| OPINION
– Ramesh Thakur, UNU
Vice Rector and director of the Peace and Governance Programme,
contributed these commentaries to the International Herald Tribune
and Canada's Globe and Mail newspapers.
|
Yes to international justice, but it won't be easy By RAMESH THAKUR The
search for universal justice has taken many dramatic twists and turns in
the last few years. Activists assert the primacy of justice without
borders. Skeptics warn of international anarchy if we depart from
realpolitik in a state-based system of world order. Opponents fear
outcomes of injustice across borders. More worrisome than the challenge to
national sovereignty is the unpredictability of the potent new weapon as
an instrument of the new international order. Its potential for abuse for
vexatious and vindictive purposes is unlimited. As we move inexorably from the culture of national impunity of previous centuries to a culture of international accountability more suited to the modern sensibility, it is worth making four arguments. •
In East Timor, justice was seen not to have been done when six men
convicted of killing three UN aid workers (an American, a Croat and an
Ethiopian) were given sentences of 10 to 20 months by a Jakarta court on
May 4. The UN personnel were stabbed and stoned to death and their bodies
were set alight by pro-Indonesian militias, in one of the worst attacks
ever against UN staff anywhere in the world.
•
With regard to former Presidents Suharto in Indonesia and Augusto Pinochet
in Chile, justice has not yet been seen to be done. Europeans in particular need to avoid the temptation of launching a fresh wave of judicial colonialism, substituting their courts and morality for the choices made by the affected societies. It is patently absurd for Ariel Sharon, or any other present or former head of government or state (or secretaries of state like Henry Kissinger), to have to risk being arrested in a third country on the orders of an investigating magistrate in Belgium, following the precedent of the Spanish inquisition against General Pinochet while he was visiting Britain. • It will be difficult for justice to be seen to be done in the case of Slobodan Milosevic at the Hague tribunal. As the first international trial of a former head of state, this would have been challenging enough in any case. NATO's unlawful war against Serbia in 1999 has made it deeply problematical for a familiar litany of reasons. The tribunal is sited in a NATO country, its expenses are met mainly from NATO members' contributions, the indictment of Mr. Milosevic during the war on the basis of evidence supplied by NATO infected the process of criminal justice with security-political calculations, and the enforcement of the tribunal's indictment of Mr. Milosevic and cronies as war criminals has been totally dependent on the same NATO powers. The U.S. rejection of the International Criminal Court seriously compromises U.S. moral standing with respect to ad hoc international criminal tribunals. International economic blackmail - Yugoslavia was promised almost $1.3 billion dollars in aid immediately after Mr. Milosevic was turned over to The Hague - and domestic power struggles have been greater determinants of the fate of Mr. Milosevic than concerns about criminal justice. Ad hoc tribunals leave the process of international law more vulnerable to the pursuit of power politics than would be possible in the ICC. Legal principles should be used to advance the cause of universal justice, not to settle political scores and advance victors' justice. The failure to prosecute with matching zeal mass crimes committed against Serbs by their historic Balkan enemies, including acts of reverse ethnic cleansing by Kosovars since the 1999 war under the protective noses of NATO troops, feeds the sense of victimhood among Serbs. What is most needed is an open trial within Serbia which brings home to Serbs with incontrovertible proof the crimes that were committed in their name. They are the ones who need to confront the recent ugly past, punish the guilty in their midst and move on with their lives. • The above doubts notwithstanding, justice must and will be done at The Hague with regard to Mr. Milosevic. At the end of the day, most of us will go to bed with a sense of quiet satisfaction that the wheels of justice have caught up with him, and that he will get his just deserts.
