Tag: Russia
Justice delayed
The conviction of former Liberian president Charles Taylor more than a decade after the war crimes he aided and abetted during the period 1996-2002 answers one important question about his role in the war in Sierra Leone: did he bear some responsibility for rebel atrocities, even if he did not command them directly or conspire to produce them? The court said yes, though an alternate judge held a dissenting view.
Judging from Helene Cooper’s graphic piece in the New York Times about her own family’s experiences, the conviction also provides an important occasion for victims. Even more than ten years after the fact, even though the indictment covered only crimes in Sierra Leone and not in Liberia, they take some satisfaction from knowing that justice has not been denied but only delayed.
But what does it do, and not do, to prevent war crimes and crimes against humanity in the future? When Charles Taylor was indicted, it was widely believed that the court action would disrupt the then ongoing process of beginning the reconstruction of Liberia. Helene Cooper notes that he was tried for crimes in Sierra Leone rather than Liberia to avoid political problems that might have arisen in the country of which he was once president. So far as I can tell, these fears have proven unfounded. Charles Taylor is not today an important political factor in a Liberia that has made substantial progress in becoming a normal, functioning country, even if a frighteningly poor one.
Many diplomats bemoan the International Criminal Court (ICC) indictment of President Omar al Bashir of Sudan, because they say it makes him hold on to power more tightly and interferes with diplomatic efforts to resolve the various conflicts embroiling his country. That view readily prevails in Syria, where President Bashar al Assad’s obvious responsibility for war crimes and crimes against humanity cannot lead to an ICC indictment because Russia will prevent the necessary referral from passing in the UN Security Council. Ugandan religious leader Joseph Kony, an ICC indictee, is still at large, despite a U.S.-aided manhunt. ICC indictment of Muammar Qaddafi, his son Saif and their security chief in Libya does not appear to have had much impact on their behavior.
So what good is an indictment that won’t produce justice for decades? It is unlikely that the indictees themselves will moderate their behavior in response to an indictment. Their discount rate is high and the results too uncertain and too far in the future to make them behave. But there are other possible benefits. First, an indictment may give pause to some of those below the top leadership, who will want to avoid also being held responsible. Second, an indictment is a concrete expression of international community will to remove a leader from power. It may not help in cutting deals, but it makes the bottom line remarkably clear.
Charles Taylor is the first head of state to be convicted since the Nuremberg trials. He is likely not the last. International justice is agonizingly slow, frustratingly incomplete, and potentially damaging to prospects for negotiated settlements. But even justice delayed can shed light on past events, moderate behavior and provide satisfaction to victims.
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Low expectations met
The P5+1 (permanent five members of the UN Security Council plus Germany) finally met in Istanbul today with Iran and brought forth the squeak of a mouse. According to EU High Representative Katherine Ashton:
We have agreed that the non-proliferation treaty forms a key basis for what must be serious engagement to ensure all the obligations under the treaty are met by Iran while fully respecting Iran’s right to the peaceful use of nuclear energy.
Saeed Jalili, the chief Iranian negotiator, put it this way:
We expect that we should enjoy our rights in parallel with our obligations (toward the Nuclear Non-proliferation Treaty).
At least there is overlap in those two statements about what little happened. They also agreed to meet again in Baghdad May 23, with some expert meetings likely in the meanwhile.
For those with low expectations, consider them met. But if you are feeling urgency for a clear and unequivocal Iranian commitment not to pursue nuclear weapons, or to come clean on their past activities, or to end uranium enrichment, or stop enrichment at 5% (or at 20%), or to dismantle the underground enrichment facility at Fordo, you’ll need to wait longer. None of those things seem to have been discussed, despite their salience in Washington.
If the Europeans think that proceeding in this ambiguous way at an excruciatingly slow pace will somehow keep the dogs of war at bay, I’ve got bad news for them. Delay is surely one of Tehran’s objectives. Unless there is a good deal more agreed than the parties have acknowledged in public, the Iranians will likely get their delay, but have to suffer the consequences of impending sanctions as well. If they also continue to enrich, in defiance of the UN Security Council, it seems to me likely that someone will try to stop them.
