Humanitarian Intervention and Conflict Resolution in West Africa

From ECOMOG to ECOMIL

John M. Kabia

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2016
• ISBN:
  9781317119555
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Politics & International Relations
• Subtopic: Politics
• Index: Politics & International Relations

The end of the Cold War has been characterized by a wave of violent civil wars that have produced unprecedented humanitarian catastrophe and suffering. Although mostly intra-state, these conflicts have spread across borders and threatened international peace and security. One of the worst affected regions is West Africa which has been home to some of Africa's most brutal and intractable conflicts for more than a decade. This volume locates the peacekeeping operations of the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) within an expanded post-Cold War conceptualization of humanitarian intervention. It examines the organization's capacity to protect civilians at risk in civil conflicts and to facilitate the processes of peacemaking and post-war peace-building. Taking the empirical case of ECOWAS, the book looks at the challenges posed by complex political emergencies (CPEs) to humanitarian intervention and traces the evolution of ECOWAS from an economic integration project to a security organization, examining the challenges inherent in such a transition.

Chapter 1
Humanitarian Intervention in Complex Political Emergencies: A Conceptual Framework for Analysis

Introduction

The principles of sovereignty and non-intervention have long been bedrocks of the traditional Westphalian state system. Geared towards the maintenance of order and stability in the international system, these principles have frowned at foreign interference in the domestic affairs of states. In Africa, more than any other region, sovereignty and non-intervention became defining features of the Organisation of African Unity (OAU). Lacking popular sovereignty, most leaders in the continent depended on coercion and intimidation of political opponents to stay in power. The non-intervention norm of the Westphalian state system has therefore meant the protection of the status quo even in the face of massive human rights abuses. However, the end of the Cold War suddenly brought the issue of human rights and state collapse to the centre of international relations. Starting from the 1991 US-led ‘Operation Provide Comfort’ and ‘Operation Southern Watch’ to protect the Kurds of Northern Iraq and the Shi’a of Southern Iraq respectively from Saddam Hussein’s intolerable repression, humanitarian intervention has emerged as a key policy option for international organisations, coalitions of states, regional organisations and big powers. However, the question of whether or not a state or group of states could legally intervene to stop massive human rights violations in another state remains a matter of great political and legal controversy.

With the proliferation of violent conflicts, the breakdown of state authority and the emergence of militia groups that have no regard for international norms and human rights in Africa and elsewhere, post-Cold War conceptualisation of humanitarian intervention has expanded from its nascent task of protecting victims of human rights abuses by repressive regimes in foreign countries to providing security to threatened populations caught up in the complex political emergencies (CPEs) that have come to characterise the end of the Cold War. It has also expanded to include non-forcible tasks such as the distribution of emergency relief to ameliorate the suffering of victims, securing the humanitarian space necessary for effective operations of aid agencies, and facilitating conflict resolution and post-war peacebuilding to prevent a relapse into conflict. These expanded roles and expectations have however placed serious difficulties on the part of interveners as the cases of Somalia, Rwanda and Bosnia demonstrate.

This chapter seeks to conceptualise humanitarian intervention in the post-Cold War era and examine the challenges it faces in today’s complex political emergencies and post 9/11 era. It argues in favour of the solidarist approach to humanitarian intervention and posits that the challenges posed by CPEs warrants the broadening of its remits to include both forcible and non-forcible strategies aimed at safeguarding civilians in the short term and building sustainable peace in the medium to long term. Starting with a working definition of the concept, we then trace the origin and evolution of humanitarian intervention. Next, a detailed analysis of complex political emergencies will be used to understand the challenges and difficulties facing interveners and form the basis for a reframing of the debate on humanitarian intervention in light of current realities. The next section will develop a framework for analysis in the entire book which will be followed by definition of terms and concepts.

Humanitarian Intervention: A Working Definition

Wil Verwey (1992, 114) provided what is now considered a classic definition of humanitarian intervention,

the threat or use of force by a state or states abroad, for the sole purpose of preventing or putting a halt to a serious violation of fundamental human rights, in particular the right to life of persons, regardless of their nationality, such protection taking place neither upon authorisation by relevant organs of United Nations nor with permission by the legitimate government of the target state.

