF and FOA, on RightWeb. http://www.rightweb.irc-online.org/ groupwatch.uscwf.php, http://www.rightweb.irc-online/groupwatch.foa. php “Just Between ‘Sisters’: A Helping Hand for Nicaragua.” Newsweek Mar. 31 1986.

Burgerman, Susan. Moral Victories: How Activists Provoke Multilateral Action. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 2001.

Livingston, Steven and Todd Eachus. “Indexing news after the cold war: reporting U.S. ties to Latin American paramilitary organizations.” Political Communication 13 (1996): 423-436.

Clark, Ann Marie. Diplomacy of Conscience: Amnesty International and Changing Human Rights Norms. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2001.

MacDonald, Laura. Supporting Civil Society: the political role of nongovernmental organizations in Central America. London: MacMillan Publications: 1997.

Cockburn, Leslie. Out of Control: The Story of the Reagan Administration’s Secret War in Nicaragua, the Illegal Arms Pipeline, and the Contra Drug Connection. New York: Atlantic Monthly Press, 1987.

Martz, Larry. “The Contra Crusade.” Newsweek March 17 1986.

“Contra Support Network.” Common Cause magazine March/April 1988. Dickey, Christopher. “Nicaragua and Human Rights: Standard?” Newsweek. U.S. Edition August 18 1986.

A Double

“El Salvador: Getting Worse.” The Economist October 8 1988. Friends of the Americas. www.friendsoftheamericas.org. Giniger, Henry. “‘Reagan Reversal’ Dismays Canadians on Eve of Visit.” New York Times March 10 1981. Howe, Marvine. “Volunteer Agencies Playing Larger Role in U.S. Foreign Aid.” New York Times March 12 1984. 46

Miller, Judith. “Reagan Certifies Salvador for Aid: Hails Progress Despite ‘Obstacles’.” New York Times January 22 1983. Moreno, Dario. The Struggle for Peace in Central America. Gainsville, Fl.: University Press of Florida, 1994. Neier, Aryeh. “Not All Human Rights Groups Are Equal” (Letter to the Editor). New York Times May 27 1989. Nichols, Bruce. “Rubberband Humanitarianism.” Ethics and International Affairs 1 (1987): 191-210. Nissen, Beth. “A U.S. White Paper Turns a Bit Dingy.” Newsweek June 22 1981. Nordland, Rod. “The Other Aid Network.” Newsweek July 27 1987. “O’Neill Assails Aid Request for Contras.” New York Times March 5 47

1986. Quest For Peace. www.quixote.com/quest. Rasky, Susan F. “Rights Group Says U.S. Distorts Nicaragua Reports.” New York Times July 16, 1985. Robinson, William I. Transnational Conflicts: Central America, Social Change, and Globalization. London: Verso, 2003.

When Peacekeepers Become the Perpetrators Justine Johnston

Rosen, Fred. “Focus on Central America.” NACLA Report on the Americas 36:3 (2002): 27-30. Simmons, P.J. “Learning to Live with NGOs.” Foreign Policy 112 (1998): 82-96. Sklar, Holly. Washington’s War on Nicaragua. Toronto: Between the Lines, 1988. Terry, Fiona. Condemned to Repeat? The Paradox of Humanitarian Action. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 2002. “U.S. Aid to the Contras: Humanitarian? Logistical? Defensive?” New York Times Apr. 7 1986. Whitaker, Mark. “The Sandinista Threat.” Newsweek April 29 1985. Wines, Michael. “Panel Criticizes F.B.I. for Scrutiny of U.S. Group.” New York Times July 17 1989.

When United Nations peacekeepers are deployed to conflict areas, they are trusted to behave beyond legal and moral reproach. However, in practice, peacekeepers have been known to violate this trust and commit criminal actions, including sexual violence against the host country’s population. During peacekeeping operations in Kosovo, the Democratic Republic of Congo, and Sierra Leone, the peacekeeping missions and other non-governmental organizations have documented increases in human trafficking into areas where peacekeeping forces are stationed. The women and children who are trafficked into peacekeeping areas are usually trafficked for the purposes of sexual slavery. In the past decade, significant attention has been paid to this sexual exploitation and abuse,

15th Anniversary Edition yet it continues. To examine this phenomenon, I have selected the United Nations peacekeeping force stationed in Sierra Leone as a case study. The United Nations peacekeepers presence in Sierra Leone from 1998 to 2001 led to increased levels of human trafficking for the purposes of sexual slavery. In this paper, I argue the sexual exploitation and abuse inflicted on Sierra Leonean women and children by peacekeepers occurred unchecked because of peacekeepers’ hyper-masculine culture, non-combatant status, and immunity from host countries’ laws. Definitions Peacekeeping, according to Muna Ndulo, is defined as,“an operation involving military personnel, but without enforcement powers, undertaken by the United Nations to help maintain or restore international peace and security in areas of conflict.”1 In the past two decades, “peacekeeping has come to involve a diverse array of activities including: confidence building measures, cease-fire monitoring, disarmament of combatants, election monitoring and humanitarian relief distribution”.2 In this paper, for the sake of clarity, the term “peacekeepers” encompasses military personnel, civilian personnel, international support staff and local citizens who are employed by the United Nations mission. It is important to note that not all peacekeepers are involved in human trafficking and the sexual exploitation and abuse of the host country’s population. Estimates of the number of peacekeepers involved in such abuses vary because reliable empirical data is limited3.

I define human trafficking using Graycar’s work4 which distinguishes between human trafficking and smuggling. Graycar states that human trafficking is a “complex set of processes involving labour exploitation in the destination country” and human smuggling is “the method by which people are moved across borders”.5 Trafficked individuals are moved coercively— abducted, kidnapped, and confined by abductors— whereas smuggled individuals are undocumented migrants who are able to exercise a relatively higher degree of agency. Thus, trafficking is associated with “exploiting the labour of the victim in the destination country”.6 This paper will focus on human trafficking for the purposes of sexual slavery. The term sexual slavery is defined by the 1953 Protocol amending the 1926 Slavery convention and states, “[t]he status or condition of a person over whom any or all of the powers attaching to the right of ownership are exercised, including sexual access through rape or other forms of sexual violence”.7 The phrase ‘sexual exploitation and abuse’ is defined according to the United Nations definition and means: any actual or attempted abuse of a position of vulnerability, differential power, or trust, for sexual purposes, including, but not limited to, profiting monetarily, socially or politically from the sexual exploitation of another . . . [or the] actual or threatened physical intrusion of a sexual nature, whether by force or under unequal or coercive conditions.8

Muna Ndulo, “The United Nations Responses To The Sexual Abuse And Exploitation Of Women And Girls By Peacekeepers During Peacekeeping Missions,” Berkeley Journal of International Law 27:1 (2009): 127- 161.

2 3

There are methodological constraints on gathering empirical data about human trafficking in Sierra Leone. Smith and Smith (2010) identify four problem areas including: inadequate government data collection and release to the public, victims of human trafficking are afraid or unable to report their experiences, public officials that do have knowledge of human trafficking are often complicit in the activity or bribed by traffickers, and finally, traditional social science methods are incapable of testing the causes of human trafficking.

5 6 7

Human Rights Watch/Africa, “We’ll kill you if you cry: Sexual Violence in the Sierra Leone Conflict,” January 2003, Vol. 15, No.1 (A).

Ibid.

Adam Graycar, “Trafficking in Human Beings” (speech given to the International Conference on Migration, Culture and Crime, Israel, 7 July 1999). Ibid. Ibid.

Kate Grady, “Sexual Exploitation and Abuse by UN Peacekeepers: A Threat to Impartiality,” International Peacekeeping 17:2 (2010): 215- 28.