The Europeans prefer to call these meetings “E3+3” rather than P5+1. I guess that’s three Europeans plus three unidentified also-rans (U.S., China and Russia). I’d be the first to claim that the Europeans have in the past played a useful moderating role vis-a-vis Iran. But I expect it won’t be long before the Americans or the Iranians, or both, decide that they need to try to settle the matter without three European countries that are supposed to have a common foreign policy and whose instincts call for misty generality rather than solid specificity. It was reported and denied that the Americans sought a bilateral meeting in Istanbul that the Iranians refused.
Yes, the Istanbul meeting has to be counted a “constructive” step forward, but the Europeans are kidding themselves if they think they can “manage” this conflict as they do their own disputes or those in the Balkans. They need to pick up the pace and meet far higher expectations if they are going to succeed in avoiding a sad end to this worthy initiative.
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Luck needs a policy
We got lucky Friday: the ceasefire in Syria mostly held. But luck is not a policy. Today things are falling apart. Belligerents adhere to ceasefires for many reasons, including to give themselves a break and to reorganize and rearm. When they see their antagonists doing likewise, they may figure they are losing relative advantage and go back to fighting. Certainly it is unwise to rely on good intentions, especially when one of the antagonists is Bashar al Assad.
What is to be done? The monitors the UN Security Council approved today are part of the answer. Inserting them will give the international community eyes and ears that it today lacks. That will tamp down violence and provide a means of holding one or the other side accountable when it happens. Some may doubt whether the Arab League observers did much good, but certainly the situation in many places deteriorated badly after their withdrawal. No ceasefire is going to last long in Syria without a means of policing it.
The Annan plan has important elements other than the ceasefire, which still need to be implemented. Hillary Clinton is precisely correct to be arguing for withdrawal of heavy weapons from Syrian population centers, freedom of expression, humanitarian access and freedom of movement for international journalists. But don’t expect Bashar al Assad to comply with these additional provisions of the Annan plan unless a lot of pressure is brought to bear and Moscow puts its foot down.
It is vital that Free Syria Army–the not so organized armed wing of the rebellion–hold its fire, giving the diplomatic machinery a chance to start up. If the opposition turns to violence–even in response to regime violence–the prospects for a negotiated solution will dim quickly.
What the opposition needs to do now is show its strength nonviolently–yesterday’s widespread demonstrations were a great start–and prepare for negotiations. Its lack of clear leadership and structure are an advantage while protesting, but fragmentation will turn to disadvantage once negotiations start. It is also important that the opposition make as many friendly contacts with the security forces as possible while the ceasefire holds, hoping to prevent them from returning to repression once it breaks down. If the opposition can make Bashar al Assad doubt the reliability of his security forces, good things can happen.
The critical wording of the provisional Security Council resolution was this (I haven’t yet been able to verify where this wording is in the resolution that passed within the hour):
…a Syrian-led political transition leading to a democratic, plural political system, in which citizens are equal regardless of their affiliations, ethnicities or beliefs, including through commencing a comprehensive political dialogue between the Syrian government and the whole spectrum of the Syrian opposition;
This is obviously, and importantly, intended to signal to Syria’s many minorities that they will be treated correctly in the transition. Reference to the “whole spectrum” of the Syrian opposition opens the door to inclusion of groups not part of the Syrian National Council, which does not have adequate representation of on-the-ground protest groups. But it will also open the door to what could be interminable arguing over who should be at the table.
Uniting the opposition behind a single set of negotiating positions and a broadly representative delegation is the next critical step, if the six-point plan has even partial success. The responsibility is more for Syrians than foreigners, but I can at least hope that the U.S. and Europe are trying hard to insist on a single platform, carried to the negotiations by people representing the full spectrum of diversity in Syria. Luck needs a policy if is to last.
