Gettleman and Africa

If you have read an article in the NY Times about east Africa, it was almost definitely written by Jeffrey Gettleman. His coverage of the Congo, Kenya, Rwanda, et al has been amazing and one of the few places you can get good information about the conflicts and troubles in those areas.

He wrote a piece in Foreign Policy a while ago I finally got around to reading. It describes how Africa's wars are different. The piece is well considered and haunting. I'm not sure I agree with everything, but it is a must read when considering Africa's conflicts.

Naomi Campbell and Her Blood Diamonds

With the testimony of Naomi Campbell at the International Criminal Court about her gift of blood diamonds, the issue has come back into the public's consciousness.

First, there was an opinion piece in the Wall Street Journal ($) - a piece of pro-diamond garbage. The piece was so disingenuous it almost made me sick. Hopefully most people realized the author was far from objective considering he is a diamond consultant. And even if some people gave him the benefit of the doubt, hopefully they realized his arguments were complete sophistry.

(He says that diamonds do not contribute to conflict - at least no more than many other minerals. If his point is that we should be concerned about how other resources also provide money to warlords and allows them to continue horrible acts of violence, then I would agree. Instead, I gather his point is that we shouldn't think at all about how our consumption feeds violence in parts of Africa, Asia and South America.)

One thing he says that people concerned about blood diamonds would agree with is that the Kimberly process is largely ineffective. This article in Foreign Policy sums it up. Unfortunately, the WSJ opinion author concludes that because the Kimberly process does not work, we should give up and just buy diamonds as before oblivious to the death and destruction. The FP article fortunately looks for ways to improve the process so that people can continue to buy grossly overvalued diamonds (thanks to what is actually very clever advertising going back decades) with less impact on conflict. Let's hope people actually heed the call for change.

Some Ideas from the Atlantic

This month's Atlantic Monthly had some interesting stuff in it. They called it the ideas issue, and the first three of the "Quick Fixes" were actually pretty good (the rest, not so much): Allow foreclosed owners to stay in their homes as renters, allow the UN to pay private soldiers to act as peacekeepers, and a more flexible attitude about installing democracy in Afghanistan.

I think only the last of the three, no democracy in Afghanistan, is likely to happen. Some big lenders may allow foreclosed owners to stay on, by I think few will and there is no will to impose that.

And although I do not think it would happen, the private UN peacekeepers is an interesting idea, although not a terrible new one. In fact I think my brother might have mentioned it one time. And it is possible that I dismissed it. But now that I consider it more, I do think it makes sense. It seems to me that the private troops could be more accountable, through contract renewal, than some of the country-sent troops, which have been accused of crimes and abuses themselves. And this way, only funding would stand in the way of peacekeeper deployment, and not the lack of willingness to send troops, which is more common.

Why Only Darfur?

This book review in the Times really struck a chord with me. If I understand it, the author of the book takes exception to the public's obsession with the genocide in Darfur. He believes that it is based on a lack of real understanding of the history and dimensions in Sudan, and maybe also based on racism.

I do not disagree that the public often latches on to some issues, while ignoring other equally or more troubling situations. We rally around Darfur but pay little attention to the major tragedies in Somalia and the Congo. Actually, while the world watches Darfur, it pays little attention to the conflict in southern Sudan.

While I do think there is something particularly damaging to the fabric of humanity when one group attempts to eliminate another group, that cannot be our benchmark for when we choose to show concern. And our analysis of those situations should be done objectively, where instead we have a history of bias towards whichever side we supported.

Child Soldiers

The problem with a book like A Long Way Gone: Memoirs of a Child Soilder and a movie like Blood Diamond, is they mostly raise awareness of situations that are long since over. You are left enraged that these conditions existed, but you are left without an outlet. The inevitable question that arises is where the current crises are. Unfortunately, that information is not as readily available, as these incidents are not covered widely. I should have posted about this a long time ago, but here is a brief word about where current child soldier incidents are:

The 13 countries where groups that recruit child soldiers operate are Afghanistan, Burundi, Central African Republic, Congo, Myanmar, Nepal, Somalia, Sudan, Chad, Colombia, Philippines, Sri Lanka and Uganda, according to the report.