15th Anniversary Edition The term sexual exploitation and abuse also encompasses non-consensual sexual contact as well as qualified consensual sexual contact, for instance, where the woman or girl is engaged in sex work for survival. In recent years, allegations of sexual exploitation and abuse against peacekeepers have included: “sex with minors (under 18), employment for sex, sex with sex workers, sexual assault, rape, and other incidents that include sex in exchange for food or assistance in kind”.9 Lastly, the term sex work is used in this paper rather than prostitution because of the stigma associated with the term prostitution, as well as the reluctance of sex workers to identify themselves as prostitutes. Sex work is defined here as a broad range of sexual acts including: sex (penetrative, non-penetrative, oral etc.), sexual displays and dances, and creating pornography, which are performed in exchange for money, gifts, basic necessities (food and hygiene items), and other goods. Background Sierra Leone’s decade long civil war began in 1999 when the Revolutionary United Front (RUF), supported by Liberian President Charles Taylor, took up arms against the Sierra Leonean government. Initially, the RUF was comprised of middle class students and unemployed youth seeking salvation, but the group quickly degenerated into a violent militia.10 The RUF swept across Sierra Leone executing village chiefs and elders, traders, and government officials. During the mid-1990s, the RUF took control of the country’s diamond and mineral mines and maintained a campaign of sexual exploitation and abuse against the civilian population.11 In the 1996 presidential election, Ahmed Tejan Kabbah of the Sierra Leone People’s party (SLPP) was elected president, but the following year a coup led by Major Johnny Paul Koroma ousted President Kabbah. In late 1997, with the assistance of South African mercenaries, troops from Nigeria and Guinea unsuccessfully attempted to overthrow 9 10 11

Ibid.

Smith and Smith, “Human Trafficking,” 1-44. Ibid.

Koroma.12 The destabilized political situation in Sierra Leone contributed to the deteriorating security situation for the civilian population. In mid-1998, 12,500 troops from the Economic Community of West African States Monitory Group (ECOMOG) were deployed to Sierra Leone and soon controlled over two-thirds of the country.13 In October 1999, the United Nations Mission in Sierra Leone (UNAMSIL) was created to help end the long civil war, which by then had lasted for nearly a decade. To maintain the agreed upon ceasefire between government and rebel forces, UNAMSIL was given a 6000 troop mandate, deployed mainly in Freetown. A United Nations Security Council Resolution increased the mandate to 11,100 troops in February 2000, and then again in May, to a total of 13,000 troops.14 Unfortunately, the increased military presence did not end the fighting between government and rebel forces. Rebel groups continually failed to meet disarmament and demobilization targets and abduction of women into sexual slavery persisted. In May 2000, the ceasefire suddenly ended when the RUF captured over 500 UNAMSIL peacekeepers and military observers. As the security situation further deteriorated, the United Nations Security Council further increased the number of personnel in March 2001, when the mandate increased to 17,500 troops which included 260 military observers.15 The civil war officially ended in 2001, when the Sierra Leonean government and warring rebel factions agreed to a ceasefire. Post-conflict disarmament, demobilization and re-integration processes were initiated, and continue to this day. Sierra Leone has begun to slowly recover from the civil war. Human Trafficking and Sierra Leone The literature shows that military personnel frequent sex workers at a much higher rate than members of other populations.16 Malone studied 12 Ibid. 13 Ibid. 14 Ibid. 15 Ibid. 16 JD Malone, et. al, “Risk Factors for Sexually Transmitted Diseases Among Deployed 53

15th Anniversary Edition American military personnel around the world and found that American military members, “frequently visit prostitutes, fail to use condoms, and generally engage in high risk-sexual activity”.17 Saundra Sturdevant and Brenda Stolzfus’s Let the Good Times Roll18 chronicles the American military personnel’s abuse of sex workers in the Philippines, Korea, and Okinawa. In Let the Good Times Roll, Sturdevant and Stolzfus analyze the sexually promiscuous behaviour of American military personnel and the effect it has on the sex workers from their respective countries.19 A logical inference to be made from this data is that an increase in the number of military personnel in a given area may be linked to a higher demand for sex workers. This means that as UNAMSIL troop numbers increased in Sierra Leone, the demand for sex workers also increased; this phenomenon that will be explained further below. Human trafficking in Sierra Leone can be explained using an economic theory of human trafficking. This paper employs the ‘business approach’, the proportional relationship between supply and demand, to explain the emergence and expansion of human trafficking rings in Sierra Leone.20 The ‘business approach’ suggests that when demand for sexual services increases, traffickers supply women to meet the demand.21 This model suggests that the most compelling motivation for trafficking in persons is profit. While there are limitations to a purely economic Military Personnel,” Sexually Transmitted Diseases 5 (1993): 294-298.

17 18

Smith and Smith, “Human Trafficking,” 1-44.

19 20

Ibid.

Saundra Sturdevant and Brenda Stoltzfus, Let The Good Times Roll: Prostitution and the U.S. Military in Asia (New York: New Press, 1992). For further reading on economic theories on human trafficking refer to Bales’ (2005) Understanding Global Slavery: A Reader, and Salt and Stein’s (1997) “Migration as a Business: The Case of Trafficking”. For further reading on other theories on human trafficking refer to: Aronowitz’s (2001) “Smuggling and Trafficking in Human Beings: The Phenomenon, The Markets that Drive it and the Organizations that Promote it”, or Schloenhardt’s (1999) “Organized Crime and the Business of Migrant Trafficking: An Economic Analysis” or Caldwell et. al.’s (1999) “Capitalizing on Transition Economies: The Role of the Russian Mafia in Trafficking Women for Forced Prostitution”.

Smith and Smith, “Human Trafficking,” 1-44.

approach to human trafficking, economic theory does explain the trend in Sierra Leone. Smith and Smith employ the “business approach” and examine “the ways in which the introduction of a global peacekeeping force may alter domestic demand and create sufficient conditions for the introduction and expansion of a market in the trading of humans”.22 In the case of Sierra Leone, Smith and Smith found that human trafficking increased to areas where large numbers of peacekeepers were deployed.23 The presence of a large peacekeeping force in Sierra Leone created a new demand for human trafficking. The increase in human trafficking was most noticeable in the capital city of Freetown, because the majority of international troops were deployed there from January 1998 to March 2001.24 Kate Grady argues that, “United Nations peacekeepers should expect to find trafficking and exploitation emerging in its areas of operations, even as the first personnel arrive. Senior managers of missions should assume that traffickers will target United Nations personnel for revenue” and actions should be taken to prevent peacekeepers from exacerbating this problem.25 Peacekeeping missions deployed after 2005 have been required to undergo additional training to prevent peacekeepers from committing further acts of sexual exploitation and abuse against host countries’ populations. During the three year period that UNAMSIL was stationed in Freetown, Amnesty International reports made a total of 18 references to abductions or slavery, and implicated the RUF, other rebel groups, and pro-government forces as perpetrators.26 Moreover, within a year of posting peacekeepers in Freetown, human rights organizations began to report the increase in sex workers as a direct result of the 22 23

Ibid.

24 25 26

Ibid.

My analysis of why human trafficking and sexual exploitation continued unchecked in Sierra Leone depends upon the validity of Smith and Smith’s (2010) research which concludes that in Sierra Leone, human trafficking emerged and expanded as the numbers of international peacekeepers increased. Grady, “Sexual Exploitation and Abuse by UN Peacekeepers,” 215- 28. Ibid.

15th Anniversary Edition UNAMSIL personnel stationed there.27 A 2002 report by the British organization Save the Children found that “sexual exploitation in form of prostitution was rampant”, especially in Freetown, where nationals “spoke about the behaviour of the ‘boys in blue helmets’ with a feeling of helplessness and sadness”.28 Save the Children also found that women were being trafficked from Liberia and Guinea to meet the demand for sex workers created by the UNAMSIL peacekeepers. In conclusion, and in all likelihood, human trafficking increased in Sierra Leone to meet the demand for sex workers because of the introduction of the UNAMSIL force into Freetown. Analysis Throughout the history of peacekeeping missions, men have comprised the vast majority of personnel deployed to conflict areas. However, in recent years, a gender quota has been mandated to ensure that there are women deployed in each peacekeeping mission. Nevertheless, some authors suggest that in a peacekeeping mission of 17,500 troops, a miniscule gender quota is unlikely to discourage the sexual exploitation and abuse of host country women and children,29 particularly because the simple numerical dominance permits the development of a “hypermasculine-culture.” Despite the United Nations having banned staff from having sex with sex workers or anyone under 18 and discouraging peacekeepers from having sexual relations with any ‘consenting’ adult member of the host population, sexual exploitation and abuse is still rampant.30 While peacekeepers are permitted to have relationships with ‘consenting’ adults, in the context of a civil war and the wealth and power discrepancy between peacekeepers and civilians, consent cannot be freely given and truly obtained. Ndulo argues that in the context of peacekeeping, 27 28 29

Smith and Smith, “Human Trafficking,” 1-44. Ibid.