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Make sure time is not on his side
President Obama issued a statement Friday (that’s when we say things we don’t want too widely noticed) marking the 18th anniversary of the Rwandan genocide:
…we pause to reflect with horror and sadness on the 100 days in 1994 when 800,000 people lost their lives. The specter of this slaughter of mothers, fathers, sons, and daughters haunts us still, and reminds the nations of the world of our shared responsibility to do all we can to protect civilians and to ensure that evil of this magnitude never happens again.
The irony here should not be lost: we are in the midst of a much slower and less bloody but still brutal repression of civilian dissent in Syria, where the toll amounts to something over 10,000 during the past year. No one has called it genocide, but it is certainly what the trade knows as politicide: an effort to murder political opponents, especially of the Sunni Islamist persuasion, into submission. Human Rights Watch reports today on extrajudicial executions.
I can imagine the discussion among the White House staff. Some will have argued: let’s get the President to put out a statement on Rwanda that is also applicable to Syria today. Maybe that will get some action. Others will have added that phrase at the end about the magnitude of the evil, hoping to avoid the obvious implication that we really ought to do something to stop Bashar al Assad. The result is a statement that sounds vigorous but implies nothing.
Don’t get me wrong: I understand full well why the White House would hesitate to take military action in Syria. But we should be asking ourselves if we are doing everything in our power short of military force to end Bashar’s brutal crackdown as soon as possible. The Obama Administration will claim it is doing its best. Here is a checklist to make sure:
1. Provide financial, communications and intelligence support to the Syrian opposition provided it unifies and keeps its efforts as peaceful as possible. This should include real-time intelligence on the operations of the Syrian army, which is necessary for protection of civilians.
2. Encourage the opposition to flesh out its National Covenant with more specific provisions to protect minorities and regime loyalists from revenge killing should Bashar al Assad step aside.
3. Make sure sanctions are implemented strictly not only by the United States but also by other countries , especially members of the Arab League. Iraq, which has not signed up for them so far as I can tell, should be high on this list. Syrian oil reportedly traversed the Suez Canal recently, contravening sanctions.
4. Use our significant information operations capabilities to ensure that Syria’s dissident voices are heard throughout the country and that the Syrian military and business elite are encouraged to defect from the regime. If we have begun such efforts, they are a deep, dark secret.
5. Work diplomatically to bring the Russians around to the view that their interests in port access and arms sales will be served best by abandoning Bashar. This we are surely doing, but are we ready to offer Moscow a serious quid pro quo?
6. Get Kofi Annan to beef up his request for ceasefire observers to 1000 and help him deploy them quickly, with the capability to move quickly around the country and communicate instantaneously from wherever they are.
7. If the ceasefire fails to take hold by April 15, as now seems likely, return to the UN Security Council to seek a resolution condemning the Assad regime, calling for Bashar to step aside and instituting an arms embargo against the regime.
8. Seek to block arms and money transfers from Iran to Syria, even if there are no formal multilateral restrictions.
9. Prepare for a major post-conflict Arab League peacekeeping mission, which will be necessary to separate the Syrian army and the Free Syria Army and to protect minorities, in particular Allawis, Druze, Christians and others who have supported the Assad regime.
I doubt any of this will work quickly. Bashar al Assad feels he is winning, has started to back away from the Annan ceasefire supposed to go into effect this week, and no doubt hopes to restore his authority, as his father managed to do after killing tens of thousands in Hama in 1982. Splits in the opposition, including a Kurdish walkout, will give him renewed confidence. But the Syrian regime is on the economic ropes and will not be able to eliminate a resistance that is now widespread and broadly (but not universally) supported by the population. We need to hang tough for the long haul, as we did in Burma, making sure time is not on Bashar al Assad’s side.
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Let your people go!
Tonight is the Jewish festival of Passover, when we celebrate liberation. Last year, I called this season the Passover of Arab liberation, but noted the difficulties Syria was facing.
