The Progressive Response 4 April 2000 Vol. 4, No. 14 Editor: Tom Barry -------------------------------------------------------------------------
The Progressive Response (PR) is a weekly service of Foreign Policy in
Focus (FPIF), a joint project of the Interhemispheric Resource Center and the Institute for Policy Studies. We encourage responses to the opinions expressed in PR and may print them in the "Letters and Comments" section. -------------------------------------------------------------------------
I. Updates and Out-takes
*** WAR AND PEACEKEEPING IN THE CONGO *** By Thomas Turner, University of Tunis
*** U.S.-CHINA-TAIWAN MILITARY RELATIONS *** By Jim Nolt, World Policy Institute
*** KOSOVO A YEAR LATER *** By Stephen Zunes, FPIF Associate Editor
II. Letters and Comments
*** ANALYSIS "SIMPLY WILL NOT DO"***
*** QUESTIONS FURTHER U.S. INTERVENTION IN CONGO ***
--------------------------------------------------------------------- I. Updates and Out-Takes
*** WAR AND PEACEKEEPING IN THE CONGO ***
By Thomas Turner, University of Tunis
(Editor's Note: Cease-fire negotiations by the Joint Military Commission (JMC), which convenes the Congolese government, rebel leaders, and five other African nations, resumed today, April 4, in Uganda. The government, rebel factions, and foreign armies have repeatedly broken earlier cease-fire agreements. A new policy brief by
Thomas Turner of the University of Tunis in Tunisia says that "diplomatic efforts must continue to ensure that a UN monitoring force
is expeditiously deployed and has sufficient troops, financing, and international backing." Excerpted below, "War in the Congo" is posted at http://www.foreignpolicy-infocus.org/briefs/vol5/v5n10congo.html)
The U.S. bears significant responsibility for the conflict in the Congo and therefore has an obligation to participate in its resolution. But other outsiders--both African and non-African--have also contributed to this tragic morass. There is blame enough to go around and thus a collective responsibility to put things right.
The Clinton administration's renewed commitment to implementing the 1999 Lusaka Agreement, sending UN peacekeeping troops, and establishing a cease-fire in the DRC is welcome. The Lusaka Agreement and the Security Council resolution to send a UN force can represent steps on the road toward peace and reconstruction if implemented; Washington should work to make sure that happens, expeditiously and with sufficient numbers of troops and financial resources.
While embracing the Lusaka Agreement, the U.S. should make it clear that the obligations imposed on the Kabila government are not unique. The Congo has become infected by conflicts in neighboring African states and currently serves as a battleground in the struggle between Uganda and Zimbabwe for hegemony within Africa. An effective resolution of the DRC conflict has to address these other conflicts. If national dialogue and reconciliation are critical in the DRC, they are equally necessary in Rwanda (where the RPF regime represents only former exiles, a minority within the Tutsi minority) as well as in Burundi, Uganda, Zimbabwe, and Angola.
In the DRC conflict, what could each party settle for? Kabila justifiably wants Ugandan and Rwandan forces out of Congolese territory, and many Congolese who are not Kabila supporters agree with
this position. The Lusaka Agreement links this desired outcome to a national dialogue. Kabila has announced his intention to convene a "constituent and legislative assembly," but unarmed opposition groups in the DRC have indicated that this would fall short of what is necessary for a genuine national dialogue. In addition, Kabila has announced an amnesty for members of the armed opposition (RDC, MLC), but these organizations have rejected the offer as "insulting," since it implies that they are guilty of some crime for which they need to be amnestied. Through continued overtures, some formula will have to be found by which the armed and unarmed opposition can participate in a comprehensive national dialogue.
Rwanda has sought to establish a sphere of interest over large areas of the eastern Congo (in North and South Kivu regions), insisting that
this area was historically part of Rwandan territory. These claims involve a confusion between culture zones and political control. The U.S. needs to make clear to Rwanda that any claim that would change political boundaries is not valid and must be rejected. Rwanda and Uganda both want secure frontiers. This presumably is a greater priority than promoting the interests of their clients (the MLC and the two RDCs) or of the Rwanda-speakers of the eastern Congo.