Elizabeth Defeis, “U.N. Peacekeepers and Sexual Abuse and Exploitation: An End to Impunity,” Washington University Global Stud. Law Review (2008): 185-214.

The Economist, “Who will watch the watchmen? Peacekeeping and sex abuse,” date of modification: May 31 2008, http://www.economist.com/node/11458241.

“consent is immaterial where it is obtained under the circumstances of peacekeeping because the perpetrators are there to protect the victim”.31 While, superficially this seems to deny women and children sexual agency in conflict situations, “the rationale for this approach is that in obtaining sex or sexual favours from vulnerable victims, the peacekeepers abuse their position of power”.32 The sexual exploitation and abuse of women and children by peacekeepers has been historically dismissed with a ‘boys will be boys’ attitude and the perception that peacekeepers were not responsible for their actions.33 In contrast to this patriarchal view of peacekeeping, today, there is a “growing consensus that what [was once] dismissed as boyish behaviour or the harmless satisfaction of natural desires has become an unacceptably close connection with forced prostitution, human slavery and organized crime”.34 While the sexual exploitation and abuse of host country populations is being increasingly viewed as problematic, peacekeepers have bonded together to repel accusations of misconduct, creating a ‘wall of silence’.35 Defeis states, “Instances of abuse and exploitation may go unreported not only to protect the reputation of the peacekeepers, but also because the so-called ‘whistle-blower’ would be stigmatized”.36 The whistleblower would be stigmatized because of the solidarity between peacekeepers and the expectation that the wall of silence be maintained. By withholding information from other organizations and by excluding outsiders from peacekeeping culture, the members of peacekeeping missions are able to operate unchecked by outside institutions and actors. 31

Ndulo, “The United Nations Responses To The Sexual Abuse And Exploitation Of Women And Girls By Peacekeepers During Peacekeeping Missions,” 127- 61.

32 33 34

Ibid.

35 36

Defeis, “U.N. Peacekeepers and Sexual Abuse and Exploitation,” 185-214.

Ibid.

Keith J. Allred, “Peacekeepers and Prostitutes: How Deployed Forces Fuel the Demand for Trafficked Women and New Hope for Stopping It,” Armed Forces & Society 33:5 (2006): 5-23. Ibid.

15th Anniversary Edition Peacekeepers who engage in sexual exploitation and abuse of the host population when deployed may be emboldened to do so because they are not bound by international codes of behaviour, including the Geneva Conventions. The Geneva Conventions legally govern the conduct of combatants during conflict. Under the Geneva Conventions women and children are given special protection status, and there is a legal framework to redress abuses committed by combatants.37 Since peacekeepers are noncombatants, they are not required to abide by the Geneva Conventions.38 In fact, peacekeeping forces are only bound by the United Nations Security Council mandate that requires peacekeepers to avoid sexual relations with sex workers and minors.39 One of several negative consequences of not requiring peacekeepers to uphold the Geneva Conventions is that peacekeepers can behave with impunity. In the absence of an international code or standard of behaviour, peacekeepers have been able to sexually exploit and abuse members of the host population without redress. Another factor that enables peacekeepers to behave with impunity is their immunity from host countries’ laws. Troop contributing countries do not want their troops to be arrested or prosecuted in a foreign country, especially by a country experiencing conflict. Therefore, in order to deploy a peacekeeping force, the host country must sign a Status of Forces Agreement. Under this agreement, the host country agrees to waive jurisdiction over peacekeepers for violations of the host country’s laws.40 In doing so, peacekeepers can only be accused or charged with an offense under their home state’s laws. In fact, the only context where a peacekeeper can have her or his immunity revoked is through a waiver by the Secretary-General of the United Nations.41 Since it is extremely unlikely that the Secretary-General would waive any immunity, the only recourse the peacekeeping mission has against a peacekeeper is to dismiss 37

Ndulo, “The United Nations Responses To The Sexual Abuse And Exploitation Of Women And Girls By Peacekeepers During Peacekeeping Missions,” 127- 61.

38 39 40 41

Ibid.

“Who will watch the watchmen? Peacekeeping and sex abuse.” Allred, “Peacekeepers and Prostitutes,” 5-23.

Defeis, “U.N. Peacekeepers and Sexual Abuse and Exploitation,” 185-214.

her or him from the peacekeeping mission.42 Peacekeepers’ immunity from prosecution under host country laws only enhances their power over host country populations and increases the perception that peacekeepers are immune from prosecution. When peacekeepers are accused of sexual exploitation and abuse, they can only be dismissed from the peacekeeping mission and returned to their home country. When the allegations of sexual exploitation and abuse of Sierra Leonean women and girls caused embarrassment to troop contributing countries, they were reluctant to investigate the allegations and seemed likely to prefer to cover up the abuse.43 Moreover, the populations of some troop contributing countries may not have strong norms of gender equality and as such may not recognize the behaviour of their troops as problematic. Instead, these countries, much like the United Nations, dismiss the allegations of sexual exploitation and abuse of women and children with a ‘boys will be boys’ attitude and with the belief that it is a natural consequence of deploying a large, predominantly male military force.44 In cases where home states would like to prosecute their peacekeepers for alleged sexual misconduct, it is unlikely the accused will stand trial.45 The criminal investigations that occur in the host nation do not usually produce the physical evidence, witness statements and other evidence that is required to take a case to trial in the home country. The inadequate legal constraints on peacekeepers make it unlikely that peacekeepers will behave morally and appropriately while stationed in the host nations. Finally, in the instances where peacekeepers do face punishment for their sexual exploitation and abuse of members of the host country’s population, the punishments are uneven. Under the military-style hierarchy of peacekeeping missions, punishments that individual peacekeepers receive will vary upon rank, experience and other factors. This uneven and sporadic disciplinary system encourages further inappropriate behaviour and the peacekeeper’s feeling of immunity. The 42 Ibid/ 43 “Who will watch the watchmen? Peacekeeping and sex abuse.” 44 Defeis, “U.N. Peacekeepers and Sexual Abuse and Exploitation,” 185-214. 45 Allred, “Peacekeepers and Prostitutes,” 5-23. 59

15th Anniversary Edition overall perception among peacekeepers that they are immune from host countries’ laws and the belief that they will not face prosecution at home has allowed them to behave with impunity.

The Economist. “Who will watch the watchmen? Peacekeeping and sex abuse.” Date of modification: May 31 2008, http://www.economist.com/ node/11458241.

Together, three factors – hyper-masculine peacekeeping culture, peacekeeper’s non-combatant status, and immunity from host nation’s laws – allow peacekeepers to act with impunity. In Sierra Leone, the deterioration of civil society, breakdown of the rule of law, and economic and psychological hardships faced by Sierra Leoneans created a power imbalance between citizens and peacekeepers. The power and relative affluence that peacekeepers hold in comparison to the host country population created a situation where peacekeeper’s abuse of power was likely. The disregard for the peacekeeping mission’s rules forbidding peacekeepers from engaging in sexual relations with Sierra Leonean women and children led to an increase in demand by peacekeepers for sexual services. In Sierra Leone, the presence of peacekeepers in Freetown led to an increase in human trafficking to meet the increased demand for sex workers in the city. The hyper-masculine culture that developed within UNAMSIL allowed for the rampant sexual exploitation and abuse of Sierra Leonean women and children without outsider interference. The sexual exploitation and abuse of the host population by peacekeepers occurred throughout the UNAMSIL mission because peacekeepers were not held accountable to the international community and to Sierra Leone, the host country.

