EDITORIAL Imagining a nonviolent response in Sierra
Leone
The world communitys lack of
imagination as to how to respond when nations deteriorate into chaos is nowhere
more clear today than in Sierra Leone, where an eight-year-long civil war is
once again spawning a now-familiar cycle of refugees and mass killings.
Though its hard to know these days what might shock the
conscience of the world, the levels of brutality in this conflict are beyond
horrific. Troops loyal to one rebel leader routinely chop off the hands or arms
of civilians they suspect of supporting an opponent as the countrys
president. Wielding machetes and axes, these butchers operate under the slogan
no hand, no more vote.
Lest this seem a form of specifically African savagery, it should
be noted that severing the limbs of critics was a technique pioneered by the
Belgians decades ago to administer the Congo.
In part, the killing goes on because the major powers arent
interested. Buried in a May 10 article in The New York Times was this
line from a Clinton administration official: What is the United
States national interest in Sierra Leone? There arent any, other
than humanitarian interests. The best the United States has mustered is
an offer to airlift peacekeeping troops from someplace else into the combat
zone.
The British, whose colony Sierra Leone was until 1961, have
likewise sent in troops to extricate their citizens, but have declined to get
involved in the conflict itself. A U.N. peacekeeping force is poorly organized
and inadequately maintained.
Troops from neighboring African nations, especially Nigeria, might
be able to restore order, but for how long? Eventually a scramble would be on
for control of Sierra Leones lucrative diamond resources, which could
easily ignite a new and more dangerous form of regional conflict, as is
unfolding today in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (formerly Zaire).
The problem, of course, is that any application of military force
to stop the bloodshed will be seen to advantage one side, one nation or
interest group, at the expense of another; and thus the seeds of new violence
are sown.
What is the road not taken in this situation? Perhaps it is time
to renew a proposal first floated during the Kosovo crisis in a paper by
longtime peace activist Karl Meyer (NCR, June 18, 1999).
In the case of conflict such as that engulfing Sierra Leone,
Meyers plan called on the U.N. Security Council to identify the
conditions for a just settlement. The secretary general would then assemble a
nonviolent army ... led by influential and persuasive figures in the
world community. These figures might include religious leaders such as
Anglican Bishop Desmond Tutu, retired presidents Jimmy Carter and Mikhail
Gorbachev, or civil rights veterans such as John Lewis and Andrew Young. This
nonviolent brigade would put itself between the combatants,
physically, and then open negotiations based on the Security Council
principles.
The idea is that the moral and political prestige of these
leaders, combined with the intense global scrutiny their presence would create,
would impel all parties to a nonviolent solution. Because that solution will
not have been brokered down the barrel of a gun, it will not be interpreted as
a victory for the United States, Nigeria or any other nation.
Advocates of Realpolitik might see such a plan as fanciful.
But as Auxiliary Bishop Thomas Gumbleton of Detroit said during the Kosovo
crisis, Weve been conditioned to think of violence as realistic and
pacifism as naïve, even though evidence to the contrary is all around
us.
Gumbleton, who said he would be willing to take part in such a
nonviolent brigade, acknowledged the potential cost of such an effort. Of
course it involves a risk to your own life, he said. We ask
military people to lay their lives on the line, and we must be willing to make
the same commitment.
It is impossible to predict whether such a nonviolent strategy
might work in Sierra Leone. It is distressing, however, that in all the
situation rooms and think tanks where alternatives are explored, this one
doesnt get a hearing.
National Catholic Reporter, May 19,
2000
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