These Rwanda-speakers want to be able to live in the eastern Congo, where they have been for generations or, in some cases, several centuries. Many Congolese argue that these people are not Congolese and that the Congo's nationality policy is an internal matter. This is
an obsolete point of view in an era when genocide and other crimes against humanity have been recognized as international concerns, and when the claims of the former South African government that apartheid was an internal matter have been discredited. As with apartheid, discriminatory nationality laws and policies should be considered a threat to international peace.
The United States needs to defend the political rights of the Rwanda-speaking minorities, as it has attempted to defend the victims of ethnic cleansing in the Balkans. This will be difficult in practice, and these minorities (along with the Hema of Ituri) are among the likely losers as the situation in the eastern Congo evolves.
However, since the current crisis involves attempts by these minorities to defend their rights, a concerted international effort should be made to avoid crafting a state-to-state solution at the expense of the interests of minorities.
Secure frontiers will require the disarming of the nonstate military forces, particularly the Rwandan Hutus. The Rwandan government presumably will insist that they be disarmed. Since the UN mandate will not include disarming such forces, Kabila will have to use his leverage to accomplish this task. The U.S. must ensure that this happens, in return for promoting a national dialogue in Rwanda.
Tightening the ban on illegal diamond trading, a position already endorsed by the Clinton administration, would restrict the ability of the various Congolese rebel factions, as well as UNITA in Angola, to make trouble. Finally, the U.S. should stop its flow of weapons and military training to those involved in the Congo conflict. And Washington could further help create the conditions needed for peace and stability by unconditionally canceling the debt accrued by Zaire under Mobutu, pressuring the international financial institutions to do the same, and greatly increasing its level of development assistance to Africa.
(Thomas Turner (thomas.turner at planet.tn), professor of political science at the law faculty of the University of Tunis, is the coauthor
of Rise and Decline of the Zairian State, and author of Racines de Lumumba.)
Sources for More Information:
Africa Faith and Justice Network Email: afjn at afjn.org Website: http://afjn.cua.edu/
Africa Policy Information Center Email: apic at africapolicy.org Website: http://www.africapolicy.org/
All North America Conference on Congo Email: st112 at umail.umd.edu Website: http://www.mtsu.edu/~nk2a/
Association of Concerned Africa Scholars Email: wgmartin at prairienet.org Website: http://www.prairienet.org/acas/
Human Rights Watch/Africa Email: hrwdc at hrw.org Website: http://www.hrw.org/
International Crisis Group Email: icgwashington at crisisweb.org Website: http://www.crisisweb.org/
Intl. Human Rights Law Group/Congo Project Email: HumanRights at HRLawGroup.org Website: http://www.hrlawgroup.org/
Publications William Hartung and Bridget Moix, "Deadly Legacy: U.S. Arms to Africa and the Congo War," (New York: World Policy Institute, January 2000), available on website at: http://www.worldpolicy.org/projects/arms/
Thomas Turner, "Kabila Returns, in a Cloud of Uncertainty," African Studies Quarterly, vol. 1, no. 3, 1997, available at http://web.africa.ufl.edu/asq/
Websites Africa News Online http://www.africanews.org
Democratic Republic of Congo http://www.crocker.com/~acacia/congo.html
Forces of Freedom in Democratic Republic of Congo http://www.congo.co.za/
Global Connections: Democratic Republic of Congo (United Methodist Church) http://gbgm-umc.org/africa/drcongo/
Marek, Inc. http://www.marekinc.com/NCN.html
One World http://www.oneworld.org/ The "News," "Dispatches," and "Outlook" sections on this website carry
current articles on the Congo.
State Department, Country Reports on Human Rights Practices for 1999 http://www.state.gov/www/global/human_rights/1999_hrp_report/congodr.html
UN OCHA Integrated Regional Information Network for Central and Eastern Africa (IRIN-CEA) http://www.reliefweb.int/IRIN/
--------------------------------------------------------------------- *** U.S.-CHINA-TAIWAN MILITARY RELATIONS ***
By Jim Nolt, World Policy Institute
(Editor's Note: A new FPIF policy brief on China by Jim Nolt of the World Policy Institute, which is excerpted below and will be posted soon at http://www.foreignpolicy-infocus.org/briefs/iflistv5.html, concludes that China "remains militarily weak despite rapid economic growth--the pattern of which is actually undermining the old military-industrial state." The following are his recommendations for improved security relations.)