Grady, Kate. “Sexual Exploitation and Abuse by UN Peacekeepers: A Threat to Impartiality.” International Peacekeeping 17:2 (2010): 215- 28.

Works Cited Allred, Keith J. “Peacekeepers and Prostitutes: How Deployed Forces Fuel the Demand for Trafficked Women and New Hope for Stopping It.” Armed Forces & Society 33:5 (2006): 5-23.

Graycar, Adam. “Trafficking in Human Beings.” Speech given to the International Conference on Migration, Culture and Crime, Israel, 7 July 1999. Human Rights Watch/Africa. “We’ll kill you if you cry: Sexual Violence in the Sierra Leone Conflict.” January 2003, Vol. 15, No.1 (A). Malone, JD et. al. “Risk Factors for Sexually Transmitted Diseases Among Deployed Military Personnel.” Sexually Transmitted Diseases 5 (1993): 294-298. Ndulo, Muna. “The United Nations Responses To The Sexual Abuse And Exploitation Of Women And Girls By Peacekeepers During Peacekeeping Missions.” Berkeley Journal of International Law 27:1 (2009): 127- 161. Smith, Charles Anthony and Heather M. Smith. Human Trafficking: The Unintended Effects of United Nations Intervention. Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 2010. Sturdevant, Saundra and Brenda Stoltzfus. Let The Good Times Roll: Prostitution and the U.S. Military in Asia. New York: New Press, 1992.

Defeis, Elizabeth. “U.N. Peacekeepers and Sexual Abuse and Exploitation: An End to Impunity.” Washington University Global Stud. Law Review (2008): 185-214. 60

15th Anniversary Edition

Dawn of a New Era Post-Cold War State Security Threats

Silvester Komlodi

The end of the Cold War has fundamentally altered the nature of international security. The demise of the bipolar world order has brought to the surface new kinds of security threats. Globalization is spreading the Western ideology of democracy and the free market. Information integration and a technological boom are affecting virtually every nation on earth. In many places modernity and globalization are clashing with traditional ways of life. All of these changes have led to an intense debate over the extent of vulnerability of the international order and more specifically of the United States to both new and traditional security threats. An analysis of the threats posed by Russia and China, by the so called “rogue states” of North Korea and Iraq, and by international

terrorism show that they do not constitute a serious challenge to either US or global security. What is required, however, is the establishment of international regimes and a commitment to multilateralism. The end of the Cold War implied the end of the Soviet Union, producing an economically and socially unstable new Russia. There is the danger that a coup by the extremely dissatisfied Russian military could bring to power a fascist party.1 It is the state of the country’s economy, with its high poverty and unemployment, that makes it susceptible to extremist groups. Another threat is related to Russia’s nuclear arsenal. The former CIA director, James Woolsey, predicts that Russia’s internal instability makes it more vulnerable and thus inclined to use nuclear force as a means of leverage in international relations.2 Russia’s economic instability is, however, also a reason for optimism. The demise of its formerly communist economy has mirrored declining military capabilities: “Russia’s military is in ruins. And, Russia would have to rehabilitate its economy and governing structures before it could begin to rebuild its military strength.”3 Russia will not pose a serious security threat to the US if its integration into the Western world continues. Russo-American economic ties are strengthening: Russian exports to the United States are increasing and combined IMF and World Bank loans to Russia are significant at USD8.5 billion.4 Political cooperation with the US is also evident in Russia’s support for the Western democracies’ antiterrorist campaign since September 11. Also key to sustained normalized relations is Russia’s increasingly cooperative stance toward NATO. James Appathurai, a Senior Planning Officer at NATO, believes that relations with Russia are moving in a positive direction and does not rule out that 1 Michael Roskin and Nicholas Berry, The New World of International Relations (New Jersey: Prentice-Hall, 1997), 103.

James Woolsey, “Threats to United States National Security,” in Taking Sides, 9th edition, ed. John Rourke (Connecticut: Dushkin/McGraw-Hill, 2000), 5.

Carl Conetta and Charles Knight, “Inventing Threats,” in Taking Sides, 9th edition, ed. John Rourke (Connecticut: Dushkin/McGraw-Hill, 2000), 18.

United States Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), “Russia: World Factbook,” October 25, 2001, http://www.cia.gov/cia/publications/factbook/index.html.

15th Anniversary Edition Russia will one day accede to NATO.5 Russia’s relations with China are also a source of concern. Presidents Vladimir Putin and Jiang Zemin discussed a partnership against American dominance at a summit held on 18 July 2000.6 This apparent rapprochement has not, however, produced any concrete bilateral measures directed against the US. It was the US Nuclear Missile Defense (NMD) initiative that had initially united the Russians and the Chinese; however, recent events indicate that Russia and the United States might come to an agreement on NMD.7 China has also been hotly debated as a security risk. China has been linked to the “rogue” states of Algeria, Iran, Pakistan, and Syria through the sale of information and materials for making nuclear and chemical weapons. China’s potential for conflict with Taiwan, or with Vietnam and Malaysia over the Spratly Islands in the South China Sea is also unsettling. During the early 1990s the American military even believed China might itself slide into rogue state status.8 This threat seems to have been overstated, however, and a positive role for China in the international community is more likely now. China’s integration and cooperation with the West has reached a new apogee thanks to growing economic and cultural links coupled with improvements in China’s human rights record. In simple economic terms, it is clearly in China’s interest to pursue friendly relations with the West as foreign trade and investment become increasingly important to its prosperity.9 China has decided that it will not tolerate the disadvantages of being sealed off from the world, 5

James Appathurai, “The Political and Economic Impact of NATO Membership,” Canadian Council of Central and East European Communities (20 October 2001).

BBC, “Russia and China sign friendship pact,” date last modified: July 16, 2001, http://new.bbc.co.uk/hi/english/world/europe/newsid_1441000/1441198.stm.

BBC, “Russia signals move on missile defence,” date last modified: November 2, 2001, http://news.bbc.co.uk/hi/english/worldeurope/newsid_1635000/1635420.stm.

Michael Klare, Rogue States and Nuclear Outlaws: America’s Search for a New Foreign Policy (New York: Hill and Wang, 1995), 150-152.

CIA, “China: World Factbook,” date last modified: October 25, 2001, http://www.cia. gov/cia/publications/factbook/index.html.

but rather adapt to the rules of the game by adopting a free market and economic transparency. Similarly, the communist government in Beijing has become increasingly tolerant of Western culture, as demonstrated by the October 2001 deal between AOL Time Warner and the Chinese government, which will make Western programming available to over seven million Chinese television viewers for the first time.10 Countries such as North Korea and Iraq, on the other hand, show little desire to cooperate with the West. In 1994, the Chairman of the American Joint Chiefs of Staff warned that North Korea represented the biggest threat to US security since the Second World War.11 Former CIA Director James Woolsey believes North Korea is a danger to other Asian countries and to American military installations in East Asia.12 Rogue states are of special concern because they might possess and use Weapons of Mass Destruction (WMD).13 Such views are flawed because North Korea’s economic and military decline has removed its ability to challenge international security.14 Woolsey himself admits that a combined US-South Korean military force could easily overwhelm North Korean forces.15 In addition, under pressure from various countries including China, Japan, and Russia, North Korea has made some progress in its relations with the West. A turning point was North Korea’s October 1994 agreement to terminate its nuclear weapons program in return for US investment.16

The security threat posed by Iraq has also dissipated since the

BBC, “AOL strikes China TV deal,” date last modified: October 23, 2001, http:// news.bbc/co/uk/hi/english/entertainment/tv_and_radio/newsid_1616000/1616115.stm.

11 12 13

Woolsey, “Threats to United States National Security,” 7.

14 15 16

Woolsey, “Threats to United States National Security,” 7.

Klare, Rogue States and Nuclear Outlaws, 137.

Gideon Rose, “America’s Achilles’ Heel: Nuclear, Biological, and Chemical Terrorism and Covert Attack (Review),” Foreign Affairs 78:2 (1999), 131. Conetta and Knight, “Inventing Threats,” 13-14. Klare, Rogue States and Nuclear Outlaws, 140.