Some of these should be no surprise. Congo, Somalia, and Sudan are homes to some of the worst conflicts right now and I imagine that many years from now, the next books and movies will be set in these countries. Sri Lanka continues to battle the Tamil Tiger terrorist group. I have heard about Myanmar's use of child soldiers. It is surprising though that Afghanistan is of course on our radar in the US, but allegations of using child soldiers is not discussed.

Well, knowing is half the battle, right? The other half is action...

Peace in DRC?

It appears that the prospects for peace in the eastern part of the Democratic Republic of Congo have increased recently. The violence (and epidemic of sexual violence) stemmed from four armed groups in the area with shifting alliances; the Congolese government troops, Hutu militants (those responsible for the genocide in neighboring Rwanda), Laurent Nkunda's Tutsi militants (supposedly there to protect Tutsis from the Hutu militants but with aspirations to take down the democratically elected government in DRC), and UN Peacekeeping troops (yes, they were there to keep the peace, but there were accusations that they too were contributing to the sexual violence while not effectively protecting the civilians).

Recently, Laurent Nkunda has been arrested by the Rwandan government and his militia is apparently disbanding. Jeffrey Gettleman's story says that there was a deal between Rwanda and Congo, where Rwanda would stop Nkunda, and Congo would let Rwanda go into Congo to attack the Hutu militias.

The only chance for sustained peace will be if Nkunda's militia does in fact disarm and no one steps into the vacuum (there are other rebel groups in the area, including Nkunda's former chief of staff, who is wanted for war crimes) and if the Hutu militia can be neutralized. Both of these are real challenges, but I am particularly worried about the later. The genocide happened in 1994 and the Hutu militants have been hiding in Congo since then destabilizing the region. Hopefully now is the time they are finally stopped. Unfortunately, stopping them may result in more bloodshed among the people living in Eastern Congo.

At the very least though, this new development brings hopes of peace to one of the most troubled regions in the world.

Ethnic Nationalism

I started sharing magazines with a coworker of mine. I give him copies of my old New York Review of Books (which I haven't done yet) and he gives me old copies of Foreign Affairs. One of the first articles I read was this one about ethnic nationalism (or ethnonationalism). Although at first glance it seems like your standard troupe suggesting that different cultures cannot get along, it is actually very well argued and the tone is reasonable.

Basically his argument is that Americans tend to underestimate the power of ethnonationalism and assume it is an idea created by humans. The author admits that is is a fake construct, but that doesn't diminish its power. He then sites all the examples of ethnic conflict that eventually lead to peace following mass murder and / or mass migration. He argues that the peace is caused by homogenization and separation of the populations. His examples are hard to refute - although some of them I lack enough knowledge to be able to know if his analysis is accurate (he goes back to post World War I changes).

If his analysis is right, it doesn't bode well for some current or recent conflict situations. We look at places like Iraq, Kenya, Rwanda, Congo, Sudan, Somalia, and the Balkans, and wonder if they'll be able to hold together in their current state. And in fact, in Iraq, there has already been significant displacement, especially in Baghdad. Neighborhoods are much more homogeneous now after minority residents were forced to leave or killed. It makes you wonder if some of the decrease in violence is attributable to this.

I don't want to be a pessimist. I don't want to believe that the only way to stabilize places like Sudan or the Congo is through separation. At the same time, there is a reason we supported Kosovo's declaration of independence (and it's not just because of guilt). Maybe the answer isn't clean one way or the other, but needs to be decided on a case by case basis. For example, Rwanda is relatively stable for now, and Kenya appears to be getting back on track.

I think though our first step should be to get involved and try to help the populations stay together. Then if it isn't working, to allow for separation and make the mass migrations as painless as possible. But since we haven't been trying very hard in places like Congo, Sudan, and Somalia, we don't know whether the only option is ethnically homogeneous states.