Despite frequent alarms about the supposed China threat, China is not an emerging superpower. Although it has experienced rapid economic growth, militarily China has been in relative decline since the 1970s.
China's high economic growth rate is now slowing, and its pattern of growth has actually undermined its ability to become an autonomous military power able to manufacture its own weapons systems and sustain
a war effort without support from abroad. China does not, and will not
in the foreseeable future, pose the kind of military threat to the U.S. that the Soviet Bloc did (exaggerated though that threat often was). Nor is China an irritating "rogue state:" it has cooperative commercial and diplomatic relations with most of its neighbors and with the United States.
U.S. public media and some politicians have often tended to exaggerate
the threat from China. The U.S. should relate to China with confidence, not with fear. In the two decades since relations were normalized, China has gradually liberalized its economy, becoming an outward-looking, commercial society sharing many interests with the United States. During this period, China has demilitarized to a much greater extent than has the United States. If China is to be a superpower, it seems destined to be an economic one more akin to Japan
than a military superpower like the former Soviet Union. Although the U.S. might be strong enough to bully China, it should resist that temptation, because in the long run--like the pressure against Weimar Germany in the 1920s--bullying could divert China from its current hopeful path toward a more suspicious and antagonistic relationship with the outside world.
Since China is not an aggressive or formidable military power, it is not necessary to "contain" the Chinese. Although Washington should not
return to the pre-1989 policy of directly transferring military technologies to China, it is an unnecessary cold war hangover to restrict exports of dual-use high-technology equipment such as advanced computers or machine tools. It does Americans no credit to complain about a trade deficit with China if the U.S. refuses to sell high-technology equipment that is in demand for modernizing the Chinese economy.
There is also no danger in allowing American companies to cooperate with Chinese firms to launch satellites with Chinese rockets. Even if the Chinese military did thereby acquire information to make their ICBMs more accurate, such a move would not increase the vulnerability of the United States. The handful of nuclear-armed ICBMs that China possesses could hit a target as big as Los Angeles even without U.S. help, but only at the ridiculous cost of national suicide.
Some argue that China should be denied high-technology equipment as punishment for its previous assistance to Pakistan's nuclear weapons program. However, this would be counterproductive, since China has subsequently become more cooperative in preventing nuclear arms proliferation. For example, Beijing ratified the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty in 1992 and agreed to curtail its exports of technology to unsafeguarded nuclear facilities in 1996. Furthermore, China's most significant assistance to Pakistan's nuclear arms program
came during the 1980s, when the U.S. was ignoring or perhaps even tacitly approving such assistance.
Washington will easily secure Chinese cooperation in regional arms control if the U.S. invites Beijing to participate in the negotiations
and offers meaningful concessions to China. Most important would be an
offer to limit U.S. weapons sales to Taiwan, especially TMD systems, in return for Chinese cooperation in regional arms reductions. During the cold war it was understood that U.S.-Soviet arms control negotiations required mutual compromise to gain mutual benefit, but the U.S. tendency so far has been simply to demand Chinese adherence to multilateral agreements such as the MTCR and the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, even though they were negotiated without Chinese participation. Now that India and Pakistan are undisguised nuclear powers, the U.S. should encourage multilateral talks for worldwide nuclear arms reduction. The U.S. and China were the first two signatories to the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty (CTBT) of 1996, which was an excellent beginning. Further progress could be made by negotiating reductions in existing stockpiles, elimination of delivery
systems, extending the U.S.-Russian ABM treaty to ban or limit TMD in Asia, expansion of nuclear-free zones, and inclusion of India and Pakistan in the CTBT.
The Clinton administration and China have cooperated more effectively since 1996 on a range of security issues, including increased confidence building measures, renewal of U.S.-Chinese summit meetings,
exchanges of senior officials, the four-party talks on Korea, and initial steps toward a U.S.-Japanese-Chinese security dialogue. Further progress might be made if Washington downplays bilateral security arrangements with Japan and South Korea (legacies of the cold
war) in favor of multilateral discussions that include China. Since the Opium War, China has faced countless insults, invasions, and depredations from foreigners, unlike anything in American experience. China must be treated with dignity if this bitter history is to be overcome.
(James H. Nolt (noltj at newschool.edu) is a Senior Fellow specializing in East Asia relations at the World Policy Institute.)