Like other restrictionists’ view of the term, Verwey stressed that the motive of humanitarian intervention should be ‘solely’ humanitarian. This strict stipulation disqualifies any intervention as ‘humanitarian’ considering the political interests and processes that are also certain to be involved in practice. Solidarists like Wheeler (2000) and Teson (2003) object to this strict emphasis on motive as they argue that this approach ‘takes the intervening state as referent object for analysis rather than the victims who are rescued as a consequence of the use of force’ (Wheeler, 2000, 38). This however leads us to two very controversial debates within humanitarianism: what counts as humanitarian and the question of the universality of human rights. Despite the frequent use of the term, ‘a consistent and working definition of humanitarianism has evaded public and private authorities’ (Nicholls, 1987, 193). This has prompted Adam Roberts to ask ‘What on earth does humanitarian mean?’ (Roberts, 1993, 13). Ephraim Isaac defines humanitarianism as ‘a feeling of concern for and benevolence toward fellow human beings. It is a universal phenomenon manifested globally and through out the ages’ (Isaac, 1993, 13). Ramsbotham and Woodhouse (1996) link humanitarianism with international humanitarian law of armed conflict, international human rights law and emergency aid. But what level of humanitarian suffering requires outside intervention? Solidarists like Wheeler refer to a ‘supreme humanitarian emergency’ to describe a situation of extreme human suffering wherein ‘the only hope of saving lives depends on outsiders coming to the rescue’ (Wheeler, 2000, 34). However he admits there are no objective criteria for determining what counts as a ‘supreme humanitarian emergency’. This work will define humanitarian emergency to mean a situation of excessive violation of human rights by a repressive government or cases of uncontrolled anarchy and mass murder caused by conflict and/or state collapse.

But reference to human rights also opens another controversial debate between universalists and cultural relativists. Proponents for the universality of human rights argue that human rights norms and standards are applicable to all human beings in all human societies, whatever geographical or cultural circumstances and whatever local traditions and practices may exist. The main challenge to the notion of universality of human rights comes principally from Asia, Middle East and Africa. Advocates of cultural relativism claim that most or some of the rights and rules about morality are encoded in and thus depend on cultural context. Hence, notions of right and wrong and moral rules differ through out the world because cultures in which they take root are different. To them international human rights instruments and their pretensions to universality may suggest primarily the arrogance of ‘cultural imperialism’ of the West. Practices considered violations of human rights in one part of the world may be viewed differently elsewhere. This work adopts a middle ground position between universalists and relativists. Whilst accepting the argument that human rights should be culturally sensitive, we however hold the view that there are minimum standards of human rights to be respected across the world. This includes the right to life, freedom of expression, association and movement.

Verwey’s conceptualisation of humanitarian intervention also rules out intervention by the UN and confines the practice to action taken by individual states or groups of states without UN authorisation. Whilst this form of intervention is still prevalent as evidenced by the recent US/British led intervention in Iraq, recent interpretation of the concept has expanded the agents to include regional organisations and action taken by the UN (see Wheeler 2000; Ramsbotham and Woodhouse, 2006). From its inception in 1945, the UN anticipated the involvement of such organisations in the maintenance of global peace. Chapter VIII of the UN Charter acknowledges the importance of such groupings and urges member states to seek ‘pacific settlement of local disputes through such regional arrangements or by such regional agencies before referring them to the Security Council’.1 Ramsbotham and Woodhouse further expanded the agencies to include NGOs and UN aid organisations like the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) and UN Children’s Fund (UNICEF). Whilst acknowledging the fact that non-state actors are now playing a prominent role in humanitarian intervention, this book, however, limit it to actions taken by states, groups of states, regional organisations and the UN Security Council. The action of aid agencies will be better understood as humanitarian assistance so as not to complicate analysis.

Verwey also rules out intervention undertaken with the consent of the target state. Post-Cold War understanding of the practice has, however included both consensual and non-consensual intervention. In fact in most of these missions, there is hardly a government with effective authority extending beyond the capital city. The ‘threat or use of force’ has also been a qualifying element of humanitarian intervention. The post-Cold War conceptualisation of the practice has, however expanded to include non-forcible strategies aimed at alleviating the suffering of those caught up in the middle of cross-fire and mechanisms to prevent a relapse into conflict. Ramsbotham and Woodhouse (1996, 115) offered a new typology of governmental humanitarian intervention as follows:

1 Coercive (forcible) humanitarian intervention:

a) Forcible military humanitarian intervention;

b) Coercive non-military humanitarian intervention.

2 Non-coercive (non-forcible) humanitarian intervention:

a) Non-forcible military humanitarian intervention (eg. peacekeeping);

b) Non-coercive, non-military humanitarian intervention.

The first category, coercive humanitarian intervention coincides with the classical definition. In the context of complex political emergencies, forcible military humanitarian intervention involves the provision and securing of humanitarian space for the work of aid agencies and conflict resolution workers as well as military enforcement action to safeguard safe havens for populations at risk. It also involves military action to overthrow repressive governments and compel warring factions to respect cease-fires and peace accords. Coercive non-military humanitarian intervention includes the imposition of sanctions in pursuit of humanitarian goals. The second category, non-coercive humanitarian intervention represents a dramatic shift from the traditional meaning of humanitarian intervention. Wheeler considers non-forcible humanitarian intervention to be ‘the pacific activities of states, international organisations and non-governmental organisations in delivering humanitarian aid and facilitating third party conflict resolution and reconstruction’ (Wheeler, 2000) This category also includes post-war peacebuilding programmes aimed at preventing a relapse into conflict and reconstructing the state.

