How to disarm
James Traub in the NY Times magazine has a clear explanation of how militant groups - from Sierra Leone to Ireland - have been disarmed in recent years. It's been a mix of incentives, appropriate political climate, and surely some luck.
The history is given in the context of looking for a solution for disarming Hezbollah. Since neither Lebanon nor the countries invovled in the international force has expressed an interested in disarming Hezbollah, however, perhaps the Lebanese "just ignore them" solution is the best option - Lebanon has said the militant group won't openly carry weapons. The problem with that, though, is that if an injustice is seen to be perpretated by Israel (or the international peacekeeping force), the Hezbollah weapons will likely be carried openly - then used. Then hell might break loose, particularly if it's the French, for example, in open conflict with Hezbollah.
Anyway, here is some of Traub's work, organized (by me) by country:
Sierra Leone
In 2000, I visited the dusty town of Port Loko, in Sierra Leone, to see a “disarmament camp,” a desultory affair in which a knot of surly ex-rebels from a murderous force known as the Revolutionary United Front hung around waiting for $300 payments meant to enable their fresh start as farmers. Most of them still wanted to fight, and many probably returned to the bush. But then their leader was arrested, U.N. peacekeepers equipped with heavy weapons were deployed in the countryside and the R.U.F. signed a peace deal. D.D.R. resumed in earnest in 2001, the R.U.F. disbanded the following year, and by 2004 the rebels had been fully disarmed. U.N. peacekeepers were able to leave. Sierra Leone is now patrolled by its own army and police force, though the country’s desperate poverty and political fragility could tip it back into warfare at any time.
Kosovo
Kosovo provides another more-or-less-happy disarmament situation. After a relentless NATO bombing campaign in 1999 compelled Serbian troops to withdraw from the province, a NATO force filled the vacuum. But the home-grown militia, the Kosovo Liberation Army, viewed itself as the true author of the victory and thus was in no mood to surrender its weapons. With the K.L.A., which was itself guilty of widespread ethnic cleansing, prepared to become a resistance force, or possibly a national mafia, peacekeeping officials made the audacious decision to enroll its members in an unarmed national guard, the Kosovo Protection Corps. And though in its early years the K.P.C. was found to be secretly stockpiling arms and was accused of serious human rights violations, the experiment has largely worked. The chief reason for its success is that K.P.C. members have not truly been demobilized; they have been permitted to keep their command structure intact and fully expect to become the nucleus of a national army when Kosovo gains its independence. There has been some talk of applying the Kosovo model to Hezbollah, by absorbing the militia either into the Lebanese Army or into a new national guard.
Congo (as an example of disarmament failing because peacekeepers didn't have compelling incentives to offer, politically or militarily)
[A]ggressive and well-armed U.N. peacekeepers largely disarmed the ragtag militias in the northeastern region of Ituri (though owing to the government’s almost complete failure to prepare the ex-rebels for civilian life, violence has returned to the area). But equally determined peacekeeping troops made very little headway against the tougher and better-equipped force of Rwandan Hutus who have been wreaking havoc in eastern Congo since they fled across the border after the 1994 genocide. The Hutus agreed to return to Rwanda if they were allowed to organize as a political party, but President Paul Kagame flatly rejected the demand. The United Nations could thus neither intimidate the rebels nor offer them a better deal than the one they already had, pillaging the Congolese countryside.
The IRA
Like Hezbollah, which has legislators and ministers in the Lebanese government, the hard-core Catholic resistance to British rule in Northern Ireland had a military wing, the I.R.A., and a civilian one, known as Sinn Fein. [Decades of cease-fire attempts ended in bloodshed.]
Finally, after the terrorist attacks carried out by Islamic extremists on the London subway in July 2005, Blair made a series of gestures to the I.R.A., and the group responded by definitively vowing to cease all military activity. Fighters deposited rifles, machine guns, chemical explosives and even surface-to-air missiles at secret locations in the Republic of Ireland, with Catholic and Protestant clergymen brought in as witnesses. In September, the I.I.C.D. certified that “the I.R.A. has met its commitment to put all its arms beyond use.” (The group has, however, been accused of continuing to use violence for criminal, rather than political, ends.)
At the time, a columnist in The Times of London explained how the underlying dynamic had changed: “Sinn Fein was once the political wing of the I.R.A.; in the course of the past decade, the I.R.A. has become the paramilitary branch of Sinn Fein. A paramilitary organization can choose whether or not it has a political manifestation. A political organization in a Western democracy cannot, ultimately, choose whether or not it has a paramilitary offshoot.”
This final paragraph, as Traub goes on to say, is particularly relevant to the Lebanon situation. Perhaps Hezbollah, and hence Lebanon, will fundamentally change. Perhaps not. But a proper mix of forceful and political incentives must be offered, and a significant part of the solution is allowing actual representative government to replace the power that can stem from rocket launchers and gun barrels.