Sources for More Information:
American Friends Service Committee Peace and Economic Security Program Email: afsccamb at igc.apc.org Website: http://www.afsc.org/
Asia Pacific Center for Justice and Peace Email: apcjp at igc.org Website: http://www.apcjp.org/
Bulletin of Concerned Asia Scholars Email: tfenton at igc.org Website: http://csf.colorado.edu/bcas/bcashome.html
Center for Defense Information Email: info at cdi.org Website: http://www.cdi.org/
Pacific Campaign for Disarmament and Security Email: czj15621 at niftyserve.or.jp
Project on Defense Alternatives Commonwealth Institute Email: pda at comw.org Website: http://www.comw.org/cmp/
Stockholm International Peace Research Institute Email: sipri at sipri.org Website: http://www.sipri.se/
World Policy Institute Website: http://worldpolicy.org/americas/index.html
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*** KOSOVO A YEAR LATER ***
By Stephen Zunes
The folly of the NATO air strikes against Yugoslavia which began one year ago Thursday is apparent to those of us familiar with Kosovo in the years prior to this Serbian province becoming the center of international attention. For years, the Clinton Administration and other NATO governments failed to pursue a diplomatic settlement which could have brought the Kosovo's Serbian and Albanian communities together. Instead, they pursued a military solution which has torn them apart.
The adage that violence only leads to more violence could not be more true than in Kosovo today. The killings and expulsions of the Serbian minority by ethnic Albanians are comparable to the killings and expulsions by Serbs against the Albanians prior to the NATO bombing. The more widespread massacres and ethnic cleansing by Serbian forces last spring took place only after NATO ordered the evacuation of unarmed monitors from the Organization for Security and Cooperation in
Europe and commenced their bombing campaign. It was NATO military action which led to the greatest suffering by the people we were supposedly trying to protect.
By giving the KLA an effective military victory, it has become extremely difficult for the more moderate Kosovars--such as the pacifist President Ibrahim Rugova, who opposed the NATO bombing as counter-productive--to assert their leadership.
During the 1990s, the Serbian authorities imposed an apartheid-style system on Kosovo's ethnic Albanian majority and severely suppressed their cultural and political rights. For the first eight years of this
repression, the Kosovars waged their struggle nonviolently, using strikes, boycotts, peaceful demonstrations, and alternative institutions--indeed, it was one of the most widespread, comprehensive, and sustained nonviolent campaigns since Gandhi's struggle for Indian independence. However, the world chose to ignore the Kosovars' nonviolent movement.
It was only after a shadowy armed group known as the Kosovo Liberation
Army emerged two years ago that the world media, the Clinton Administration, and other Western governments finally took notice.
By waiting for the emergence of guerrilla warfare before seeking a solution, the West gave Serbian leader Slobodon Milosevic the opportunity to crack down with an even greater level of repression than before. The delay allowed the Kosovar movement to be taken over by armed ultra-nationalists who have proven to be far less ready to compromise or to guarantee the rights of the Serbian minority in an autonomous Kosovo. Western diplomatic efforts were tragically late.
And they were inept as well. The greatest myth of last year's war was that it was a success, that high-altitude bombing--which took more than 500 civilian lives, destroyed hundreds of millions of dollars worth of civilian infrastructure, and caused untold human suffering--forced the Serbs to compromise. The facts, however, indicate otherwise.
The bombing campaign was launched when the Yugoslavian government refused to sign the Rambouillet proposal put forward by NATO. A careful reading of the agreement signed between NATO and Yugoslavia in
June, however, reveals that it was NATO which made most of the compromises.
Unlike in the original NATO proposal, there was no guarantee of a referendum on the territory's future status. In addition, the peacekeeping force has not been exclusively a NATO operation and the United Nations Security Council as taken an active role in the territory's post-war political make-up. Most crucially, the insistence
at Rambouillet that NATO troops could move freely through the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia was dropped, limiting their role to Kosovo.
Had NATO presented this more modest plan back in March, it is likely that the Serbs would have accepted and the war could have been averted. Indeed, Serb counter-proposals paralleling the final peace plan were summarily dismissed by the Clinton Administration. Smarter and earlier diplomacy could have prevented the war and the chaotic situation in the territory which remains to this day.