15th Anniversary Edition 1991 Gulf War. The destruction of much of Iraq’s military infrastructure, along with international sanctions and UN weapons inspections, has seriously reduced its ability to launch an attack on other countries in the region. Vigilance by various international organizations and the US makes it unlikely that Iraq will attempt to undermine regional or Western security.17 18Rogue states with narrow economies cannot survive without superpower sponsorship.19 Recently the threat of international terrorism has come to the forefront of the security agendas of most states. North America’s belief that it is immune to the scourge of terrorism has been shaken by the events of September 11. ears of terrorist attacks are, however, exaggerated and serve only to bolster terrorists’ motives. In reality, the number of international acts of terrorism has significantly declined sine the end of the Cold War, from a peak of 665 in 1987 to a 25-year low of 296 incidents in 1996.20 Now that terrorists no longer draw support from either of the superpowers, and given that economic integration is eliminating some of the root causes of conflict by generating prosperity, globalization has played an important role in mitigating the terrorist threat.21

collective rather than a unilateral response. The seriousness of the threat is only as great as the division between governments and people in the world. Collective response by sovereign states is the only option in the post-Cold War world.22 As we move towards a more economically integrated and culturally tolerant planet, terrorism will gradually diminish as a threat. The end of the Cold War has changed the nature of international security for the better. The lack of serious threats to the US and global security, however, is not to be taken for granted. Threats may increase if the international community fails to foster unity. It is therefore essential for states to take multilateral action, especially by strengthening international regimes and organizations. Much progress has already been made since the end of the Cold War: in 1990, just 39 percent of the world’s population lived in free and 22 percent in partially-free societies, but by 1997 this had increased to 61 percent and 23 percent, respectively.23 If such progress continues, accompanied by every-deepening global integration, then we are justified in our hope for a more secure future. Works Cited

At the same time, terrorism also seems to be a reaction to the forces of globalization. The clash between modernity and traditionalism, or between globalization and religious values, provides a new rationale for terrorist activity. For instance, the terrorist acts carried out by al-Qaeda (such as the US embassy bombings in Africa and the World Trade Center attacks) are motivated by an anti-Western ideology. Therefore, terrorism is not just an American dilemma but a collective one, which requires a

Appathurai, James. “The Political and Economic Impact of NATO Membership.” Canadian Council of Central and East European Communities (20 October 2001).

BBC. “Russia and China sign friendship pact.” Date last modified: July 16, 2001. http://new.bbc.co.uk/hi/english/world/europe/ newsid_1441000/1441198.stm.

Thomas Friedman, Understanding Globalization: The Lexus and the Olive Tree (New York: Farrar, Strauss and Giroux, 1999), 250.

David Long, “Countering Terrorism Beyond Sovereignty,” in Beyond Sovereignty: Issues for a Global Agenda, ed. Maryann Cusimano (New York: St. Martin’s Press, 2000), 100.

19 20

Conetta and Knight, “Inventing Threats,” 14.

Roskin and Berry, The New World of International Relations, 232.

Allen Sens and Peter Stoett, Global Politics: Origins, Currents, Directions, 2nd edition (Scarborough: Nelson, 2002), 188.

BBC. “AOL strikes China TV deal.” Date last modified: October 23, 2001. http://news.bbc/co/uk/hi/english/entertainment/tv_and_radio/ newsid_1616000/1616115.stm.

BBC. “Russia signals move on missile defence.” Date last modified: 22 Long, “Countering Terrorism Beyond Sovereignty,” 96. 23 Roskin and Berry, The New World of International Relations, 491. 67

November 2, 2001. http://news.bbc.co.uk//english/worldeurope/ newsid_1635000/1635420.stm.

‘Patriotic History’ and PsychoCultural Factors in Zimbabwe’s Continuing Conflict Since 2000

CIA. “China: World Factbook.” Date last modified: October 25, 2001. http:// www.cia.gov/cia/publications/factbook/index.html. Conetta, Carl and Charles Knight. “Inventing Threats.” In Taking Sides, 9th edition, ed. John Rourke. Connecticut: Dushkin/McGraw-Hill, 2000.

Travis Coulter

Klare, Michael. Rogue States and Nuclear Outlaws: America’s Search for a New Foreign Policy. New York: Hill and Wang, 1995. Long, David. “Countering Terrorism Beyond Sovereignty.” In Beyond Sovereignty: Issues for a Global Agenda, edited by Maryann Cusimano. New York: St. Martin’s Press, 2000. Rose, Gideon. “America’s Achilles’ Heel: Nuclear, Biological, and Chemical Terrorism and Covert Attack (Review).” Foreign Affairs 78:2 (1999), 131. Roskin, Michael and Nicholas Berry. The New World of International Relations. New Jersey: Prentice-Hall, 1997. Sens, Allen and Peter Stoett. Global Politics: Origins, Currents, Directions, 2nd edition. Scarborough: Nelson, 2002. United States Central Intelligence Agency (CIA). “Russia: World Factbook.” October 25, 2001. http://www.cia.gov/cia/publications/ factbook/index.html. Woolsey, James. “Threats to United States National Security.” In Taking Sides, 9th edition, edited by John Rourke. Connecticut: Dushkin/ McGraw-Hill, 2000. 68

Since the beginning of the twenty-first century Zimbabwe has witnessed a continuing trend of state-sponsored oppression, destruction of the rule of law, and what one scholar describes as a “descent into barbarism and anarchy.”1 Many scholars of African affairs, as well as popular western media, have described the conflict as being interest based, and greed driven. While it is unquestionable that the regime of President Robert Mugabe has utilized fear and violence to maintain power, this social-structural based approach fails to explain not only the lack of active resistance, but also his continued 1

239-253.

Robert Martin, “The Rule of Law in Zimbabwe,” The Round Table 95:384 (2006):

15th Anniversary Edition support despite both violence and a devastated national economy. I will argue that it is the psycho-cultural factors as outlined by scholar Marc Ross, particularly the distortion and reinvention of Zimbabwe history into a new ‘Patriotic history’, that are the key causes for the prolonged state controlled violent conflict in Zimbabwe since 2000. This paper will examine psycho-cultural factors of conflict in Zimbabwe through three major topics, and conclude with a brief examination of possible responses. I will begin by reviewing the important theoretical aspects of the psycho-cultural perspective as outlined by Marc Ross.. In my examination, I will first examine the roots of patriotic history and the way in which war veterans’ revolutionary discourse hijacked political dialogue throughout the 1990s, setting the stage for ‘Patriotic history’ following 2000. Secondly, I will examine the major themes and goals of the reinvention of Zimbabwe revolutionary history, namely to justify violent land seizures, delegitimize opposition members, and entrench Mugabe and the ZANU-PF’s as national heroes. Third, I will explore the ways in which ‘Patriotic history’ is promulgated to the Zimbabwe population, and examine the effectiveness and inefficiencies of this system. Lastly, I will briefly look at some possible responses to the continuing Zimbabwe crisis from a psycho-cultural perspective. Theoretical Framework In his book, The Management of Conflict, conflict theorist Marc Ross provides a framework for examining the causes of violent conflict along two interdependent lines: socio-structural and psycho-cultural. Ross states that socio-structural factors consist of tangible interests, and can include material and raw resources, as well as economic and political power. On the other hand, psycho-cultural factors are the group-specific interpretations of a situation and the interests being fought over. Ross contends that while the intrinsic value of interests being fought over are important, it is the psychological and emotional importance and perspective of those interests that dictate the intensity of the conflict.2 In 2

Marc Ross, Cultural Contestation in Ethnic Conflict (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2007), 3.

Zimbabwe’s case these interests are the political and material control of the nation’s resources. More simply put, interests are what is being fought over, but psycho-cultural perspective say to what degree and often how they will be fought over. In his 2007 book, Cultural Contestation in Ethnic Conflict, Ross outlines the use of historical narratives in conflict. This framework is essential for understanding how Robert Mugabe’s ZANU-PF regime has used and distorted history to their advantage since 2000. Ross states that narratives have the capacity to create and use metaphors and images to create a specific understanding of a conflict, and an environment: narratives create clearly defined in-groups and outgroups; identify and define group fears, threats, and past grievances; and, enforce in-group conformity.3 Mugabe’s ‘Patriotic history’ aims to specifically accomplish all of these tasks.

