No Armed Interventions in Zimbabwe

The opposition to the government of Robert Mugabe just called for the African nations to send peacekeepers to Zimbabwe. Given that there is no peace in this battered nation, the troops are in effect called to impose one. At first blush, this may seem highly justified given the abuses that recently took place in Zimbabwe. Sanctions (many forms of which have yet to be imposed, and ought to be) may indeed be insufficient. However, the situation must be examined in the context of a global triage. If one takes into account that this is a natural time to consider the foundations of a foreign policy for the next U.S. president, all this leads one to view the highly disturbing situation in Zimbabwe as an opportunity to consider under what conditions armed humanitarian interventions are justified.

The tragic fact which the supporters of armed humanitarian intervention find it difficult to fully take into account is that global conditions are like what Hobbes used to say about domestic conditions: they make life nasty, brutish, and short. There are numerous countries in which abuses occur, on a much larger scale, over much longer periods, than in Zimbabwe. Abuses in Zimbabwe are foremost in our minds because of the CNN effect -- they are news. However, it is too easy to forget that the number of people killed in Zimbabwe is estimated to be somewhere between 65 to 86 or somewhat higher; those detained without cause, in the scores; several white farmers have been driven off their land; and many citizens are terrorized, all despicable acts that call for strong reactions from the global community. But these abuses pale in comparison to the "old" ones, those that faded from news but are inflicted on many hundreds of thousands -- if not millions -- of people who are killed, subject to the systematic campaigns of mass rape, burned out of their villages in the Congo and Sudan.

If grossly manipulated elections -- and a terrorized electorate -- are a cause for armed interventions, there is reason to march into Tibet, Burma, North Korean, Kazakhstan, Iran, Syria, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Tunisia, Kenya and Libya, just to mention a few.

Now add to this oppressive list the incontestable and deeply distressing fact that the international community finds it very difficult, to put it mildly, to put together the forces need for armed humanitarian interventions. One must first get the UN Security Council to resolve to act, which is no small feat, given that one power or another is quick to slow down the process if not block it all together (for instance, as China has done with Sudan). Then one must find the budget to pay for the intervention and -- above all -- nations willing to volunteer the troops to be shipped to the country at issue -- and keep them there as the body bags pile up. Then one must ensure that these peacekeeping troops do not perpetuate crimes themselves, such as selling drugs and prostituting young girls. The brutal fact is that after many years of outcry, the international community has not yet stopped the atrocities in the Congo and Sudan, and did not act when nearly a million people were killed or maimed in Rwanda, and before that in Cambodia. In short, the global need for intervention is very considerable and the resources available are very meager. Calling for armed humanitarian interventions is easy; getting them going is excruciatingly difficult.

The global situation is akin to a disaster zone, in which bodies are strewn all over the place. For some, it is too late to help (e.g. Rwanda). Some have relatively minor injuries (e.g. Zimbabwe), and their treatment should not take priority over those most in need, such as Sudan and the Congo. Zimbabwe may be next in line, but for now sanctions will have to do. For instance, the international community should declare that if any of the leaders of the government and of Mugabe's party set foot outside their country, they will be subject to arrest. However, if there are forces available for armed interventions, these are urgently needed elsewhere.

Good people find the need for triage and the setting of priorities for care that it entails offensive. So do I. In a better world the global community would have sizable stand-by forces, ready to stop humanitarian crises at the first sign of trouble. The very fact that such forces would be readily available would make such abuses much less likely. Maybe the next president can convince the other powers that be and the UN to vastly increase the forces available for humanitarian intervention. Until this happens, triage is unavoidable if we are not to leave the those most in need without help, and assist those who are second -- or third -- in line.

To argue that triage is a moral must is not to argue against action. There is a world of difference between doing the best we can with our limited resources--they are always limited even if they are much increased -- and not doing anything; between well-focused action and inaction.

Above all, instead of vainly promising to institute a new global order, in which all nations will prosper and democratize, we best start with delivering an international very basic minimum: to stop genocides. Once this is achieved--we can turn to second priorities, which may get us to the likes of Zimbabwe. Meanwhile, sanctions rather than troops will have to do.

For more discussion, see Amitai Etzioni's latest book Security First: For a Moral, Muscular Foreign Policy (Yale University Press 2007). www.securityfirstbook.com. email: [e-mail]

Comments

[lapoutlander]

Well you come not to bury the Mugabes but to raise them to a lesser evil. Of course there is no mention of tens of thousands of civilian deaths in the name of Gukurahundi, nor of inducing many hundreds of thousands of refugees to flee the country. The former even should they not qualify as genocide (and then only on appeal on a technicality) they may still likely destabilized the poster boy of southern African democracy. A fact that Mugabe holds like a card in his hand grinning at the card table of his game. He knows there will be no intervention, for his Zanu have built the card table on with any peace making would have to be played out.