Perhaps the only tragedy greater than the war itself would be if the myth that it was a great victory remains unchallenged.
(Stephen Zunes, who is an FPIF associate editor, is an associate professor of Politics and chair of the Peace & Justice Studies Program
at the University of San Francisco.)
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II. Letters and Comments
*** ANALYSIS "SIMPLY WILL NOT DO" ***
With regard to Ms. Weinthal's latest letter, she continues to argue that "the US government is hoping to foster a democratic climate in Central Asia." Indeed, money being channeled through USAID to ISAR "provides ample evidence" of the realization of its hopes. [See Erika Weinthal, "Central Asia: Aral Sea Problem," FPIF, Vol. 5, No. 6, posted at http://www.foreignpolicy-infocus.org/briefs/vol5/v5n06aral.html and the author's response in the last Progressive Response, posted at http://www.foreignpolicy-infocus.org/progresp/vol4/prog4n13.html]
Former Reagan Administration and State Department official Thomas Carothers described a similar situation in Latin America in his book "In the Name of Democracy." He writes: the United States adopted "prodemocracy policies as a means of relieving pressure for more radical change," policies "that inevitably sought only limited, top-down forms of democratic change that did not risk upsetting the traditional structures of power." He goes on to say that these "democracy assistance projects" purposefully maintained "the basic order of...quite undemocratic societies" and the "established economic
and political orders."
An examination of the State Department's most recent figures for assistance to Europe and the Newly Independent States supports, in my opinion, the argument that the US is currently doing the same thing in
Central Asia. Total expenditures as of 9/30/99 total (millions of dollars, rounded to the nearest $10,000) are $12,929.94. USAID falls under the rubric of the Freedom Support Act (which I won't even touch)
and has provided a total of $4,149.09. Most of this goes to Russia and
the Ukraine. A great deal of it is geared towards what is called "Energy Efficiency and Market Reform" and "Economic Restructuring and Financial Reform." Admittedly, I do not know the exact nature of these
programs. However, even if they are/were all channeled into, say, something akin to building windmills to provide electricity for maternity wards, the amount of money provided to/coming from the Department of Commerce, Department of Energy, other sectors of the State Department (for example, police training, which opens another can of worms), OPIC, Department of the Treasury, Department of Defense, and the United States Information Agency, AND OTHERS, dwarfs that of USAID.
One gets the idea that USAID is grooming people/institutions/countries/economies for premature insertion into the neo-liberal, market-oriented path of development, in other words, the global economy. Certainly this has been the case in, say, Haiti, where its untold millions "provide ample evidence" of its desire to develop a low-wage assembly sector for US businesses.
With regard to the "quagmire" that the US has somehow found itself in a number of times in the "past", this simply will not do. Ms. Weinthal
is inclined, I believe, to chalk these "regrettable" episodes up to supposed Cold War-era restrictions on policy options. Jeanne Kirkpatrick might enjoy having this conversation; I don't feel like typing it. Try "Thank God They're On Our Side", by David Schmitz; it's
a history of fostering authoritarian regimes.
Finally, I'm not quite sure why the old canard of "democracies do not fight one another" is trotted out. This is a "theory" (if I remember correctly) that every first-year international relations student is force-fed. It is based on faulty and elitist assumptions about liberal
democracies that conveniently and surely knowingly overlook a number of inconvenient facts. The United States government has overthrown democratically elected governments; it has created and supported death
squads and armies with the sole intent of terrorizing activists; it supports nations militarily and economically that are ostensibly democratic (i.e. Colombia) that literally murder members of legal political parties.
Rhetoric, propaganda, academic obfuscation aside, it really is so simple.
- Michael Ede <vicantQ at idt.net>
*** QUESTIONS FURTHER U.S. INTERVENTION IN CONGO ***
(Editor's Note: The following is a response to a listserv posting of Thomas Turner's FPIF policy brief on the Congo, posted at http://www.foreignpolicy-infocus.org/briefs/vol5/v5n10congo.html)
I don't know if the answer, though, is further U.S. intervention. If we tried to fix every place that we stuck our big noses, we would be stuck all over the world. It is disturbing that nobody seems to pay as
much attention to what is going on in Africa, as they do say, in Europe. The Sudan is a real mess, but Clinton doesn't care.
- Robert Simon RobertMS at webtv.net
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