African Arguments

Top Menu

  • About Us
  • Submit
  • Contact us
  • Advertise
  • Newsletter

Main Menu

  • Home
  • Country
    • Central
      • Cameroon
      • Central African Republic
      • Chad
      • Congo-Brazzaville
      • Congo-Kinshasa
      • Equatorial Guinea
      • Gabon
    • East
      • Burundi
      • Comoros
      • Dijbouti
      • Eritrea
      • Ethiopia
      • Kenya
      • Rwanda
      • Seychelles
      • Somalia
      • South Sudan
      • Sudan
      • Tanzania
      • Uganda
    • North
      • Algeria
      • Egypt
      • Libya
      • Morocco
      • Tunisia
      • Western Sahara
    • Southern
      • Angola
      • Botswana
      • Lesotho
      • Madagascar
      • Malawi
      • Mauritius
      • Mozambique
      • Namibia
      • South Africa
      • Swaziland
      • Zambia
      • Zimbabwe
    • West
      • Benin
      • Burkina Faso
      • Cape Verde
      • Côte d’Ivoire
      • The Gambia
      • Ghana
      • Guinea
      • Guinea Bissau
      • Liberia
      • Mali
      • Mauritania
      • Niger
      • Nigeria
      • São Tomé and Príncipe
      • Senegal
      • Sierra Leone
      • Togo
  • Politics
  • Economy
  • Society
  • Culture
  • Photo
  • Books
  • Donate
  • About Us
  • Submit
  • Contact us
  • Advertise
  • Newsletter

logo

Header Banner

African Arguments

  • Home
  • Country
    • Central
      • Cameroon
      • Central African Republic
      • Chad
      • Congo-Brazzaville
      • Congo-Kinshasa
      • Equatorial Guinea
      • Gabon
    • East
      • Burundi
      • Comoros
      • Dijbouti
      • Eritrea
      • Ethiopia
      • Kenya
      • Rwanda
      • Seychelles
      • Somalia
      • South Sudan
      • Sudan
      • Tanzania
      • Uganda
    • North
      • Algeria
      • Egypt
      • Libya
      • Morocco
      • Tunisia
      • Western Sahara
    • Southern
      • Angola
      • Botswana
      • Lesotho
      • Madagascar
      • Malawi
      • Mauritius
      • Mozambique
      • Namibia
      • South Africa
      • Swaziland
      • Zambia
      • Zimbabwe
    • West
      • Benin
      • Burkina Faso
      • Cape Verde
      • Côte d’Ivoire
      • The Gambia
      • Ghana
      • Guinea
      • Guinea Bissau
      • Liberia
      • Mali
      • Mauritania
      • Niger
      • Nigeria
      • São Tomé and Príncipe
      • Senegal
      • Sierra Leone
      • Togo
  • Politics
  • Economy
  • Society
  • Culture
  • Photo
  • Books
  • Donate
Politics

Self-Protection versus Helping Survivors

By Tony Obserschall
February 5, 2009
386
1
Share:

On substance, much of what Darfur and the Crime of Genocide contains has been available from Joyce Apsel (ed.) Darfur: Genocide before Our Eyes published by the Institute for the Study of Genocide in New York in 2005. The “collective action theory of genocide”, pp. 162 ff, is familiar from Helen Fein and the more recent writings on mass violence by Benjamin Valentino, Michael Mann, Paul Collier and many others. I won’t comment on these two topics.

There are three items worth debate. 1. Genocide versus mass violence. 2. Prosecution of genocide and war crimes. 3. Deterrence and prevention versus prosecution after the fact.

1. Whatever label one attaches to Darfur and similar events, if people are killed and expelled from their homes on a large scale, there ought to be some political, legal and military mechanisms for putting a stop to it and accountability for these crimes. To me it does not matter if a state does it to a people, or a people to another people, or whether the motivation is racial or ethnic hostility and fears, or political differences. I prefer the category “mass violence” for the simple reason that if genocide is the focus, one gets bogged down in controversies about whether the event in question meets the legal definition in the Convention, or some other legal precedent. Frankly, when it comes to responses to mass violence, we should not spend our energies on whether the Hutu and Tutsi are one ethnic group or two, or the people with African and Arab identities in Darfur are the same or different people, etc. I find it more useful to think of the collective actors as state agents, soldiers, paramilitaries, insurgents and non-combatants””civilians, etc. and the actions they do to one another should be differentiated by scale (isolated incidents, rapes, massacres, mass violence and killing) and type of victimization (expulsion, killing, destruction of habitat, etc). At bottom, whether or not the genocide label is used, the humanitarian NGOs and other stakeholders will have to deal with these specific groups of victims and perpetrators and these specific actions and their consequences. [Scholars, historians and ethnographers of course are welcome to debate the Hutu-Tutsi etc origins and labeling and its colonial or other roots and its manifestations in contemporary conflicts.] In this connection, I want to call your attention to the Online Encyclopedia of Mass Violence [www.massviolence.org] directed by Jacques Semelin at Sciences Po in Paris.