The history is given in the context of looking for a solution for disarming Hezbollah. Since neither Lebanon nor the countries invovled in the international force has expressed an interested in disarming Hezbollah, however, perhaps the Lebanese "just ignore them" solution is the best option - Lebanon has said the militant group won't openly carry weapons. The problem with that, though, is that if an injustice is seen to be perpretated by Israel (or the international peacekeeping force), the Hezbollah weapons will likely be carried openly - then used. Then hell might break loose, particularly if it's the French, for example, in open conflict with Hezbollah.
Anyway, here is some of Traub's work, organized (by me) by country:
Sierra Leone
In 2000, I visited the dusty town of Port Loko, in Sierra Leone, to see a “disarmament camp,” a desultory affair in which a knot of surly ex-rebels from a murderous force known as the Revolutionary United Front hung around waiting for $300 payments meant to enable their fresh start as farmers. Most of them still wanted to fight, and many probably returned to the bush. But then their leader was arrested, U.N. peacekeepers equipped with heavy weapons were deployed in the countryside and the R.U.F. signed a peace deal. D.D.R. resumed in earnest in 2001, the R.U.F. disbanded the following year, and by 2004 the rebels had been fully disarmed. U.N. peacekeepers were able to leave. Sierra Leone is now patrolled by its own army and police force, though the country’s desperate poverty and political fragility could tip it back into warfare at any time.
Kosovo
Kosovo provides another more-or-less-happy disarmament situation. After a relentless NATO bombing campaign in 1999 compelled Serbian troops to withdraw from the province, a NATO force filled the vacuum. But the home-grown militia, the Kosovo Liberation Army, viewed itself as the true author of the victory and thus was in no mood to surrender its weapons. With the K.L.A., which was itself guilty of widespread ethnic cleansing, prepared to become a resistance force, or possibly a national mafia, peacekeeping officials made the audacious decision to enroll its members in an unarmed national guard, the Kosovo Protection Corps. And though in its early years the K.P.C. was found to be secretly stockpiling arms and was accused of serious human rights violations, the experiment has largely worked. The chief reason for its success is that K.P.C. members have not truly been demobilized; they have been permitted to keep their command structure intact and fully expect to become the nucleus of a national army when Kosovo gains its independence. There has been some talk of applying the Kosovo model to Hezbollah, by absorbing the militia either into the Lebanese Army or into a new national guard.
Congo (as an example of disarmament failing because peacekeepers didn't have compelling incentives to offer, politically or militarily)
[A]ggressive and well-armed U.N. peacekeepers largely disarmed the ragtag militias in the northeastern region of Ituri (though owing to the government’s almost complete failure to prepare the ex-rebels for civilian life, violence has returned to the area). But equally determined peacekeeping troops made very little headway against the tougher and better-equipped force of Rwandan Hutus who have been wreaking havoc in eastern Congo since they fled across the border after the 1994 genocide. The Hutus agreed to return to Rwanda if they were allowed to organize as a political party, but President Paul Kagame flatly rejected the demand. The United Nations could thus neither intimidate the rebels nor offer them a better deal than the one they already had, pillaging the Congolese countryside.
The IRA
Like Hezbollah, which has legislators and ministers in the Lebanese government, the hard-core Catholic resistance to British rule in Northern Ireland had a military wing, the I.R.A., and a civilian one, known as Sinn Fein. [Decades of cease-fire attempts ended in bloodshed.]
Finally, after the terrorist attacks carried out by Islamic extremists on the London subway in July 2005, Blair made a series of gestures to the I.R.A., and the group responded by definitively vowing to cease all military activity. Fighters deposited rifles, machine guns, chemical explosives and even surface-to-air missiles at secret locations in the Republic of Ireland, with Catholic and Protestant clergymen brought in as witnesses. In September, the I.I.C.D. certified that “the I.R.A. has met its commitment to put all its arms beyond use.” (The group has, however, been accused of continuing to use violence for criminal, rather than political, ends.)
At the time, a columnist in The Times of London explained how the underlying dynamic had changed: “Sinn Fein was once the political wing of the I.R.A.; in the course of the past decade, the I.R.A. has become the paramilitary branch of Sinn Fein. A paramilitary organization can choose whether or not it has a political manifestation. A political organization in a Western democracy cannot, ultimately, choose whether or not it has a paramilitary offshoot.”
This final paragraph, as Traub goes on to say, is particularly relevant to the Lebanon situation. Perhaps Hezbollah, and hence Lebanon, will fundamentally change. Perhaps not. But a proper mix of forceful and political incentives must be offered, and a significant part of the solution is allowing actual representative government to replace the power that can stem from rocket launchers and gun barrels.
posted by bp at
8:23 AM
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home