[jmundstuk]

Excellent article.

I fear that Zimbabwe just has to run its course until the Old Man dies or is killed or a civil war breaks out. I have to say that the opposition leader showed great leadership in withdrawing from the run-off. Even better would have been to tell them to vote for Mugabe so they wouldn't be targeted.

[GrainOSand]

"If one takes into account that this is a natural time to consider the foundations of a foreign policy for the next U.S. president, all this leads one to view the highly disturbing situation in Zimbabwe as an opportunity to consider under what conditions armed humanitarian interventions are justified.­"

Too bad there was no such deliberation or contemplation before invading Iraq.

[natturnerx]

2.5 million dead in congo civil war....doe­snt make the news. hundreds killed in kenya post-election violence..­.no calls for intervention. ethiopia invades somalia slaying thousands.­..okay by west. anti-immigrant pogroms in south africa...y­awn. mugabe takes land from white colonialists and returns it to his people. oh the heinous atrocity!!! west is outraged!!! won't somebody stop this madman!!!
everyone knows that mugabe's real "crime" in the eyes of the west is that he set a precedent for aboriginal people taking back their land. the native americans, the australian aborigines, the new zealand maoris, the inuits,and the native hawaiians may have been too decimated by genocide made into minorities in their own countries, but the zimbabweans have successfully overcome their occupiers - and for that they must be punished.

[jeanrenoir]

LIke the piece today on Mia Farrow, this piece makes me think that all the people on the "left" in America need to start getting serious about creating a world military police force capable of intervening in the Rwandas, Darfurs, Myanmars, and Zimbabwes of the world. People of the "left" always want to be loved more than feared. But Etzioni is right to remind us that realism requires a Hobbesian view of most of humanity (no sentimental Rousseauistice wishful thinking). Versions of the arguments that anyone can easily make against intervening in the African and Asian hell holes to stop the slaughter could have been made, and were made, to keep Britain, especially, from stopping Hitler, when that mean old Hobbesian realist Churchill kept calling for Britain to intervene in Germany militarily to take Hitler out, seeing clearly as he did that WWII was coming if Hitler was not stopped (not to mention, as we now see, the Holocaust). But "sensitive" leftists wanted "peace in our time" instead. They got it all right, followed by the war and the Holocaust. As a professor, I can assure everyone that good college these days are four-year sensitivit­y-training sessions, not educations in the Hobbesian realism and tough-mindedness needed to stop the Rwandas everywhere, which seem to occur more and more as more and more of Africa, especially, and some areas of Asia, sink further and further into a Hobbesian abyss. We need realism to deal with the problem from hell.

[GrainOSand]

We need the realism that is formulated in love and notions of doing what is right. We are not suffering enough yet for a mass realization and assumption of the worthy mindset you describe. Who knows, that could change, any day now. Intervention by nations in the affairs of other nations that victimize internal citizens is a no-brainer in any sane world so we can only assume this world is insane or encroaching upon the territory of insanity.

[lapoutlander]

Really anyone who thinks that Neville Chamberlain had a choice in 1938 has not read and understood history. His choice was set not in 1938 nor 1937. It was set in 1930-1934 when in the depths of the depression all UK parties joined together to do the hatchet job they had to do to cut government spending. Britain had to pay it WWI debts while Germany borrowed its reparation debt from Wall street. And then in 1932 American industrialists were falling all over themselves to rebuild Hitlers wonder child. So in 1938 all this bore fruit with Germany et al having as much a 4:1 advantage in the air and England many months away from producing Spitfires to meet the bf109s that had been proven in the Spanish civil war. Stop Hitler in the Sudetenland in 38 realistic? Give me a break!

[CaptainVideo]

In this case the Union of South Africa should be able to easily defeat the thugs supporting Mugabe. As a matter of fact, many of them could probably be bought off quite cheaply and would not even have to be fought. The United Nations is not needed. The Organization for African Unity could authorize the Union of South Africa to invade and then it should hold free elections and establish a democratic government.

[Torus34]

Poor Zimbabwe!

All sanctions can do is reduce still further the standard of living of the people of Zimbabwe.

Additionally, calls for a government of compromise or fusion will mean, at best, that a few members of the opposition will be given a cut of the despotic spoils of the Mugabe administration. Nothing further will obtain.

[dfwtex]

ZANU-PF likes to say that sanctions are hurting the standard of living.

In reality, the sanctions they like to complain about are only against the highest members or the mugabe regime.

In zim, where there is no free press we can forgive the people for believing that sanctions are hurting the common people, but here we should not repeat that argument.

What is hurting the people is the kleptocracy that steals from the people by printing more and more money, taking value out of their pockets. What hurts is the kleptocracy that destroys the farms by giving them to high-level regime supporters, who then do not use them to produce food.

I agree there can be no unity government with the corrupt ZANU-PF regime. They would love to buy off the oposition with their patronage schemes.