Obama and the Genocide Task Force
Humanitarian Imperialism
By BINOY KAMPMARK

Weekend Edition
December 12 / 14, 2008
html

Along with the optimism that has accompanied the Obama election emerges
a potentially new picture on humanitarian interventions. What will an
Obama administration do with Darfur, or instances where genocide will
occur? Might he resort to what has been termed humanitarian
imperialism?

A report by the Genocide Prevention Task Force convened by the U.S.
Institute of Peace, U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum and the American
Academy of Diplomacy has a few ideas of its own. It was released this
week by former U.S. Secretary of State Madeleine Albright, and Defense
Secretary William Cohen. `Preventing genocide is an achievable goal.’
There are discernable `signs and symptoms, and viable options to
prevent it at every turn if we are committed and prepared.’

The Task force report makes various recommendations. Given that both
co-chairs were key players in the Clinton administration, their
influence is hard to ignore. The creation of a high level agency to
identify the problems of genocide with seismic urgency is suggested.
Increased resources are advocated. There is a recommendation for the
new secretary of state to launch an international initiative enlisting
an entire cadre of networks and nations to prevent mass atrocity and
genocide.
Then there is that option of last resort, military intervention.

The task force’s report pairs well with the interventionist rhetoric
Obama has, at times, articulated. His foreign policy advisers ` Susan
E. Rice and Tony Lake ` are old hands from the dark days of the Rwanda
genocide, where semantic gymnastics trumped humanitarian
considerations. In 1994, a gutsy, far-sighted General Dallaire
commanded less weight than State Department memos questioning whether
genocide was even taking place.

Then come those interminable problems with the mechanics of
intervention. Given the intractable presence of the UN Security
Council, the obstacles with allowing intervention will remain serious
ones. The authors think that the U.S. will front with that customary,
messianic tone of leadership ` take the first measures to avert
catastrophe, and others will follow. But ironically, that message
seems oddly (or perhaps not?) close to that of the Bush administration
` invade a country first and the skeptics will follow. The rhetorical
frameworks may differ, but the practical results may be much the same.
When in doubt, build an offensive coalition.

Readers of this report won’t forget that the authors were themselves
part of an administration that orchestrated an ostensibly humanitarian
intervention outside the UN framework in 1999. Then, it was Kosovo and
the issue of preventing ethnic cleansing. To this day, if there is an
identifiable doctrine from the Clinton years, it is one that targets
genocide and humanitarian catastrophe where it is in the national
interest to prevent it. International jurists have subsequently tried
to justify the doctrine, though it remains infuriatingly vague and
inconsistent.

Given the battering the UN and international law received during the
Bush years, the panaceas of the task force are encumbered by problems.
The UN, it would seem, will continue remaining the bête noire of
American foreign policy, whether one is a Bush unilateralist or Obama
internationalist. The former loathes it for being the progenitor of
fictitious international laws and obligations; the latter dislikes it
for being lethargic and indifferent to protecting existing
international laws.

With the US mired in conflicts it has struggled to control in the last
seven years, driven by a unilateralist rationale that commentators now
find hard to justify, the priorities given to genocide prevention may
yet again be minimized. But this will all depend on what formula the
new administration will embrace. While Obama will need to take this
report seriously, he must be fully aware that the US risks being
tarnished with the charge of imperialism (albeit of a different sort)
yet again.

Binoy Kampmark was a Commonwealth Scholar at Selwyn College, University
of College. Email: bkampmark@gmail.com