Do the suffering people of Burundi a
favour in their ongoing civil war; don’t help them
Burundi seems to be sliding into
chaos. Innocent civilians are being killed in droves. News reports from the
capital, Bujumbura, are both sickening and horrifying. Everyone wants the
international community to do something. It is human nature to be revolted by
such human suffering and desire to do something to save the lives of innocents
who become victims of such madness. But this human instinct for kindness is
rarely a basis for good policy. On the contrary, contemporary history is
replete with examples of interventions to save human lives that make a bad
situation worse.
In 2003, the U.S.government and her
“coalition of the willing” overthrew Iraq’s President Saddam Hussein claiming
(among other things) that they wanted to remove a dictator who was killing his
own people and establish a democracy. This utopian dream collapsed on the
blood-soaked streets of Baghdad in a brutal civil war that the U.S. allies
lost. There was another foreign intervention to “save the people of Libya” from
Muammar Gadhafi led by the UK and France with the U.S. behind them. Today the
state in Libya has collapsed and anarchy rules that land. As I write this
article, there is an outcry that the government of Bashar Al Assad in Syria is
killing its own people. But foreign intervention to “save lives” has inflicted
more death and human suffering.
The evidence that foreign
intervention does not work is overwhelming. Even where there are no ulterior
motives, such interventions often lead to disaster. The most genuine foreign
intervention I know was Tanzania’s invasion of Uganda to remove Idi Amin. It
led to state collapse and anarchy. And it was not until President Julius
Nyerere withdrew Tanzanian troops from Uganda and left Milton Obote and Yoweri
Museveni to tussle it out in Luwero that a solution became possible. That
solution was the decisive military victory of NRA over UNLA. It laid the
foundation for a stable Uganda.
The most dispassionate and sobering
argument on how to resolve civil wars was made by Edward Luttwak in a 1999
article titled `Give War a Chance’ in Foreign Affairs. Luttwak argued that left
alone, a conflict is able to “run its course” and end when one group is strong
enough to win decisively or when both groups are sufficiently exhausted and
therefore willing to accommodate one another. “War brings peace only after a
culminating phase of violence,” Luttwak wrote, “Hopes of military success must
fade for accommodation to become more attractive than further combat.”
Available evidence supports
Luttwak’s hypothesis. My friend Jeremy Weinstein (now deputy US ambassador to
the UN) has shown that in the civil wars that took place on this planet between
1945 and 2000, war did not recur in 85 percent of the countries that
experienced military victory, while war resumed in 50 percent of the conflicts
settled by means of negotiation. The hazard of another war drops by over 80
percent when there is a decisive military outcome compared to 32 percent when
there are UN peacekeepers.
The reason why foreign interventions
often fail is because of the tendency of the international community to
prescribe one solution for every country regardless of circumstances and
context. First, a ceasefire between the belligerents,second a power-sharing
arrangement and third, elections on a multiparty basis. Power sharing
arrangements tend to break down (as we have seen with Burundi now) because
those who constitute them often tend to retain the capacity for resorting to
civil war. On the other hand, victory destroys the loser’s organization, making
it difficult to resume war.
Prof. James Fearon at Stanford
University has shown that of the roughly 55 civil wars fought for control of a
central government between 1955 and 2005, 75 percent ended with a military
victory for one side. Only in 16 percent of the cases did a power-sharing
arrangement work. Fearon argues that power-sharing agreements rarely work in
large part because civil wars cause combatants to be organized in a way that
produces mutually reinforcing fears and temptations: combatants are afraid that
the other side will use force to grab power and at the same time are tempted to
use force to grab power by themselves.
Civil wars are more difficult to end
by negotiation compared to interstate wars. This is because interstate
combatants can always retreat to their territories. However, civil warriors
must live together after the killings stop. This makes compromise extremely
difficult in large part because the stakes are the control of the new
government, making the contest a matter of life and death.This is not to say
that foreign interventions do not work. Rather, the conditions that make them
work are rare and difficult to recreate.
From the above, we can say that the
most realistic, even though equally the most painful solution is to let
Burundians fight to the bitter end. I have utmost confidence in the people of
Burundi, that left on their own they will resolve their current instability
themselves. The struggle may be long and bloody. But that may be the necessary
price the people of Burundi have to pay in order to secure lasting peace.
Foreign help may achieve short-term humanitarian objectives but only at the
price of undermining the incentives that create a durable solution to the
political problem of that country.
Most of those calling for foreign
intervention in Burundi are certainly well meaning and kind people. I admire
their feelings but disagree with their conclusion.The road to hell is often
paved with good intentions. If external powers intervene to end killings in
Burundi, the internal forces seeking a violent resolution of the conflict will
not die away. Instead they will most probably go into abeyance until foreign
forces leave and they resort to war. In other words, foreign powers will only
postpone but will most probably not end Burundi’s carnage.
Burundi is back on the throes of
civil war today because of prior foreign intervention, which imposed a solution
on the belligerents through the Arusha peace process. Those calling for foreign
intervention see the people of Burundi as victims of bad government. Foreign
intervention will make them passive recipients of international charity. I want
the people of Burundi to be active participants in their own emancipation. It
is only by taking charge of their destiny (even at a high human cost) that a
lasting solution will emerge. My solution is painful but realistic. The rest is
bunk.
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