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madiba   madiba Mandela Kapere's TIGblog
Mandela Kapere's profile

Defending our values is a categorical imperative.....
Translations available in: English (original) | French | Spanish | Italian | German | Portuguese | Swedish | Russian | Dutch | Arabic

Nangola Mbumba said a most profound thing at the recent SWAPO party rally, when he said amongst other, that there is no one entity that has a monopoly for being smart. I was reminded of this rather telling assertion this morning (Monday, the 15th of September, 2008) while listening to Hon Nora Chase MP (COD) on the Good Morning (Namibia) show.

The assertion that was made by her, implied to me that she viewed that SWAPO had failed at several levels and its failures in respect to the implementation of the constitution and consolidation of democracy where with intent.

This is no complicated matter to take issue with, thus I will do so briefly without much ado and jargon jostling. It is obvious that this statement is set against the backdrop of opposition hyperbole and was made without references to an objective measurement of the relevant tools for analyzing this; consider that Africa is abound with various measures in that respect. Consider also that the most fundamental basis always in our reference to ourselves and our relationship with the state, should be a reverence to firstly the constitution and then secondly other law, most things other than those that are codified in our law are arbitrary considerations.

She dully recognizes that the Namibian constitution is a fair and good instrument and that it enshrines the rights of the citizens of this country. However the assertion that the relevant provision in respect to the same are deliberately not adhered to is fallacious and devoid of logic and falls firmly in the ambit of polemic hyperbole. As Bona fide “defenders” of law, justice and democracy, Why then not defend the law in the courts. And seek the necessary legal recourse?

It is not my manner to consistently make reference to
the past in the analyze of nascent challenges, but in many cases we have to realize that there is a sound logical basis for such arguments on the odd occasion and this issue is one case in point. Democratic ideals both for leaders and the ordinary citizens take years and generations to entrench. So it is not odd in the Namibian instance that we have skirmishes. It is purely hogwash to say that SWAPO has not entrenched democracy in Namibia. In the first place while it is granted that SWAPO as the party in government has a major role to play in this endeavor, it is utterly nonsensical to say then that the failure of democracy is the fault of SWAPO.

Recently in the USA during the Texas “Two Step” as well as in the Philadelphia Democratic Primary, there was much uproar on the process its fairness and incidences of voter intimidation arose, even cases of cheating and actual fighting where recorded. Recently in Arkansas, the Democratic Party’s State Vice Chairman was shot and killed outside the parties’ state headquarters, in an attack that was largely seen to be politically motivated. Consider this against the background that even in a nation that is one of the world’s oldest liberal democracies, we do on the occasion react in an inappropriate manner.

My argument here is not that violence and intimidation is right but that it does occur in the process of a heated political race. The second predicate of my antithesis is that Namibia has an entrenched culture of antagonized politics with roots in the cold war era liberation struggle of the country.

In my modest view, we very often misinterpret the relative absence of our personal political values in the political system as unjust, this is wrong, selfish and at often times elitist. Democracy by its very nature presupposes that there are others in the polity that will have different views than that of our own.

Our democracy is young, fragile and in need of further consolidation, our nation is only now consolidating a new political culture and the odd occasional fracas must be condemned but let us please see such occurrences through the right lenses.

SWAPO should and will do its part to defend the gains of our liberation but so should others, the stakes have bearing on us all.

September 19, 2008 | 7:58 AM Comments  0 comments
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sganeb   sganeb Sydney Boyckie !Ganeb's TIGblog
Sydney Boyckie !Ganeb's profile

Ethical Decision making in International Relations
Translations available in: English (original) | French | Spanish | Italian | German | Portuguese | Swedish | Russian | Dutch | Arabic

APPLYING STRATEGIES OF ETHICAL DECISION MAKING IN INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS

Introduction
The question of when is it appropriate for one state or group of states to take coercive and in particular military action against another state on the basis of protecting the people whose human rights are gravely violated or is threatened in that state is central to the issue of “intervention vs sovereignty”. Central to this question is the issue of whether the international community has the moral duty to intervene in a sovereign state to end or prevent immense human rights violations, such as in Nazi Germany under Hitler, Kosovo, Georgia, Bosnia, Rwanda and Sudan.
Koffi Anan, former Secretary of the United Nations once said “We must all recognize that …we have failed in our response to the agony of Rwanda, and thus have acquiesced in the continued loss of human life. Our readiness and capacity for action has been demonstrated to be inadequate at best and deplorable at worst, owing to the absence of the collective political will.” UN and Rwanda 1993 – 1996, p 291.
This statement by the former Head of the UN Secretariat illustrates the mammoth task of intervention in a sovereign state on the humanitarian grounds by other states or the by the United Nations. The international community recognizes the following guidelines in international relations amongst states, as inspired by the Peace of Westphalia 1648
1. The principle of the sovereignty of states and the fundamental right of political self determination
2. The principle of legal equality between states
3. The principle of non-interference of one state in the internal affairs of another state