“The role of psycho-cultural factors are central, more so than sociostructural factors, to the key causes of The role of psycho-cultural factors conflict in are central, more so than socio-structural factors, to the key causes of conflict Zimbabwe” in Zimbabwe. Theorists such as Paul

Collier, however, would argue otherwise. Collier’s interest based interpretation of civil conflict places economic agendas, and the fight for national resources and political power as the sole cause for conflict; grievances and group perspectives are epiphenomenal.4 While tangible interests do play an

Marc Ross. The Management of Conflict (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1993),

Paul Collier. “The Market for Civil War,” Foreign Policy (2003), 91-92.

30-39.

15th Anniversary Edition important role in what is being fought over, they do not account for why the conflict manifests violently, the reasons why masses do not act, and the way the elite legitimize their actions. Without psycho-cultural factors, conflicts surrounding Zimbabwe’s political contests may not have become violent and elite legitimacy would depend on the economic standing of the nation. With this in mind, one would think a revolution or coup would be much more likely than the toleration Mugabe’s regime has received in its violent targeting of opposition groups. Group specific interpretations of conflict, as outlined by Ross, are highly subjective and the role of leaders and societal elites to distort or create new historical and cultural perspectives is a major contributing factor to conflict. Ross further emphasis the subjective nature of psychocultural factors stating that, “the need to alter either disputants’ dominant images and metaphors concerning what is at stake or the relationships between key parties” is key in understanding the role of constructed histories in conflict. Furthermore, these dominant images and metaphors are embedded in a group’s cultural identity: any competing view is seen as a threat to group existence. In the second chapter of Ross’ book, Interests, Interpretations, and the Culture of Conflict, Ross describes the ability of shared history and culture to emphasis or create group differences. Through the “conceptualization of enemies and allies” or “we-they oppositions,” psycho-culturally created histories have an enormous capacity to vilify opposition groups, and over-emphasize or manufacture false threats to group existence. Here, Ross’ work builds upon a collection of work by another constructivist conflict theorist. In 1973, Herni Tajfel’s theory of social identity showed how humans are prone to create in-group out-group categorizations in an attempt to better understand their environment, and that in-group favouritism stems from human desire to maximize self-esteem. While the creation of social groups is neither primordial nor instinctual, the importance of membership in a strong in-group to an individual’s selfworth has a real capacity to separate and motivate groups into conflict. 72

I will show how in Zimbabwe, Mugabe’s capacity to create a national Zimbabwe in-group through a shared albeit fabricated history, and place opposition members and foreign states in a collective ‘demon’ out-group, has legitimized his reign of terror.5 Theories on the use of and creation of ethnicity in violence have similar applications. James D. Fearon and David D. Laitin show that large group conflicts tend to flow along elite interests because, “[ingroup] publics are conditioned or constituted by [in-group] discourses that predispose them to violence against ethnic others.”6 In this way, the language used by leaders to create images of out-group members is crucial in directing and legitimizing the violent conflict. Ross’ constructivist perspective of the causes and perseverance of violent conflict aptly accounts for the post-election violence in Zimbabwe’s most recent and previous elections. I contend that Mugabe and the ZANU-PF’s creation and distortion of Zimbabwe’s historical narratives is a necessary contributing factor to the violent levels of conflict seen in Zimbabwe since 2000. It has acted to justify and legitimize post-election violence, been used to demonize and delegitimize opposition groups, and scapegoat devastating economic policies onto previous colonial powers. Towards a ‘Patriotic History’ ‘Patriotic history’ in Zimbabwe is a relatively new and highly complex phenomenon, first examined by historian Terence Ranger in his influential 2004 article. Ranger notes that ‘Patriotic history’ aims to rebuild the glory of the Zimbabwe revolution against the British through education and policy.7 Through school and military education programs, state-owned media, government speeches and policy, stories of heroism and treachery are given to justify government denial of basic human rights. Scholar Norma Kriger describes the divisive nature of ‘Patriotic history’, 5 Roger Brown, “Ethnic Conflict: Introduction,” in Social Psychology: The Second Edition (Free Press) 4:15-17 (1986): 584.

James Fearon and David Laitin, “Violence and the Social Construction of Ethnic Identity,” International Organization 54:4 (2000): 846.

Terence Ranger, “Nationalist Historiography, Patriotic History and the History of the Nation: the Struggle over the Past in Zimbabwe,” Journal of Southern African Studies 30:2 (2004): 215.

15th Anniversary Edition stating that it divides Zimbabwe into two races – indigenous Africans and European whites – and further divides Africans into ‘patriots’ and ‘traitors’.8 Although these divisions may at first seem simplistic, deciding who belongs in which group and the consequences of membership can have devastating impacts on both individuals and the state as seen in the land seizures and post-election violence since 2000. ‘Patriotic history’ emerges from a decade of poor democratic practises, and attempts by elite groups within Zimbabwe, specifically the war veterans, to advance their own interests. Kriger notes how following the 1987 integration of the Zimbabwe African People’s Union (ZAPU) into the Zimbabwe African National Union-Patriotic Front (ZANU-PF) – two previously opposing revolutionary armies – military and political veterans began to demand increased recognition and support by drawing on stories of their experiences during the war.9 Dissenters were ostracized, and those who did not recognize the contributions of veterans or chose not to participate – such as a young Morgan Tsvangirai – were labelled traitors to the nation. Within the veteran groups, military veterans criticised political veterans for their inability to defeat colonialism, while politicians ridiculed the youth and lack of education of the majority of the fighters. Tajfel’s Social Identity Theory can be used to see how each group worked to create clear distinctions between their ‘superior’ in-group and the opposing ‘inferior’ out-group. The process of retelling history to inflate a group’s role in the conflict while diminishing an opposing group’s efforts were direct attempts at utilizing psycho-cultural narratives for personal gain, fitting exactly into Ross’ framework. By the early 1990’s, nearly all of the Zimbabwe national parliament consisted of veterans of the revolutionary war who continued to fight for an increased share of Zimbabwe. Since the violent post-election crises of 2000, scholars of Zimbabwe history and politics noted a dramatic shift in the official policies of both 8

Norma, Kriger, “From Patriotic Memories to ‘Patriotic History’ in Zimbabwe, 19902005,” Third World Quarterly 27:6 (2006): 1163.

Ibid., 1154.

the ZANU-PF and their leader, Robert Mugabe. Growing unrest because of the country’s hyperinflation, devastated and overcrowded farmland, high unemployment rates and extreme poverty meant that the newly created opposition party, Movement for Democratic Change (MDC), provided an actual threat to the leading party, winning 57 of 120 seats.10 Opposition leader, Morgan Tsvangirai was arrested and charged with treason and threatening to kill President Mugabe. Opposition members and supporters were arrested, intimidated, beaten, and even killed. The use of overt violence following the election provided the catalyst for the breaking down of the rule of law in Zimbabwe, or what scholar Robert Martin called a “descent into barbarism and anarchy.”11 Martin explicitly states that the threat posed by an opposition group forced Mugabe in a new direction which would be characterized by violence and the creation of a new, ‘Patriotic history’.12 Central Themes of ‘Patriotic History’ ‘Patriotic history’ was introduced as government policy for national history beginning in 2001, and has three central goals. Firstly, the creation of a new Zimbabwe ‘Patriotic history’ aims to distract or deflect the central economic and human rights crises within the country away from Mugabe’s regime. Secondly to vilify, contemn and justify the use of overt violence against members of the opposing MDC through demonizing rhetoric, and connecting them to previous colonial power, Britain. Thirdly, to glorify Robert Mugabe and the members of the ZANU-PF as patriotic veterans of the war for independence; thus, legitimizing both their oppressive rule, and non-adherence to the rule of law. It is important to examine exactly what is ‘Patriotic history’, and what narratives it creates. First and foremost, Mugabe’s history acts as a scapegoat for the 10

International Crisis Group, “Negotiating Zimbabwe’s Transition,” African Briefing N. 51, 2008: 1.

