LIBERIA, SOLOMONS: IMPERIAL MISSION-CREEP
At the beginning of this year, America and Australia made to (unequal) partners in a 'Coalition of the willing' that was denounced in protests at home and across Europe for their intervention in Iraq. Strangely, no such protests have been encountered in the latest decision of these two to send troops abroad. Australia's new force in the Solomon Islands and America's long-awaited intervention in Liberia have been welcomed by the same people who criticised the war on Iraq.
Sydney-based activist Thiago Opperman readily concedes that Prime Minister John Howard 'may have stupid reasons for sending the military into the Solomons, but at least he is doing something about it'. 'We should hitch a ride.' (Green Left Weekly 23 July 2003).
UN Secretary General Kofi Annan was one of those who demanded that US president George Bush take action to restore peace to Liberia (a country founded as a home to freed American slaves). Though this President is not known for his affection for United Nations' peace-keeping operations, Bush's African public relations drive after the Iraq conflict built expectations of action. In a speech in June, Bush demanded President Charles Taylor, target of a long-running rebellion, step aside. American interest only accelerated the belief that the US would act, and Monrovians underscored their demands for a peace-keeping force by piling corpses outside the US embassy.
President Taylor was considered the popular winner of free and fair elections (in 1997) as late as the Central Intelligence Agency's country report of 2002. But since lending support to an insurgency in neighbouring Sierra Leone, Taylor has been subject of UN sanctions - particularly against the diamond industry. Liberian society is fragile. Gross Domestic Product stands at $858 per capita. Industry, which did provide a third of the country's output, is down to a tenth. More than two thirds of the population were employed in a relatively unproductive agriculture. But the social dislocation of the countryside creates the basis for the rebel insurgency, as the capital swells beyond its ability to feed itself. In this delicate balance, a stray sentence in a speech by the US president is enough to tip the balance.
On the other side of the world, the Pacific Solomon Islands neighbouring Australia have long been troubled by nepotism in government and factional conflicts amongst its small but scattered population. Internal migration - specifically the relatively recent overwhelming of the capital Honirara's indigenous population by incomers - was the conflict point. But it was the Australian Strategic Policy Institute's report 'Our Failing Neighbour' that galvanised the Howard government's case for intervention, with its lurid description of the Solomons as 'a petri dish in which transnational and non-state security threats can develop and breed.' (p.19)
In both Liberia and the Solomons the case for intervention does not truly arise from within those societies, which have been in a poor state for some time. The real well-springs for intervention lie in the intervening powers. In both cases it is the immediately preceding events - intervention in Iraq - that creates the case for further intervention elsewhere. 'If there, why not here?' runs the argument.
Too many critics of the war against Iraq have exposed themselves as opportunists in demanding that American (and Australian) foreign policy be transformed into an instrument for positive good in the world. While celebrating their cunning in tying the US into a United Nations peace-keeping force, America's liberal critics are only making the case for militarism, albeit in a blue helmet.
ANONYMITY FOR JOHN LESLIE?
Discharged 'without a stain on his character' after months awaiting trial on sexual assault charges, television presenter John Leslie's case has become the centre of a debate about Britain's rape laws. Leslie's sympathisers have demanded that the accused should enjoy the same anonymity as the alleged victims in rape cases. But it serves nobody's interests to have justice conducted behind closed doors. Rather, anonymity should be withdrawn from accusers.
It can no longer be argued that society at large takes an indulgent attitude towards rape. And it does not help victims that their testimony is shielded from challenge. Instead, it only reinforces the view that women are less capable of standing up for themselves. -- James Heartfield