It is also argued that the protection of the citizens of a territory is the principal role of the state, in as much as universal rights are concern, however if states fail to do protect their own citizens or is unwilling to do so or is the primary perpetrator of crimes against humanity, than is the international community not duty bound to intervene and protect human life?
In 2003 the Sudanese government and the militia Janjaweed and other Sudan Liberation Movement rebel factions which are estimated to be around 13 such as Minni Minnawi's faction which signed the 2006 peace deal, Abdul Wahid Mohammad Ahmed al-Nur's faction which rejected the peace deal, Justice and Equality Movement of Khalil Ibrahim’s which is one of the first rebel groups who also have rejected the deal and the infamous rebel negotiator, Suleiman Jamous the SLM Unity led Abdallah Yehia, UFLD which recently formed umbrella group including several key SLM commanders and other breakaway SLM commanders such as Mahjoub Hussein, Jar el-Neby and Suleiman Marajan.
The conflict began in the dry, infertile and impecunious region of Sudan early in 2003 after the rebel groups began attacking government targets, saying the region was being neglected by the government in Khartoum. The main position of the rebels was that the government is oppressing southern black Africans in favour of northern Arabs.
Darfur, which means land of the Fur, has faced many years of tension over land and grazing rights between the mostly nomadic Arabs, and farmers from the Fur, Massaleet and Zagawa communities. Although it seems that the war has been started as a struggle for scarce resources it has been fuelled by tribal and ethnic conflicts which has been there for many years. In the process the government has been accused for sponsoring the Janjaweed militia which is the northern Arabs to ethnically cleanse the black Africans which rebel against the government. The Government and President Omar al – Bashir is indicted by the International Criminal Court on the basis that he has
"Masterminded and implemented a plan to destroy in substantial part the Fur, Masalit and Zaghawa groups, on account of their ethnicity. The argue that his motives were largely political and that his alibi was a counterinsurgency to the rebel attacks but the ICC says that his intent was genocide." During this conflict millions have been displaced from their houses, hundreds of thousands has been killed, hacked to death, tortured, rape a terrible genocidal madness, the ultimate crime against humanity if not holocaust has taken over Sudan, Darfur region and just like in Rwanda on 6 April 1994 the international community is challenge with the question of intervention or no-intervention vs state sovereignty.
This task will examine that central question based on the article by Helen Scanlon titled “Darfur Highlights Dilemma of Intervention versus Sovereignty” in the Sunday Independent, 17 June 2007.
Respect for sovereign rights of state remains central to relations between states since its development at Westphalia in 1648. The Westphalian sovereingty is the concept of nation states based on territoriality and the exclusion of other actors in international relations from domestic governance structures. In 1648 the Westphalia system has evolved with the signing of the Peace of Westphalia when nations recognized the sovereignty of each other and given much more importance to the nation state over the individual citizens or rulers.
The signing of the Peace has brought about an end to the interference in the domestic affairs of the nation states by the supra or more powerful nations because the Westphalia system of 1648 recognized the principles earlier stated in this work as guiding international relations.
The Treaty that was signed and become the Westphalia Peace of 1648 by the major European states has set the stage for international interaction amongst states as it outline the norms and expected behaviors amongst states, the most critical in this analysis of Sudan is the principle of state sovereignty.(Mcgowan, P et al , 2006)
In my view state sovereignty implies state responsibility of protection towards its own citizens, therefore where the people are immensely affected by an internal war, repression, insurgency and state failure to protect the citizens or unwillingness to protect them such as in Sudan puts squarely the responsibility of protecting those citizens with the international community.
But many Observers, scholars of Law, International Relations and Politics throughout the literature disagree on the role of the international community, especially around issues of what can the international community do, does it have a moral duty to do so, what role should the UN play and how can the political barriers of intervention be overcome and how should such atrocities against humans be prevented in the future?
All of the above questions are ethical questions around the central theme of Humanitarian intervention and several ethical theories are postulated to address this theme amongst others, Natural law, International law, Utilitarianism, Social contractarianism, Communitarianism, Legal positivism.
In this work I will interrogate the rules based and consequential strategies of ethical decision making in addressing this central theme of ethics in International Relations.
According to the rules based strategies the central question is whether it is ethical that other states intervene in a sovereign state such as in the Darfur region of Sudan in order to protect the civilian population from genocide? The answer is that the responsibility of the international community to protect lies in the duty inherent in the concept of sovereignty, it is found in the responsibility of the UN Security Council, under Article 24 of the UN Charter, Afican Union constitutive Act and in other declarations on human rights, covenants and treaties and international humanitarian law and national law.