2. John Hagan and Wenona Rymond-Richmond in chapter 5 “Eyewitnessing Genocide” describe the Sudan-Darfur chain of command and eyewitness accounts of Darfur crimes and massacres. This type of information does enter the prosecution case but is not sufficient to convict offenders in an international trial. From news media accounts, eyewitnesses that have survived, bodies and mass graves and villages destroyed, we know pretty much what has happened soon after it has happened. The prosecution however has to prove guilt beyond reasonable doubt for specific crimes traced to specific offenders, for command responsibility, and/or for joint criminal enterprise. From my experience as expert witness at the Seselj trial (still going on) at the ICTY in The Hague and examining the transcripts in similar trials, I learned that proving guilt beyond reasonable doubt is difficult: paper and electronic trail does not exist, or has been destroyed, or can not be accessed; defense witnesses are intimidated (or worse); comrades and peers do not testify against one another, in fact they perjure themselves and cover one another with phony alibis; the memory of witnesses after some years is not that good and the defense can discredit a lot of it; much witnessing occurs in the “fog” of civil war and ethnic cleansing and is not precise; the defense argues that targets destroyed are dual use, not non-combatant, and thus not a war crime, and it is difficult to prove otherwise, and so it goes. It is easier to prove command responsibility against top military than against top political leaders, and it is easier to convict lower rank offenders than higher rank offenders for specific war crimes and crimes against humanity. Joint criminal enterprise turns out to be crucial for the prosecution. International court prosecutions are hugely expensive and take years. On international justice issues, there is a lot to discuss beyond Hagan and Rymond-Richmond.

3. Hagan and Rymond-Richmond make a case for international action in Darfur beyond humanitarian aid, such as bringing the top Sudan leaders to justice, which is straightforward to advocate, but they do not discuss the specific international mechanisms, or their lack, for deterring and preventing and stopping mass violence in progress (ranging from diplomacy, sanctions regimes, peace intervention by the UN and by other states, to a proposed Rapid Deployment Force under the authority of the UN Security Council, and much else). That is a big topic in international relations and political science, and I won’t go into it. I have to point out that Hagan and Rymond-Richmond do not factor in the role of petroleum, stakeholders such as China and Chad, and other aspects of international relations that complicate action on Darfur. Given the disarray of the international response in Darfur, not to mention other interventions, I suggest another mode of deterrence and prevention which in some instances may work (though perhaps too late for Darfur) but has not been tried.

The victims have to be armed so that they can defend themselves against aggressors. The precedent is a “˜home guard’ created by the Brits in the Malaya insurgency, but it would be initiated under UN authority and supervised by a UN connected peace keeping force. The idea is to distribute and train villagers with defensive weapons and organize a village militia that can be deployed against paramilitaries, insurgents, soldiers, to defend itself. In the eventuality of aggressors showing up with aircraft, helicopters, armored vehicles and other heavy weapons, the UN would have to impose and enforce a no fly zone and ban and target heavy weapons in the area concerned. There are many details that would have to be worked out and many objections can be made. I look forward to a discussion of this proposal, which seems to me is better than what the international community has to offer victims, as in Darfur: death, rape, devastation, forced migration and living in refugee camps for years.

Previous Article

A Hippocratic Africa Policy

Next Article

Sudan’s Economy and the Financial Crisis

Tony Obserschall

Related articles More from author

  • Politics

    Meles Zenawi: in his own words – By Peter Gill

    August 22, 2012
    By African Arguments
  • Politics

    Framing death – how will the world mark the passing of Nelson Mandela? – By Keith Somerville

    June 10, 2013
    By African Arguments
  • Politics

    Why We Need to Invest in African Development Statistics: From a Diagnosis of Africa’s Statistical Tragedy Towards a Statistical Renaissance ...

