{"id":66254,"date":"2015-11-09T12:09:38","date_gmt":"2015-11-09T12:09:38","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/?p=66254"},"modified":"2015-11-09T12:09:38","modified_gmt":"2015-11-09T12:09:38","slug":"burundis-crisis-and-the-worlds-inability-to-prevent-violence","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/2015\/11\/burundis-crisis-and-the-worlds-inability-to-prevent-violence\/","title":{"rendered":"Burundi\u2019s Crisis and the World\u2019s Inability to Prevent Violence"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Jan<\/a>

Jan Oberg<\/p><\/div>\n

9 Nov 2015 – <\/em>The big \u2013 not great \u2013 powers of the world have embassies everywhere, plenty of intelligence services,\u00a0special forces on the ground and\u00a0satellites in space. They can even hit and kill individuals they don\u2019t like.<\/p>\n

They can intervene here and there and everywhere \u2013 particularly if they have economic or strategic interests or their own nationals are in danger.<\/p>\n

These very weeks they can squander incredible sums of taxpayers\u2019 money on new nukes and huge paranoia-based military exercises in a Europe \u2013 to which\u00a0over a million refugees come because these<\/em> big \u2013 not great \u2013 powers have contributed to the destruction of their houses, villages, life opportunities, whole countries and cultures.<\/p>\n

So it\u2019s amazing what the big ones can do. It would be impressive if it wasn\u2019t so destructive and self-defeating. Again and again.<\/p>\n

The only things they don\u2019t seem capable of, however, is to:<\/p>\n

a) fulfil their self-appointed mission called Responsibility to Protect and prevent violence where they have no interests and to<\/p>\n

b) contribute to making life better for all and create genuine peace, justice and development.<\/p>\n

Take Burundi.<\/p>\n

There is a colonial history as well as a history of genocide, extreme poverty and corruption, ten years of economic and other mismanagement under the ever more authoritarian rule of Pierre Nkurunziza.*<\/p>\n

Since April this year, there have been tons of indicators that something really bad could happen. The trained observer cannot fail to see the pattern, the incremental, systematic increase of repression of the people.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s all well summarised in this\u00a0background article.<\/p>\n

And what do the big powerful do<\/em> over 6 months with this potential crisis, possibly civil war or genocide \u2013 knowing full well about it?<\/p>\n

Absolutely nothing!<\/p>\n

Nothing except expressing concern, urge parties to talk and abstain from violence. As if it were a farce, they appoint an a priori hopeless mediator, Uganda\u2019s president over no less that 29 years, Museveni.<\/p>\n

They come up with their tired standard, counterproductive recipe: sanctions and withdrawal of aid \u2013 the latter to make sure that the poor, starving people of Burundi will suffer even more.<\/p>\n

But if there ever was a case for the Responsibility to Protect, for violence-preventive diplomacy, for a truly humanitarian intervention with military and civilian means, that case is Burundi.<\/em><\/p>\n

As far as is known, nobody has a policy for violence-prevention<\/em>\u00a0and nothing has been done to plan it, ready for implementation if\u2026<\/p>\n

There is no stand-by, ready-to-go UN or AU force, no robust deterrence against those who may set in motion the worst case scenario any day now.<\/p>\n

So trained are politicians as well as intellectuals and others in just condemning violence and deliver criticism of the local parties. Nowhere is a plan to be seen as to what could be done before it\u2019s too late.<\/p>\n

The International Crisis Group issues alerts. So does Ban Ki-moon (as pathetically as monotonously), so does the EU, Obama, Samantha Power \u2013 you name them, all the hand-wringing humanists.<\/p>\n

But what\u2019s the use of a doctor who can only make a diagnosis and prognosis but has no idea about treatment \u2013 or knows it but lets the patient die?<\/p>\n

With a few important exceptions, the media and commentators also don\u2019t get it.<\/p>\n

This graph<\/a> speaks volumes \u2013 Burundi won\u2019t hit the headlines before there is mass violence, thousands of killed and wounded Burundians (and photos of dead bodies) and hundreds of thousands of refugees.<\/p>\n

And only weeks after<\/em> that will governments in the do-good Western world begin to discuss what to do.<\/p>\n

It will, by then, be all too late.<\/p>\n

The big powers can do almost anything. If they find it important. It is simply a convenient lie that we \u2013 the world community, the UN etc \u2013 does not have the resources. Of course we have!<\/p>\n

Truth is that what is lacking is the genuine human and political will to save 10 million Burundians from mass violence, their country from ruin and decades of re-building it again.<\/p>\n

Truth is that they are black and poor, have no strategic assets and produce only bananas, coffee and tea.<\/p>\n

If a NATO country had had a huge military base in Burundi or it had had oil, you would have seen action long ago.<\/p>\n

The international so-called \u2018community\u2019 is and remains woefully incapable of doing the most important of all: prevent (mass) violence and bring professional conflict-resolution assistance and facilitate peace and justice.<\/p>\n

So are there no solutions?<\/p>\n

Of course there are \u2013 if the world was geared more to conflict-understanding, violence prevention and peace-making than to the opposite<\/em>.<\/p>\n

If there were a balance between the budgets for war\/destruction and for peace\/construction \u2013 not US $ 30 bn for the UN and US $ 1700 for the world\u2019s military. And if there were a UN as intended in the Charter \u2013 and not a UN destroyed during the last 20 years mainly by NATO countries and nation-state fundamentalists who are intellectually incapable to see the world as one and shape a policy for the common good.<\/p>\n

Of course there are alternatives. There are, in fact, only<\/em> alternatives!<\/p>\n

Think of things like: real concerted violence-preventive diplomacy; consultations, hearings, bringing the parties out of Burundi and dialogue with them.<\/p>\n

Think of deploying a deterrence force in neighbouring countries of, say, 5000-7000 robust, UN-composed military which could intervene (instead of Rwanda?) to stop the bloodbath before it is set in motion.<\/p>\n

Model: A UN police\/riot control force.<\/p>\n

Think of a genuine humanitarian intervention with military and civilian means \u2013 because the fundamental criteria is bound to be satisfied, namely:<\/p>\n

Such an intervention may sadly costs a few lives but it will, with almost 100% probability, save thousands of lives physically, save a country from destruction and save the rest of the world from a huge humanitarian\/refugee and return problem.<\/p>\n

It would save millions if not billions of dollars too.<\/p>\n

And it would strengthen, in deed and not just empty words, what we pledged in the name of civilisation after the Holocaust, Srebrenica, Rwanda and Burundi and elsewhere: It must never happen again!<\/p>\n

But is there just one government who is driven more by human concerns than by self-interest?<\/p>\n

Burundi\u2019s future will answer that question.<\/p>\n

_________________________________<\/p>\n

TFF Director Prof. Jan Oberg is a member of the TRANSCEND Network for Peace, Development and Environment<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n

Go to Original \u2013 transnational.org<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

9 Nov 2015 – The big \u2013 not great \u2013 powers of the world have embassies everywhere, plenty of intelligence services, special forces on the ground and satellites in space. They can even hit and kill individuals they don\u2019t like.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[40],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-66254","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-transcend-members"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/66254","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=66254"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/66254\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=66254"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=66254"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=66254"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}