International Responses to Mass Atrocities in Africa. Kurt Mills

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СКАЧАТЬ autonomy in domestic criminal affairs. At the same time, they may try to use the ICC for their own domestic purposes as a weapon in the conflict.

      Furthermore, the ICC poses difficult questions and danger for both palliators and protectors. For palliators, who may have significant information that could be of use to prosecutors,¹⁰⁸ they are posed with the same question vis-à-vis intervention. Do they release the information, exposing the crimes, or pass it on to the prosecutors, thus helping to ensure that perpetrators face justice—an outcome which pretty much all palliators would support¹⁰⁹—or do they keep silent? Eric Dachy puts it starkly: “either we compromise our ability to aid victims by testifying, or we protect criminals in order to continue to provide assistance.”¹¹⁰ The former action might further one human rights goal, but it could also imperil their activities, as they are branded as informers and targeted or kicked out of the country, thus undermining their humanitarian mission. Most IHOs will follow the latter course of action for this reason, although they may quietly pass information to human rights organizations, which can thus use it for their advocacy activities. This creates a division of labor, which could have positive outcomes—the information gets out, while humanitarian organizations are not recognized as the source of the information.

      In addition, ICC action might negatively affect humanitarians, even when they have no connection to the action. They can be tarred with the same brush as human rights actors. Some parties to a conflict might see them as all part of the group of internationals, and blame humanitarians for the actions of their human rights brethren, thus imperiling their actions. More generally, with the development of individual criminal responsibility, combatants have an interest in ensuring that there are no witnesses to their atrocities, including humanitarians, and thus may want to deny them access to protect themselves.¹¹¹ The ICRC has been granted a specific exemption in the Rome Statute from being called to testify,¹¹² although NGOs have not. During the Rome Statute preparatory meetings, Médecins sans Frontières (MSF) specifically did not request such an exemption, seeing such action as part of its témoignage (witnessing). At the same time, it did not want to be one of the “informal auxiliaries to the justice process” where it participated in a formal evidence gathering function (leaving that, instead, to human rights NGOs).¹¹³ Or, as will be seen, they can be used as pawns in other ways.

      Also, as with palliation, prosecution can create an excuse not to intervene and protect. It is one more action that can demonstrate that states are doing “something” while not necessarily taking the action required to protect people and stop the fighting. While this should certainly not deter the prosecutors from doing their jobs, the mere fact of the existence of the ICC and other international criminal justice mechanisms can contribute to a more complicated and complex global geopolitical context in which decisions on how to respond to mass atrocities are taken. Although, in some cases, such as Syria, which lies at the heart of extremely complicated global geopolitical dynamics and which engages directly with conflicting great power interests, there is no appetite for even the ICC.

      Finally, to come full circle, R2P and related PoC protection activities can have multiple possible outcomes, which may have positive or negative consequences for humanitarianism and human rights. A military intervention might just succeed and end the fighting, which in turn creates space for a political settlement. We have seen precious few of these cases. It might provide a presence, for a time, that has a significant protective effect. These situations are slightly more numerous, but the issue always becomes the will to continue the action, particularly if the interveners take increasing numbers of casualties.¹¹⁴ The intervention might also provide space for the humanitarians to do their job and deliver humanitarian assistance—although the issue of the staying power of the intervention forces will become an issue. These are all possible positive effects. But an intervention might have negative consequences. It might imperil the humanitarian mission. It might create incentives for certain parties, in particular rebel groups, to become more intransigent or otherwise encourage them, thus prolonging a conflict.¹¹⁵ It can also lead to civilian casualties. It must be recognized from the start of any R2P action that civilian casualties are inevitable. There are ways to mitigate this and reduce the potential for dead civilians. Yet, all too often, the interveners do not want to take such actions, at least partly because it may imperil their own troops. This was illustrated all too clearly in Kosovo, where NATO restricted itself to high-altitude bombing of Serb positions, rather than exposing their airplanes to antiaircraft fire or the dangers of putting troops on the ground, which would inevitably have led to NATO casualties. As a result, more civilians were killed than might have been the case otherwise. Humanitarians thus need to keep this in mind when advocating for intervention.

      We thus have a very complicated relationship between these three sets of responsibilities and associated practices. The choices made by decision makers and actors on the ground are difficult and complex. While the three responsibilities—protection, prosecution, and palliation—all come from the same broad human rights and humanitarian project, their efficacy and eventual impacts are such that they are not necessarily mutually reinforcing. Rather, they may at times undermine each other—either intentionally or unintentionally.

      Furthermore, the question of how best to protect those affected by mass atrocity situations and associated humanitarian crises is difficult to answer. Palliation saves lives; yet, in the most extreme circumstances, it cannot protect individuals from government troops, warlords, paramilitaries, or rebel forces. Prosecution punishes criminals; yet it might also make peace negotiations more difficult. And, in the absence of evidence of a significant deterrent effect, it cannot be claimed to protect people in harm’s way. Robust R2P activities can physically protect people, but it can also endanger them. There is also little appetite on the part of those who could protect to actually do so in most situations. It is thus a very unsure route to protection. All three of these responsibilities have a role to play in assistance and protecting those affected by widespread violent conflict and human rights abuses. The issue, as always, comes down to political will to choose and implement the most appropriate response(s), although this will is in little evidence in too many situations.

Table 1.1. Responsibility Conundrums

      CHAPTER 2

      Rwanda: The Failure of “Never Again”

      We in the United States and the world community did not do as much as we could have and should have done to try to limit what occurred in Rwanda in 1994…. We must have global vigilance. And never again must we be shy in the face of evidence.

      We will not deny that, in their greatest hour of need, the world failed the people of Rwanda.

      The genocide in Rwanda in 1994, which claimed around 800,000 lives, illustrated the failures of the international community in the post-Cold War world. Yet, as much as anything, it was the response that did occur—and in particular the role of humanitarian action—combined with this failure and the resulting conflict in neighboring Zaire, which was an even more significant legacy. As will be clear, it is difficult to address the first two conflicts that are the subject of the present and following chapters—Rwanda and DRC/Zaire—separately. To a significant extent, one begat the other. Rwanda, which was ignored by the international community, became the watchword for “never again!” while DRC/Zaire exists below the global radar, even though the death and devastation eclipses the Rwandan genocide.

      This chapter will briefly discuss the origins of the genocide in Rwanda and the global context in which the genocide occurred. It will examine how the failure of the international community to respond to the genocide and adequately deal with the humanitarian and security aftermath led directly to the conflict in the DRC/Zaire. It will look at how the emerging responsibilities played СКАЧАТЬ