Robert Martin. “The Rule of Law in Zimbabwe.” The Round Table 95, no. 384 (2006):

Martin, “The Rule of Law in Zimbabwe,” 250.

250.

15th Anniversary Edition ZANU-PF to exercise complete control over the nation, regardless of reckless policies. One of the most central documents to the dissemination of ‘Patriotic history’ is a history manual entitled Inside the Third Chimurenga. First issued in 2001, the text book breaks Zimbabwe’s fight for independence into three overly simplistic historical periods: the first chimurenga being the 1896-1897 civil uprisings, the second being guerrilla wars of the 1970s.13 The third chimurenga is the fight for land in modern Zimbabwe. Kriger shows how this educational manual is used to connect the violence of post-2000 Zimbabwe to earlier episodes of violent resistance.14 This creation and oversimplification of history is seen in Ross’ framework in the importance of created histories. By oversimplifying the nation’s history, it both expands the rhetoric and thus allows ingroup membership to include a wide variety of Zimbabweans, as well as justifying both land grabs and overt violence against out-group members.

The second aim of the creation of ‘Patriotic history’ is to discredit opposition party MDC and its leader Morgan Tsvangirai. One youth told non-governmental organization Solidarity Peace Trust about the education being administered in Inside the Third Chimurenga: “War veterans told trainees that if anyone voted for the MDC, then the whites would take over the country again.”17 Mugabe and other members of the ZANU-PF repeatedly attacked Tsvangirai, both as a politician and a Zimbabwean. Mugabe equated Tsvangirai’s denial of ‘Patriotic history’ as a denial of the sacrifices of revolutionary veterans, and proclaimed that if elected, Tsvangirai would turn “Zimbabwe into a British and American overseas territory.”18 Ranger notes how Tsvangirai was regularly mocked leading into the 2002 election, as well as in the 2005 and 2008, for his lack of participation in the guerrilla war and for failing to appreciate or understand ‘real’ Zimbabwe history.19

ZANU-PF’s tactic to divert attention and blame has not gone unnoticed or uncriticized within Zimbabwe. Critics point to the disproportionate resources spent on heritage in the midst of economic crisis, deploring Mugabe’s emphasis on ‘Patriotic history’ as the “last refuge of the scoundrels” and, “rubbished patriotism... used to justify the training of wholesale murderers.”15 In a letter to the Independent in February 2003, Zichanaka Munyika says of ‘Patriotic history’: “The message seems to say ‘never worry about the prevailing drought, political history will intervene. Stop worrying about the polluted water, polluted air, extinction of species, declining soil fertility, siltation of rivers ... since all this is set to be solved by political history.”16 Unfortunately, because of the lack of alternative historical narratives, Zimbabweans have allowed Mugabe’s history to take root, although to an increasingly lesser extent.

Historians also note the way in which Mugabe’s regime attempts to connect the MDC to previous colonial oppressors, Britain. Ranger states that Mugabe’s history vehemently attempts to connect the MDC to Britain, saying that “during the presidential campaign it often seemed that Robert Mugabe was campaigning against the man he called ‘Tony B-Liar’ rather than against Tsvangirai.”20 In 2002, the anti-British rhetoric used by the ZANU-PF went as far as to state that Tony Blair was possessed by the demonic spirit of Cecil Rhodes, the British-born South African businessman who founded the state of Rhodesia which would later become Zimbabwe and Zambia.21 In reality, Tsvangirai was an avid Zimbabwe Trade Union activist, and was once a member of the ZANUPF party for several years following the revolution, moving up quickly through the ranks. Historian Sarah Bracking describes the ‘Patriotic history’ as depicting Zimbabwe in a start of “unfinished business” and “being in a permanent, unending war against the (former) colonialists 17 Ibid., 219. 18 Ibid., 219. 19 Ibid., 219-220. 20 Ibid., 221. 21 Ibid., 227. 77

Ranger, “Nationalist Historiography, Patriotic History and the History of the Nation,”

14 15

Kriger, “From Patriotic memories to ‘Patriotic History’ in Zimbabwe,” 1163-1164.

Ibid., 232-233.

219.

232.

Ranger, “Nationalist Historiography, Patriotic History and the History of the Nation,”

15th Anniversary Edition and imperialists.”22 In the 2005 election campaign, ZANU-PF ran what Bracking labelled the “2005:Anti-Blair Campaign” and included promised policies to “Get back your land”, “Keep our Zimbabwe”, and put an “End to Blair’s MDC.”23 Finally, one of the most prominent campaign slogans proclaimed “Bury Blair, Vote ZANU-PF.” Connecting the historical narrative of imperial impression and its negative social implications to Tsvangirai’s MDC party is a central way in which Mugabe has used psycho-cultural tools, as outlined by Ross, to maintain power and control of key resources. The third aim of the creation of a ‘Patriotic history’ is to build the legitimacy and reinforce Mugabe’s and the war veterans’ statuses as national heroes. One article printed in the March 16, 2003 edition of the Zimbabwean Sunday Mail, described Mugabe as: “Every African who is opposed to the British and North American plunder and exploitation... Mugabe as PanAfrican memory, Mugabe as the reclaimer of African space, Mugabe as the African power of remembering the African legacy and African heritage which slavery, apartheid and imperialism thought they had dismembered for good.”24 Whereas the opposition MDC is tied, through ‘Patriotic history’, to imperialist oppression, Mugabe is envisioned as the protector and true historian of not only Zimbabwe, but all of oppressed Africa. Ranger points to how Mugabe is celebrated in his role as a national historian as well as a military hero. He is described as both organizing revolutionary bases into effective military forces while personally delivering historical and political lessons of a ‘true’ Zimbabwe history to motivate resistance 22

Sarah Bracking, “Development Denied: Autocratic Militarism in Post-Election Zimbabwe,” Review of African Political Economy 2005: 346.

23 24

222.

Ibid., 350.

Ranger, “Nationalist Historiography, Patriotic History and the History of the Nation,”

forces.25 History is used by Mugabe to paint a picture of a national hero, and the inclusive rhetoric used by Mugabe aims both to broaden ZANUPF’s in-group to include as many Zimbabweans as possible, and legitimize himself as the only capable leader of the country. These historical narratives are in accordance with Ross’ description of historical narratives. They aim to: draw a direct link between past events and present ones in order to create a sense of shared identity; emphasize specific events in order to be as inclusive as possible; be purposely selective to not include members of the opposition and foreign states who oppose Mugabe’s regime; and, create and invoke deep-seeded group fears of threats to collective existence, in this case that the MDC and British aim to re-colonize and oppress the Zimbabwe population once more.26 Perhaps the most important ability of Mugabe’s created historical narratives, as perceived using Ross’ model, is the ability to force in-group conformity and externalize responsibility.27 This is seen across all spectrums of ‘Patriotic history’; disagreement with the patriotic narratives is demonized as treachery and disloyalty as both opposition members and academic historians who oppose Mugabe’s history are labelled “sell-outs”, “Uncle Tom’s” and, “traitors.”28 Tsvangirai and members of the MDC have been arrested on treason charges, and several have been killed. Psychocultural narratives have played a crucial role in Robert Mugabe’s ability to maintain an oppressive stranglehold on Zimbabwe and continue to use violence against those who oppose him. Promulgation of ‘Patriotic History In his 2007 book, Ross states that an important aspect of narratives is the way in which they are enacted and spread throughout a society.29 Ross places specific emphasis on the use of symbols, historical education, government speeches, and state-owned media. In Zimbabwe 25 Ibid, 222. 26 Ross, Cultural Contestation in Ethnic Conflict, 32-37. 27 Ibid., 38 28 Ranger, “Nationalist Historiography, Patriotic History and the History of the Nation,” 223. 29 Ross, Cultural Contestation in Ethnic Conflict, 41. 79

