THE END OF HUMANITARIAN INTERVENTION?
The 1990s were the decade when 'humanitarian intervention' by the leading world powers - the United States, Britain, France and Germany - into the so-called 'failing states' of Yugoslavia, Somalia and Indonesia became the norm. Brilliantly described in David Chandler's latest book
From Kosovo to Kabul (Pluto, 2002), the humanitarian doctrine overturned cold war principles of non-interference (albeit that these were often rhetorical) to legitimise extensive interference in the political and social organisation of non-Western societies.
Where humanitarian intervention differed from the colonialism of the nineteenth century, or what Ghana's Kwame Nkrumah called the 'neo-colonialism' of the post-war period, was that its practitioners and exponents eschewed any selfish motive. Those sceptics who looked for oil or other mineral deposits in Kosovo or Somalia were missing the point: the interventions were made for the moral well-being of those Western societies that undertook them. Moral action abroad gave developed societies that had lost their sense of purpose after the Cold War a new moral mission. Ironically, the struggle to fit local conflicts into the ethical framework of the good against evil proved more destructive than the old imperialism, which was at least interested in building-up industry, however selfish the motives.
But the latest changes in the developed world suggest that the framework of humanitarian intervention established at the end of the Cold War are coming to an end. The key personnel and ideas for the creation of ethical international relations were drawn from the old left organisations that had campaigned over Third World issues in the seventies and eighties. In the nineties, many of these people found themselves in power. Following the exhaustion of the right wing establishment at the end of the Cold War, first Democrats were elected to the White House, then a 'new' Labour Party to Westminster, followed by Social Democratic and Socialist governments in Germany, France and Italy. People like German Foreign Minister Joseph Fischer, US president Bill Clinton, and British aid minister Claire Short formed their attitudes criticising imperialism in Vietnam and apartheid in South Africa. Their foreign policy would be framed in moral terms.
The governments of the so-called Third Way, though, failed to put down lasting roots in society. First the American and Italian governments swung to the right, followed by France, Holland, Spain and Portugal. The Bush victory at first put strains on Western relations, with America opting out of international agreements on global warming, and generally pursuing what was called a 'unilateralist' foreign policy.
One victim of the US re-definition of international relations is the principle of humanitarian intervention. At first the White House unpicked much of the initiatives undertaken by the previous Clinton administration, most pointedly backing off from the middle East 'peace process', and giving Israel a free hand to demolish the Palestine Authority. Then, after September 11, 2001, America was back in the game of military intervention, overthrowing the Taliban regime in Afghanistan, and Europeans hoped that they could tie the US back into a framework of international cooperation. Recent events have called that into question.
First, the US has backed out of the proposed International Criminal Court, that would have formalised the ad hoc legal processes established at the Hague and under the Arusha accords, for trying 'war criminals' in the Yugoslav and Rwandan conflicts. The Bush administration dismisses the ICC as an unacceptable limitation upon US sovereignty. Europeans, testing America's limits, went ahead.
Then, in a further blow to the ICC, the US demanded that American troops should be guaranteed freedom from prosecution under it. When this was not given, the US military announced its withdrawal from 'peace-keeping' operations under the United Nations, jeopardising the Bosnian operation.
Whether there is sufficient political will behind the maintenance of the humanitarian intervention strategy is difficult to judge. The Western elites have been on a learning curve due to the failure of the various attempts at state-building, that ought to have curbed their ambitions. At the same time, there is, as Chandler points out, now a substantial social base for humanitarian intervention amongst Non-Governmental Organisations, funded and manned by Westerners, working in Africa, Asia and Latin America. Recently the NGOs campaigned hard against George Bush's cut in aid for population-reducing measures. Health charities also won a considerable victory over the South African government, persuading the constitutional court to force the government to change its policy on the supply of AIDS drugs.
After September 11, the moral framework of altruism on behalf of the benighted victims of the Third World changed. In the American imagination, the victims are no longer outside the country - they are Americans themselves.
-- James Heartfield The 'Death of the Subject' Explained is available at GBP11.00, plus GBP1.00 p&p from Publications, audacity.org, 8 College Close, Hackney, London, E9 6ER. Make cheques payable to 'Audacity Ltd'