For the purposes of this book and in light of the realities of post-Cold War conflict, humanitarian intervention will be defined as:

forcible or non-forcible actions taken by states, group of states, regional organisations or the UN, in situations of massive human suffering caused by repressive regimes or complex political emergencies where the state has collapsed and law and order has degenerated into mass murder and anarchy. This intervention should seek to protect human rights and alleviate the suffering of victims in the short term; and address the underlying causes of the conflict by facilitating conflict resolution and peacebuilding in the medium to long term.

Origin and Evolution of Humanitarian Intervention

The doctrine of humanitarian intervention owes its origin to the just war tradition. The doctrine as we came to know it today has been shaped through the ages by contributions of lawyers, philosophers, theologians and politicians dating back to Roman times. However, Christian conception of just war theory forms the nucleus of, and had a great influence on, present day conception of humanitarian intervention. Early Christians were predominantly pacifists. This position however changed dramatically during the era of Constantine which saw the Christianisation of the empire. The increasing political and social influence of the church led Christian theologians to work on justifications for the use of force – this eventually developed over time in the form of just war theory. Ian Clark succinctly puts it, ‘while the early church had been strongly pacifists, its adaptation to post-Constantine ‘establishment’ brought with it a worldly acceptance of the need to defend the spiritual realm within the temporal and it is in this acceptance that just war origins are to be discovered’ (Clark, 1998, 33).

Modern and secular conception of humanitarian intervention dates back to the seventeenth century and has been credited to the Dutch International Lawyer, Hugo Grotious. In De Jure Belli est Pacis, Grotious put forward the proposition that outside countries can legitimately intervene to stop human rights abuses in a neighbouring state. This proposition unleashed a heated debate among international lawyers of the eighteenth century. The first recorded case of humanitarian intervention however came in 1827 when Britain, France and Russia intervened to protect the Greek Christians in the Ottoman Empire. Again in 1860, France was authorised by other European powers to intervene in the Ottoman Empire to save the Maronite Christians in Syria against suppression in practicing their traditional religion. Other nineteenth-century cases include Russia in Bosnia-Herzegovina and Bulgaria (1877–30), and the United States in Cuba (1898).

The Cold War witnessed several instances of humanitarian intervention. The most cited cases are Tanzania’s ousting of Idi Amin’s despotic and tyrannical regime in Uganda in 1979, Vietnam’s invasion of Pol Pot’s Cambodia in the same year, and India’s intervention in East Pakistan in 1971 to rescue its population from the intolerable repression of West Pakistan. International reaction was at best silent over such interventions as demonstrated in Tanzania’s case and at worst openly opposed. Although the humanitarian outcomes of these interventions were apparent, the interveners were hesitant to declare them ‘humanitarian interventions’. This reflected the prevailing international uneasiness with the practice.

However, at the end of the Cold War, there appears to be an international consensus in support of humanitarian intervention as evidenced by the unprecedented support to rescue the Kurds and Shiites in Iraq in 1991. Besides rescuing civilians from repressive regimes, the demands of the post-Cold War era have also drawn humanitarian interveners into the complex political emergencies devastating Africa, Asia and Eastern Europe which are characterised by the breakdown of government authority and massive human rights abuses. But the optimism generated by the end of the Cold War soon faded as failures in Somalia, Bosnia and Rwanda led many to question the effectiveness of the practice. The events of September 11 have also cast a big shadow of doubt on humanitarian intervention as focus of the US and other Western states appears to have shifted to the ongoing ‘war on terror’.

Humanitarian Intervention in Complex Political Emergencies

As highlighted above, humanitarian intervention during the Cold War was mostly targeted at dictatorial regimes committing massive human rights abuses against their citizens. However, the devastating civil conflicts that characterised the end of the Cold War brought about a dramatic shift in the target and operations of humanitarian interveners. Of the nine cases frequently cited as examples of humanitarian intervention between 1991 and 2000, (Iraq, Bosnia, Somalia, Liberia, Rwanda, East Timor, Congo DR, Sierra Leone, Kosovo) six were in complex political emergencies. This new context posed massive challenges and real dangers to interveners. Consequently, the new context and challenges call for a broadening of humanitarian intervention from its classical conceptualisation of forcible action to include non-forcible strategies. This section will seek to understand the nature and dynamics of complex political emergencies – the new context for interventions – and the dangers they pose to interveners.