Yes it is ethical for the international community under the United Nations banner to intervene in Sudan, if one has to consider the broader definition of what ethics is. Ethics refers to well based standards of right and wrong that prescribe what humans ought to do, usually in terms of rights, obligations, benefits to society, fairness, or specific virtues
This world has observe over many years how human beings are exterminated by powerful states and leaders, we have seen the Nazi German holocaust of the Jews, the Yogoslavian “Butcher of the Balkans” Milosevic, Rwanda Hutu and Tutsi genocide and many xenophobic attacks and tribal and ethnical cleansing as happens in Sudan.
The responsibility to protect as outline above by international community denotes responsibility to act in situations of grave and compelling situations of human need. The responsibility of the sovereign state to protect or unwillingness to protect its own citizens or failure to do so warrants interventionary measures from the broader body of states, such intervention may be political, economical and judicial and military intervention should be the last resort. Because the continuation of such atrocities against other human beings is a threat to the international peace and security and in such cases intervention is justifiable as was the case in Haiti in recent years. As per Natural law theorist “our common human nature generates common moral duties” in this case the right of humanitarian intervention. However the benefit of intervention should be greater than the cost, my position as stated here is that any intervention should exclude the use of military force unless such is necessary, for example when SADC approved military intervention in DRC and or when South Africa and Botswana on the request of the Lesotho Prime Minister intervene to prevent anarchy in that state.
Such intervention should be reach through consensus in the global governance systems and powerful states should not use this right to unilaterally use military power against states perceived to be non-cooperative with the interest of them, such was the case in Iraq when the Americans invaded this country on the pre-text of international threat or in the case with Russia invading Georgia, it is morally wrong for a powerful state to bypass the UN Security Council and unilaterally decide that it is their duty and responsibility to act. The deployment of the more powerful and empowered joint UN-AU peace keeping forces (UNAMID) rather should be the option for Sudan.
State intent in intervention is expressed in international law as such this must guide the international community in addressing the ethical question of humanitarian intervention in sovereign states.(Holzgrefe,J.L. Keohane O,R, 2003)
The other school of thought which uses the outcomes based strategy of ethical decision making, tend to argue that actions are bound to have reactions. The central question than perhaps is what are the likely outcomes of intervening in an sovereign state and what precedence’s are we than setting in the system of international communities or actors in the international arena and what drives the intend of the actors.
In the matter of Sudan, humanitarian intervention will produce good outcomes given the context and circumstances, it has been since 2003 and hundreds of thousands of people are misplaced, killed and fled into neighboring countries like Chad.
The crises in the refugee camps are unimaginable and thousands continue to die and the government has not sponsoring violence against its citizen’s. The intervention according to the consequential theorist and its likely outcome might be seen against the stated objective of humanitarian relief to the affected people of Darfur, an end to human suffering. If such objectives are achieved during and after the intervention than the consequential theorist would agree with me that it is just to intervene in Sudan, however outcomes can be different and the cost than higher as is the case in war times humanitarian intervention, but with due recognition given to rules of engagement this could be averted and the objectives can be achieved with minimal cost.
A situation in which we see the return of peace to Sudan, immediate relief to the suffering of Sudanese people. From the outcomes based theories perspective using the deontological approach the rights of the citizen’s of Sudan should be equal to those of the state, as is internationally agreed upon. The international community equally has the institutional obligation in the UN system. The member states are under obligation to protect their value system as spell out in the UN Charter and in that way achieve fairness and justice.
Finally, no matter what perspective we had to use in the analysis of humanitarian intervention in Sudan and what moral judgments we make about it, the bottom line is the ongoing crises of human lives being destroyed without due regard to their rights and there seems to be nobody doing anything about it on the basis of maintain a argument for or against intervention in Sudan in line with international relations. The consequences of non-intervention are much higher and costly than to intervene now and save a nation. Intervention will secure internal political stability and economic growth for Sudan and security and peace in the affected region.
This situation is dangerous and a costly precedent we will set for the generations to come. There should be enough political will to decisively intervention on humanitarian grounds in Sudan, my proposition is to increase the joint UN-AU peace keeping forces from 9000m to 26 000 and suspend the ICC summons and indictments against the President Omar Al-Bashir and continue to pursue and support the efforts of the negotiators in the process and allow China to play a more significant role.