This year we seem to be somewhere in the middle of the ten plagues, with Bashar al Assad not even beginning to think about letting his people go (and in fact inflicting the plagues, which is not something pharaoh did). The mutual ceasefire deadline is set for April 12, provided Damascus pulls back from populated areas and ceases artillery fire on April 10. In the meanwhile, Bashar seems to have intensified the military attacks in an effort to do as much deadly damage as possible to his opposition. While I hope Kofi Annan’s effort is successful, you’d have to be Moses-like in inspiration to bet on it.
We should nevertheless consider the possibilities. If by some fluke the Syrian army really does withdraw from some places, I hope the revolution will tuck away its guns and somehow demonstrate its overwhelming superiority in numbers. It is particularly important that April 12/13 see a massive demonstration of opposition in Damascus and Aleppo, even if that means everyone just staying home in a general strike. It will also be vital that the UN deploy observers quickly, and in far greater numbers than the couple of hundred currently contemplated.
It seems far more likely that Bashar will not withdraw or cease fire. What then? There is really no sign of international will to intervene. Despite ample documentation of artillery attacks on civilian targets as well as helicopter operations, neither the Turks nor the Arab League are preparing serious military action to enforce a no-fly zone or create humanitarian corridors or safe zones. The Syrian security forces are busy mining the borders so that civilians can’t escape. While it seems unlikely that Bashar can prevail 100%, he is well on his way to reducing the opposition to a low-intensity insurgency, with the bulk of the population sullenly resenting but accepting restoration of the dictatorship. At least for a while, it is likely to be significantly more draconian than before the rebellion started.
This is a bad outcome, but I am afraid not the worst. If the fighting continues to escalate and Bashar still survives, the consequences could be catastrophic for the region. The violence might then overflow Syria’s borders and pose serious problems for Lebanon, Iraq, Jordan and maybe even Turkey. If Bashar manages to stay in place, it is vital that the Friends of Syria, that unwieldy conglomeration of more than 80 countries, maintain and tighten its efforts, in particular the sanctions and diplomatic isolation. We see in Burma how strategic patience can win the day.
Many of my friends and colleagues are appalled that nothing more is being done. I can’t describe myself as comfortable with this state of affairs. But it is important to recognize that there are other priorities on earth. The Administration’s first concern has to be Iran. There is no way to get a negotiated solution to its nuclear challenge, or prevent the Israelis from using military means, unless the United States maintains a credible military threat. Entering a war with an uncertain outcome in Syria would not be a smart prelude to dealing with Iran. American resources, though large, are not infinite–we wouldn’t want to run out of cruise missiles or suffer serious aircraft losses in a second priority fight.
There is also a diplomatic factor. The best way to mount a credible threat against Iran is with UN Security Council backing. What are the odds of the Russians conceding that if we go to war with Syria without their cooperation? The odds may not be good in any event, but we need at least a small chance for success.
So I am afraid our Syrian heroes will need to continue their efforts. I still prefer they be nonviolent ones. Nothing that has happened in the last few weeks of violent attacks convinces me that the Free Syria Army will shorten the reign of Bashar al Assad by as much as a single day. It is far more likely that their attacks will frighten large numbers of people who might otherwise have joined nonviolent protests.
I’ll pray for the Syrians at Seder tonight, as I trust many Jews around the world will do. Not because I think praying will do the Syrians any good, but because the parallel between today’s Syrians and our own liberation narrative should inform our sensibilities. The people of Syria are seeking the freedom that Tunisians, Egyptians, Libyans and Yemenis have all started to enjoy, even if they are still at the beginning of their journeys through the wilderness. I hope the Syrians catch up soon.
The most frequent injunction in the Old Testament is to treat a stranger like ourselves:
…you shall love him as yourself, for you were strangers in the land of Egypt… {Leviticus 19:33-34}
Bashar: let your people go!
PS: I missed this Monday, but you shouldn’t:
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*?