Nature and Dynamics of CPEs

During the Cold War period, International Relations theorists and Strategic Studies analysts were preoccupied with inter-state wars and the bipolar confrontation between the East and West. However, the post-Cold War period witnessed the eruption of new forms of conflicts, which do not fit into the traditional classifications. Terminologies to describe such conflicts include Protracted Social Conflicts (Azar, 1990), International Social Conflicts (Ramsbotham and Woodhouse, 1996), and Complex political emergencies (CPEs). For Mary Kaldor (2001, 2), these “‘new wars” involve a blurring of the distinctions between wars … organized crime … and large-scale violations of human rights’. However, Smith dismisses this ‘new wars’ thesis and posit that ‘vicious civil wars sustained by identity politics, supported by diasporas and waged by paramilitary gangs … have rumbled on from one decade to the next … the end of the Cold War has been meaningless for most of these wars’ (2003, 34). He went on to argue that post-Cold War interest in civil wars amongst international relations theorists ‘was the product of Cold War displacement’ (Smith, 2003, 34). Whilst agreeing with Smith that intrastate war is not a new phenomenon, however, we can see significant changes in the goals of, and tactics used by, warring groups in many parts of the world. Most intrastate conflicts during the Cold War period were either liberation struggles or proxy wars. However, at the end of the Cold War, we saw the emergence of new forms of conflicts that can best be described as factional wars based on intra-elite power struggles, coup d’etat, and warlordism. Despite their seemingly internal nature, they have regional and international dimensions and ramifications evidenced by the destabilising effects of small arms proliferation, mass refugee flow and cross border conflagrations (Francis, 2000). Whilst the Human Security Report 2005 suggests that there is a general decrease in the number of armed conflicts around the world, it acknowledges the fact that Africa is the only continent where this number is on the increase with ‘more people being killed by wars in this region than in the rest of the world combined’ (Human Security Centre, 2005, 4). This disturbing trend makes the study and analyses of CPEs very crucial in our attempt to tackle the vicious circle of conflict in Africa and elsewhere.

The concept of CPEs was coined by the UN in the early 1990s to describe the emerging forms of conflicts in the post-Cold War era. Encompassing various types of conflicts, the term is not an analytical tool but a descriptive category lacking precision and distinctions.2 Duffield defines CPEs as ‘protracted political crises resulting from sectarian or predatory indigenous response to socio-economic stress and marginalization … [They] have a singular ability to erode or destroy the cultural, civil, political or economic integrity of established societies’ (Duffield, 1994, 38). This form of conflict is multi-dimensional as it combines overwhelming violence with large-scale displacement of people, mass famine, fragile and failing economic, political and social institutions. Although often exacerbated by natural disasters, the roots of CPEs can be located in political issues. Unlike classical conception of war which is fought between armies, a shocking feature of CPEs is the fact that warring factions often deliberately target vulnerable groups of civilians and humanitarian aid workers. Nordstrom therefore observes that the safest place to be in today’s ‘dirty wars’ is the military (Nordstrom, 1992, 271). Another feature of CPEs is the medley of fighting forces involved, all of which add to the complexity of the conflict. Kaldor (1999) identifies five types: regular armed forces or remnants, paramilitary groups, self-defence units, foreign mercenaries and regular troops under international auspices. To this list we will add local mercenaries like the ones roaming the West African sub-region offering guerrilla services to any disgruntled group. Considering their guerrilla type warfare, most of these warring groups use small arms which are relatively easy to carry and maintain. This has led to a proliferation of small arms in CPEs in Africa and elsewhere. Another feature of these fighting forces is the widespread use of child soldiers. In Sierra Leone and Liberia, all the conflicting parties used boys as young as eight to either fight or carry looted goods for them. Abducted girls were most often used as sex slaves of senior commanders....

Table of contents

• Cover Page
• Dedication
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Contents
• List of Tables
• Acknowledgements
• List of Abbreviations
• Introduction
• 1 Humanitarian Intervention in Complex Political Emergencies: A Conceptual Framework for Analysis
• 2 Analysing Conflicts in West Africa: Causal Factors and Interpretations
• 3 From ECOWAS to ECOMOG: The Evolution of ECOWAS Security Regionalism
• 4 Duality of ECOMOG Intervention in Liberia: Alternating between Forcible and Non-Forcible Strategies
• 5 ECOMOG in Sierra Leone: Restoration of Democracy and Humanitarian Intervention
• 6 Peacekeeping without Nigeria: ECOWAS Intervention in Guinea Bissau and Cote d’Ivoire
• 7 Elusive Peace or Flawed Strategy: The LURD-MODEL Rebellion and Relapse into War in Liberia
• 8 Peacebuilding in Sierra Leone and Liberia: A Comparative Perspective
• 9 Institutionalising Conflict Resolution and Humanitarian Intervention in West Africa
• Conclusion
• References
• Index