Responsibility to Protect: Humanitarian Intervention in Africa

Killing of the innocent, forced displacement of civilian population, large-scale sexual violence, torture, and destroying of civilian property have been going on since the dawn of civilization. Efforts to protect people against grave crimes of such atrocities more effectively, both in peace and war, gradually evolved over the centuries, and then rapidly accelerated after the Second World War. But, for the most part, those horrors were met with indifference, cynicism, or deep disagreement about how to respond to them. As the twenty-first century began, there was still no universally accepted and effective response mechanism in place to protect civilian population. And this is especially true in the case of Darfur.

Autorentext

Mehari Fisseha is a Doctoral Scholar in Public Administration and Management. With a background in international human rights law and International Relations. He holds LLB (Law and European Studies) from the University of Limerick - Ireland, Master of Arts (MA) in Governance and Political Transformation from the University of Free State South Africa, Master of Arts (MA) in Criminal Justice, Governance and Police Science from Faculty of Law of the Ruhr-Universität Bochum (RUB) in Germany, Master of Science (Msc) in Sociology of Law from Lund University Sweden, Master of Arts (MA) in Peacebuilding from Coventry University (UK), Master of Arts (MA) in International Development Practice from Mary Immaculate College / University of Limerick Ireland, (MComm) in Government and Public Policy from University College Cork Ireland. He has studied in many countries, among these are: Ireland, South Africa, Germany, Sweden, and United Kingdom. He also took part in exchange program with Stockholm University in Political Science department. While he was studying at the University of Limerick, he worked with a local NGO helping Asylum Seekers and Refugees in giving free legal services and information on the same. He also worked for Benjamin N.Cardozo School of Law New York. In his capacity and advocate for Refugee protection his research mainly focus on Governance of Security on migration issues, Humanitarian Intervention, Responsibility to Protect and Diplomacy.

Leseprobe
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Chapter 2.1.1 Inadequate political will:
Civilians are the primary casualties of war across the world (Associated Press, 2012). Most of the armed conflicts taking place are within sovereign territories and they have continued unabated for many years despite attempts of international community to find solutions. However, Clough (n.d.) argues that despite the international community declaring on several occasions that it has the responsibility to protect innocent civilians in instances of armed conflict; it has lacked the political will to put a stop to the violence until it is too late when many lives have been lost. Nonetheless, Bogland, Egnell and Lagerstrom (2008) note that political will have a tendency of disintegrating amidst intervention, particularly when the forces of intervention are confronted with casualties. For example, in 1992 when the UN peacekeeping forces were deployed in Bosnia they were denied authority to intervene and protect the civilians until 1995 when more than 100,000 Bosnians had lost their lives. Similarly, Brickhill (2007) adds that in case of Somalia, the US and the UN failed to deploy military intervention till late 1992 when close to 30,000 civilians had lost their lives due to famine resulting from the armed conflict. Later, all the forces that had been deployed were later withdrawn in October 1993 after 18 US soldiers were killed. Supportively, Curtis (2001) notes that in 1994 when the Rwandan Genocide commenced, the UN quickly voted to withdraw significant portions of its peacekeeping forces as soon as 10 of them were killed on the first day. However, Fasher (2012) argues that in 2000, British peacekeeping forces successfully intervened in Sierra Leone to halt a civil war. Though this was after less willing UN and regional interventions had failed to curb the killing of tens of thousands, and commission of gruesome atrocities throughout the previous 9 years. The same case was replicated in Liberia, when regional and US peacekeepers successfully intervened in 2003 to end a civil war; although this occurred after previous attempts by regional peacekeeping forces failed to prevent the killings of tens of thousands of innocent civilians over the earlier period of 13 years of civil war.
2.1.2 Logistical obstacles:
Gberie (2004) is of the opinion that even if the international community were to have the political will for robust and rapid intervention in armed conflicts, it would be extremely difficult to protect that populations at-risk since the perpetrators will always be at vantage points allowing them to act faster compared to the interveners. For example, Kagwanja and Mutahi (2007) assert that although conflict dragged on for more than 3 years in Bosnia, most of the ethnic cleansing took place in early 1992. When the Western media was arriving in the scene later in that year, two thirds of the entire republic had been occupied by the Serbian forces, and in the process more than 1 million residents had been displaced. Similarly, Krasner (2003) affirms that close to half of the Tutsi half-million victims of the Rwandan genocide were killed within the first 3 weeks of April 1994, when the genocide started. More so, when the Croatian army finally managed to broker a deal that stopped conflict that had gone on for 3 years in August 1995, Olsson (2010) argues that in less than a week it ethnically cleansed more than 100,000 Serbs who resided in the Krajina region. As well, Rankhumise (2003) notes that when Serbian forces in Kosovo abandoned their policy of counter insurgency to ethnic cleansing in March 1999, which was informed by responding to decisions from NATO to launch air strikes; in less than 2 weeks they managed to expel more than half of the ethnic Albanians residing in the province.
Moreover, later in 1999 in East Timor, after a vote for independence in a little more than a week, militias who were backed by the Indonesian government went on a rampage displacing many Timo