I debate David Kanin, my colleague here at SAIS, today on the question the asterisk* question. Here are the notes I prepared for myself:
I appear before you today to debate the following proposition: that the asterisk* following Kosovo that will be used in European regional meetings somehow limits or conditions its sovereignty and independence.
That is not the case. The footnote attached to that asterisk * refers to two things: UN Security Council resolution 1244 and the advisory opinion on Kosovo’s declaration of independence issued by the International Court of Justice. The advisory opinion says that the declaration was not illegal. The controversy, if there is any, concerns 1244.
I’ve got four factual propositions about 1244 for you today:
- UN Security Council resolution 1244 does nothing to preserve Serbian sovereignty over Kosovo but instead provides the basis for a final status decision.
- The process preliminary to a final status decision foreseen in resolution 1244 was completed in March 2007 when former Finnish President Marti Ahtisaari reported to the UNSG.
- The decision itself was taken in the Kosovo declaration of independence, now accepted and recognized as establishing a sovereign state by 89 other sovereign states.
- The International Court of Justice, in response to a request initiated by Serbia, has advised that the declaration of independence violated no international law.
Let me explain.
1244: You may have heard, because Belgrade declares it long and loud, that UNSC resolution 1244 acknowledges Serbian sovereignty over Kosovo. That it does. In the preamble, the resolution reaffirms “the commitment of all Member States to the sovereignty and territorial integrity of the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia.” But this is preambular language, which in international law is not binding. Circumstances change. The United States and 88 other countries have decided that they no longer wish to uphold a commitment that existed in 1999, but which they are not obligated to continue. This is their right: no one can claim that the United States gave up its right to extend recognition when it voted in favor of 1244. Certainly the ICJ did not think so.
The process preliminary to a final status decision: 1244 also “authorizes the Secretary General…to establish an international civilian presence in Kosovo in order to provide an interim administration for Kosovo under which the people of Kosovo can enjoy substantial autonomy within the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia, and which will provide transitional administration while establishing and overseeing the development of provisional democratic self-governing institutions to ensure conditions for a peaceful and normal life for all inhabitants of Kosovo.” This is complicated but it clearly associates “substantial autonomy within the FRY” with an interim UN administration. The resolution goes on to say that one of the main responsibilities of the international civilian presence is “promoting the establishment, pending a final settlement, of substantial autonomy and self-government in Kosovo” as well as “facilitating a political process designed to determine Kosovo’s future status.”
What was that political process? The President of the Security Council was absolutely clear: on October 24, 2005 he said “The Council…supports the United Nations Secretary-General’s intention to start a political process to determine Kosovo’s Final Status, as foreseen in Security Council resolution 1244…” The Secretary-General thereafter appointed Marti Ahtisaari to conduct that political process, with the full participation of Serbia and Montenegro as well as the Russian Federation. As Ahtisaari said in his final report: the Security Council responded to Milosevic’s actions in Kosovo
…by denying Serbia a role in its governance, placing Kosovo under temporary United Nations administration and envisaging a political process designed to determine Kosovo’s future.
That process concluded in March 2007 with Ahtisaari’s recommendation: “independence, to be supervised for an initial period by the international community” for Kosovo.
Serbia and Russia rejected this recommendation.
The final status decision: That was their right, but other states accepted it. Kosovo proceeded with its declaration of independence, which was not unilateral but thoroughly coordinated with not only the United States but also the European Union and many other states. When asked for its opinion, the ICJ could find nothing in international law—including in resolution 1244—to bar Kosovo from declaring its independence. Other sovereign states clearly have the right to recognize, or not, as they see fit.
Conclusion: So what does the asterisk signify? Nothing more than what it says in the footnote: a UNSC resolution that is the basis for a final decision on Kosovo and an ICJ opinion that found nothing unlawful about how the final decision was taken.
The asterisk conditions Serbia’s claims of sovereignty, denying them full validity, while doing nothing to limit Kosovo’s sovereignty and independence. I’d wear that asterisk with pride.
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