15th Anniversary Edition these tools play a crucial role in the promulgation of ‘Patriotic history’. Teresa Barnes, a scholar at the University of Western Cape, researched the evolution of historiography in Zimbabwe. Barnes noted a change in the national syllabus particularly concerning history following 2000. History became “narrower, less comparative and with less emphasis on the development of critical reading and interpretive skills.”30 She concludes that the new syllabus, which focused heavily on ‘Patriotic history’ of the third chimurenga, was designed to coincide with “a desire on the part of the state to concentrate young minds on a more legitimising narrative for the status quo and the ruling party.”31 One interviewed teacher even went so far as to refer to Syllabus 2167, instituted in 2002, as a “cheap propaganda tool.”32 In 2001, the Zimbabwe government made youth militia training camps mandatory, blaming teachers and parents for their failure to effectively pass on the messages of the liberation struggle. The camps were run by revolutionary veterans, all of which were strong supports of the ZANUPF party, and relied heavily on ZANU-PF campaign material and political speeches given by Mugabe as training material combined into

“Psycho-cultural narratives have played a crucial role in Robert Mugabe’s ability to maintain an oppressive stranglehold on Zimbabwe”

30 Teresa Barnes, “‘History has to Play its Role’: Constructions of Race and Reconciliation in Secondary School Historiography in Zimbabwe, 1980-2002,” Journal of Southern African Studies 33:3 (2007): 633. 31 Barnes, “‘History has to Play its Role’”, 649. 32 Ibid., 649. 80

a textbook entitled Inside the Third Chimurenga.33 In this environment, where Mugabe and the ZANU-PF are described as heroes and the MDC as villains and traitors, youth are particularly vulnerable to accept and reify ‘Patriotic history’ as true, unquestionable fact. Ranger, Barnes, and Kriger all note the extensive use of state owned media, including ZTV television, newspaper and radio stations, to spread ‘Patriotic history’.34 35 36 Kriger notes that ‘Patriotic history’ was created and spread by party ‘intellectuals’ on television, radio and print media.37 Ranger describes how state run media is bombarded with ‘historical’ programs and articles, giving stories how the ZANU-PF defeated Rhodesian helicopters and planes, achieving only victories and never enduring a loss, despite the fact that not a single colonial settlement had fallen to the liberation forces.38 Western press is depicted as being neo-colonial and untrustworthy, and the universities and colleges of Zimbabwe were described as “anti-Government mentality factories.” As of 2003, it was required that all university professors and lectures be instructed in ‘Patriotic history’ by war veterans; “you can only be patriotic if you undergo this course,” stated one government official.39 Psycho-Cultural Responses Responses to conflict in Zimbabwe, both internally and on the international scene have tended to focus specifically on socio-structural factors. The International Crisis Group’s (ICG) May 2008 report Negotiating Zimbabwe’s Transition makes several recommendations for ensuring peace, all of which focus on changing the structure and interest based dynamics of the conflict. These include access to resources, 33 Ranger, “Nationalist Historiography, Patriotic History and the History of the Nation,” 219. 34 Ranger, “Nationalist Historiography, Patriotic History and the History of the Nation,” 232. 35 Barnes, “‘History has to Play its Role’,” 648. 36 Kriger, “From Patriotic memories to ‘Patriotic History’ in Zimbabwe,” 1166. 37 Ibid. 38 Ranger, “Nationalist Historiography, Patriotic History and the History of the Nation,” 232. 39 Ranger, “Nationalist Historiography, Patriotic History and the History of the Nation,” 229. 81

15th Anniversary Edition land reforms, increased regional and international security forces, and election observers.40 These recommendations have been mirrored by the international community, which has responded with economic and trade sanctions against the country. These responses have, however, failed to curtail state-sponsored violence or force Mugabe to relinquish his control over the nation. These responses attempt, unsuccessfully, to address short term solutions, and fail to appreciate the level of historical credibility Mugabe holds within the country. Tsvangirai himself stated that if he won the Presidency, Mugabe would receive a full pardon and honourable exit as “father of the nation.”41 Mugabe’s ability to embed himself as a national icon and hero through historical narratives has made strictly interest based responses useless. This is probably the most significant point – even the opposition has to acknowledge Mugabe in order to gain legitimacy in the minds of the public. I propose that any real response to the Zimbabwe conflict must consider the importance of historical narratives in Zimbabwe. Currently, the ZANU-PF controls nearly all of the media, press, and education within the country. Responses must first look to broaden accessibility to media within the country, and allow room for alternative narratives to be taught. As Ranger suggests, new narratives based in both Africa’s and Zimbabwe’s history, focusing on human rights and rule of law, have the best chance of disseminating Mugabe’s legitimacy and preventing further violence.42 Ranger notes how the text books using a universal and multiperspective approach to Zimbabwe’s liberation history already exist, but sit in guarded warehouses around the country.43 Barnes’ research into textbooks in Zimbabwe notes some promising developments. Textbooks created before 2000, many of which tell pluralistic histories and emphasize critical thinking skills, are now being bought as used textbooks by the countries growing lower class. She states that “older textbooks written for earlier syllabi will be read and used until the pages disintegrate,” creating 40 International Crisis Group, “Negotiating Zimbabwe’s Transition,” 14. 41 Ibid., 8. 42 Ranger, “Nationalist Historiography, Patriotic History and the History of the Nation,” 234. 43 Ibid., 225. 82

the potential for alternative narratives.44 Although research does not yet exist on the effects of these alternative historical narratives, the growing popularity of the MDC seen in the 2008 elections shows some promising signs that the image of Morgan Tsvangirai and the MDC as western demons is not as prevalent. Conclusion I have argued that the use of historical narratives, in particular the creation of a Mugabe centred ‘Patriotic history’, are psycho-cultural factors as outlined by Ross which have allowed the oppressive ZANUPF regime to maintain power and the use of violence since 2000. First, I examined the roots of ‘Patriotic history’ in the war veterans’, lead by Robert Mugabe, fight for increased control of national resources. Secondly, I showed how ‘Patriotic history’ aims to legitimize the use of oppressive and violent power for land seizures and the targeting of opposition members, demonize Morgan Tsvangirai and the MDC, and concrete Mugabe and the ZANU-PF’s standing as national heroes. Thirdly, by examining the methods through which ‘Patriotic history’ is promulgated, I have shown how entrenched and reified the narrative is in Zimbabwe culture. Responses to the conflict, both by the MDC and the international community, fail to appreciate the influential nature which narratives play in Zimbabwe, and must change to reflect psycho-cultural realities. Even as the controversy over the 2008 elections continues to play out, variations of the nations ‘true’ history continue to play an important role in legitimizing Mugabe’s leadership; if these narratives are not addressed, it is highly likely Zimbabwe will be unable to escape the turmoil of a country suffering both real and created crises. Works Cited Barnes, Teresa. “‘History has to Play its Role”: Constructions of Race and Reconciliation in Secondary School Historiography in Zimbabwe, 44 Barnes, “‘History has to Play its Role’,” 650. 83

1980-2002.” Journal of Southern African Studies 33:3 (2007): 633-651. Bracking, Sarah. “Development Denied: Autocratic Militarism in PostElection Zimbabwe.” Review of African Political Economy (2005): 341357. Brown, Roger. “Ethnic Conflict: Introduction.” Social Psychology: The Second Edition (Free Press) 4:15-17 (1986). Collier, Paul. “The Market for Civil War.” Foreign Policy, 2003. Fearon, James, and David Laitin. “Violence and the Social Construction of Ethnic Identity.” International Organization 54:4 (2000): 845-877. International Crisis Group. “Negotiating Zimbabwe’s Transition.” African Briefing N. 51, 2008: 1-15. Kriger, Norma. “From Patriotic Memories to ‘Patriotic History’ in Zimbabwe, 1990-2005.” Third World Quarterly 27:6 (2006): 1151-1167. Martin, Robert. “The Rule of Law in Zimbabwe.” The Round Table 95:384 (2006): 239-253. Ranger, Terence. “Nationalist Historiography, Patriotic History and the History of the Nation: the Struggle over the Past in Zimbabwe.” Journal of Southern African Studies 30:2 (2004): 215-234. Ross, Marc. Cultural Contestation in Ethnic Conflict. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2007. Ross, Marc. The Management of Conflict. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1993.