Why peace exceeds our grasp By RAMESH THAKUR In the Middle East, the Israeli-Palestinian flare-up worsens by the week. The tortuous search for peace in Kashmir keeps falling into treacherous crevasses on the Himalayas. In Korea dark clouds blot out any silver lining from the occasional sunshine policy. The roots of all three go back to the immediate aftermath of the Second World War. Is conflict the normal condition of human society and peace the exception? Many contemporary conflicts are peculiarly resistant to resolution because contradictory logics tilt the balance toward their perpetuation. While most conflicts today are internal wars, almost all international modalities are designed for inter-state warfare. The formal authority for maintaining international security lies with the United Nations. But the facts of power place the burden of leadership on the U.S. Constantly warned against acting as the world policeman, Uncle Sam is the first cop on the beat to get the distress call whenever there is a mugging anywhere in the global neighbourhood. Today Americans are being urged to stay the course in the Balkans, re-engage with the Middle East peace process, get actively involved in Kashmir, and endorse Seoul’s dialogue with North Korea. The reality of increasing internationalization and globalization collides against the persistence of competitive nationalisms. In Kashmir the secular nationalism of India competes with the religious nationalism of Pakistan and the ethnic nationalism of Kashmiris. In the Balkans all attempts to preserve and recreate a modern multiethnic society fall victim to vicious medieval tribalism. To resolve a conflict, we must recognize that there are at least two parties, both with elements of right and wrong, and the need for flexibility and pragmatism that permits compromise and accommodation. National or religious zealotry fights against all of this. The
logics of the past and future can be at war. For the sake of a future of
peaceful coexistence, communities need to jettison their historical
baggage of hatreds. But, because myths are important in the social
construction of political identity, history is a fiercely contested
terrain. How can one be a Jew today without internalizing the collective
consciousness of the Holocaust? Palestinians believe that the refusal of
their right to repatriation is an attempt to deny their collective history
and identity. The logic of power is inconsistent with that of justice. Peace in the Middle East or the subcontinent cannot be grasped without bending to the military superiority of Israel and India. But no peace agreement will last if it is fundamentally unjust, resting on the temporary inability of the territorially revisionist Palestinians and Kashmiris to challenge the entrenched might of the status quo powers. The logic of negotiation tends to be contradictory. The stronger see no reason to compromise. Israeli voters privileged the security of the in-group over justice for the out-group. The weaker fear that negotiations, if not delayed until parity or superiority has been attained, will force them into humiliating sell-outs of their cause. The Palestinians felt that the offer tabled at Camp David last year was made on the assumption of their military weakness: they seek justice in full, not the crumbs of charity. But what of historically-informed justice for Jews? The logics of peace and justice are contradictory. Peace is forward-looking, problem-solving and integrative, requiring reconciliation between past enemies within an inclusive community. Justice is backward-looking, finger-pointing and retributive, requiring trial and punishment of the perpetrators of past crimes. Is it possible to move forward without confronting and overcoming the past? Will the pursuit of human rights violators delay and impede efforts to establish conditions of security so that displaced people can return home and live in relative peace once again? The tension must be reconciled on a case-by-case basis rather than on a rigid formula. And it is best resolved by the countries concerned, whether Chile, South Africa, Indonesia or Northern Ireland, not by outsiders. Europeans in particular must resist the temptation to embark on a new wave of judicial colonialism. The democratic peace thesis holds that democracies do not go to war against one another. Yet some of the best established democracies are among the most involved in warfare. Leaders who might be inclined to negotiate peace can be held back by fear of electoral consequences or destroyed for their daring. Ehud Barak offered more to the Palestinians than was conceivable even a year ago. Ariel Sharon went to Temple Mount in September, provoked a Palestinian uprising, the downfall of Barak and his own election as prime minister. Would an elected leader of India or Pakistan dare to make concessions to the enemy when political rivals are waiting in the wings to ridicule and exploit any “sellout”? The moment for making peace may not be the most propitious for forging a consensus or political will among the relevant actors to make the necessary decisions and compromises: Human history is full of missed opportunities. But there may be good political reasons why these opportunities could not be grasped at their most opportune. Arafat missed his moment at Camp David last July: he simply could not have sold that package to his Palestinian people and fellow-Arabs at that time. For the first time in fifty years, India is showing signs of willingness to engage in a peace process in Kashmir. But the political, economic and religious mix in Pakistan remain inauspicious for achieving liftoff. The final contradiction is between war as the historical method of settling conflicts and its present illegitimacy. The logic of force is essentially escalatory. It is difficult to impress upon nationalistically inflamed passions the enormous disparity between the ends sought, the means used, and the price paid. Milosevic’s decade-long quest for Greater Serbia is the perfect metaphor for the gap between goals, means and results. |