    September 26, 2013
    By African Arguments
  • Politics

    Chad: Darfur refugees there to stay – By Celeste Hicks

    August 8, 2012
    By African Arguments
  • Politics

    Sudan’s Ambiguous Anniversary

    January 1, 2010
    By Alex de Waal
  • Politics

    Libya: Sub Saharan mercenaries or African freedom fighters and the return of Dr Khalil Ibrahim – By Pieter Tesch

    September 21, 2011
    By African Arguments

1 comment

  1. Ibrahim Adam 5 February, 2009 at 04:49

    More guns are the last thing Darfur – and the rest of Sudan – needs. Isn’t this advocating a return to the dark days when Africa and its’ people and leaders were pawns in the Cold War of yester year?

Leave a reply Cancel reply

  • Burundian troops arrive in Mogadishu to serve under the African Union Mission in Somalia (AMISOM). Credit: AMISOM Photo / Ilyas Ahmed.
    BurundiPolitics

    The Burundian army’s dangerous over-reliance on peacekeeping

  • Politics

    Mauritania: President’s shooting reveals military regime parading as a democracy – By Boubacar N’Diaye

  • Politics

    South Sudan’s student’s- Children of the Revolution: A letter from Warrap State – By Naomi Pendle

Sign up to the newsletter


Find us on Facebook

Follow us on twitter

  • 56429
    Followers
  • Editor's PicksGabonPolitics

    Gabon: Bongo’s constitutional “power grab” and The Resistance

    Sweeping constitutional changes mean Bongo could be president for life. Will Gabon’s citizens show their displeasure at the ballot box this month? Despite being in power for over half a ...
  • Editor's PicksEthiopiaPolitics

    Ethiopia: Why PM Abiy Ahmed’s first priority should be free expression

    Though it may come with risks, it would be in the government’s own interests to encourage open dialogue and constructive criticism. The swearing-in this week of Prime Minster Abiy Ahmed ...
  • CultureEditor's PicksEthiopiaPolitics

    “We are here”: The soundtrack to the Oromo revolution gripping Ethiopia

    Far from being a footnote in the Oromo struggle, musicians like Haacaaluu Hundeessa have been its centre of gravity. With the appointment of Abiy Ahmed as chair of the ruling ...
  • Editor's PicksSocietyTanzania

    I had to flee my home Tanzania for doing journalism. I was lucky.

    I dared to criticise President Magufuli and nearly paid the ultimate price.  When I chose to go into journalism over 20 years ago, I never anticipated the friends I would ...
  • CultureEditor's PicksNigeria

    Nigeria is sadly still closer to Fela’s anti-feminism than to Wakanda’s women

    In Nigeria, Okoye would have been warned from childhood to soften her features so she can find a man to marry her. Marvel’s Black Panther is a rare blockbuster to ...

Most Read

  • In Sierra Leone's 2018 elections, opposition leader Julius Maada Bio won a narrow victory. Credit: Direct Relief.
    The WhatsApp rumours that infused Sierra Leone’s tight election
  • Ali Bongo took over from his father Omar, who came to power in Gabon in 1967.
    Gabon: Bongo’s constitutional “power grab” and The Resistance
  • At the Huajian shoe factory in the Eastern Industrial Zone, Ethiopia. Credit: UNIDO.
    How to ensure Africa’s bold free trade area propels industrialisation
  • Grand Inga Dam. Credit: Ollivier Girard/CIFOR.
    World’s biggest non-existent dam gets bit bigger, bit further from existing
  • President Paul Biya.
    Cameroon’s ghost president

About

African Arguments is a pan-African platform for news analysis, comment and opinion. We seek to analyse issues facing the continent, investigate the stories that matter, and amplify a diversity of voices.

Our content is published on a Creative Commons license.

Get in touch

editor@africanarguments.org

Brought to you by


  • Cookies
  • Privacy Policy
  • Terms & Conditions
© Copyright African Arguments 2017
Get the inside track...

 

I dunno if you’ve heard, but African Arguments has started a new Insiders’ Newsletter!  Eyes on Apple iOS 11.3

Every week, our experts break down the most important stories from Africa into tasty digestible chunks and send them straight to your inbox. Not only do you get unique smart and snappy insights you won’t get elsewhere, but your subscription fee will support African Arguments’ core mission of delivering high-quality freely-accessible journalism and analysis on Africa.

To get a taste, subscribe and support us, click here now!

By continuing to browse the site you are agreeing to our use of cookies.