Peoples Under Threat

Peoples under Threat
by Mark Lattimer
With 2005 marking the 60th anniversary of the liberation of the Nazi death camps, the 90th anniversary of the destruction of the Armenians, the 30th anniversary of the inauguration of Pol Pot's 'Year Zero' in Cambodia and the 10th anniversary of the Srebrenica massacre, world leaders were invited on numerous occasions during the year to reflect on human capacity to engage in mass killing. In general their speeches were dignified, often touching, and always ringing with the resolution that 'never again' must such terrible events be allowed to happen. Some of these statements, by the representatives of states who hold a permanent seat on the UN Security Council, are quoted below. Any reference to situations of current concern was avoided.
The promises of 'never again', made by states in an unparalleled position of power in the world, beg a number of important questions. These include: Will it happen again? (or even, Is it happening again?) and What is being done to prevent it from happening again? Answers to these questions will be explored in the pages below.
Every genocide or episode of mass killing is unique, produced by a particular combination of human agency and socio-political circumstances at a given moment in history.
otwithstanding Primo Levi's point that 'It happened, therefore it can happen again', nothing has occurred in the last 60 years since the Second World War that resembles the Nazi Holocaust. But there have been several episodes of mass ethnic killing, and if the promise of 'Never again' means anything at all, it must indicate a commitment to prevent current or future attempts to destroy an entire people or engage in mass killing or other atrocities targeted at a particular group.
History has demonstrated that, in most cases, the targeted group will constitute a minority. Where the ruling elite has an ideology informed by ethnic or religious nationalism, minorities may find themselves defined outside the concept of the 'nation' or the 'people'. Politicians may use them as convenient scapegoats for social or economic ills. Territories rich in natural resources that governments wish to exploit may be inhabited by indigenous peoples who thus present an obstacle to the government. Territorial minorities who respond to marginalization by seeking a greater measure of self-governance may be subjected to policies of violent repression or even extermination.
top
Identifying risk factors for ethnic killing
Attempts to predict the occurence of genocide or mass killing, or at least to identify the main predisposing factors, have become much more sophisticated over the last decade. These generally started from the analysis of past episodes of mass killing to isolate social, political or economic factors that were common to all, or most cases. More systematic efforts to test various hypotheses, including through quantitative techniques, were pioneered in the mid-1990s by Helen Fein ('Accounting for Genocide after 1945: Theories and Some Findings', Intl. Journal of Group Rights 1, 1993), R J Rummel ('Democracy, Power, Genocide and Mass Murder', Journal of Conflict Resolution 39, 1995) and Matthew Krain ('State-Sponsored Mass Murder: the Onset and Severity of Genocides and Politicides', Journal of Conflict Resolution 41, 1997). Rummel's principal finding was the strong relationship between concentration of government power and state mass murder: 'In other words, power kills, and absolute power kills absolutely'. Krain accepted the importance of focusing on authoritarian regimes, but he argued that this did not help in predicting the onset of killing, or its severity, which were rather correlated with wars, de-colonization processes, extra-constitutional change and other 'openings in the political opportunity structure'.
Following the failure of the US and other members of the UN Security Council to take action to halt the Rwandan genocide in 1994, the Clinton administration launched a policy initiative on genocide early warning and prevention. The Central Intelligence Agency commissioned Professor Barbara Harff of the US Naval Academy, working with the US State Failure Task Force, to construct and test models of the antecedents of genocide and political mass murder and her results were published in 2003 ('Assessing Risks of Genocide and Political Mass Murder since 1955', American Political Science Review 97, February 2003). Her optimal model identifies six preconditions that make it possible to distinguish, with 74 per cent accuracy, between internal wars and regime collapses in the period 1955 - 1997 that did, and those that did not, lead to genocide and political mass murder (politicide). The six preconditions are: political upheaval; previous genocides or politicides; exclusionary ideology of the ruling elite; autocratic nature of the regime; minority character of the ruling elite; and low trade openness.
Harff recently applied a variant of the model to a list of countries identified as having serious armed conflicts or other political crises at the start of 2005, albeit using data from 2003 and 2002. In three states all but one of the risk factors were present: Sudan, Burma and Algeria. In Burundi, Rwanda and Ethiopia all but two of the risk factors were present, and in a further seven states all but three were present: the Democratic Republic of Congo, Uganda, Afghanistan, Pakistan, China, Angola and Sri Lanka (see 'Assessing Risks of Genocide and Politicide' in Monty G Marshall and Ted Robert Gurr, Peace and Conflict 2005, CIDCM, University of Maryland).
Focusing on countries in a state of ongoing conflict or crisis is interesting because most, although not all, episodes of mass ethnic or religious killing occur during armed conflicts. War provides the state of emergency, domestic mobilization and justification, international cover, and in some cases the military and logistic capacity, that enables massacres to be carried out. These factors were all present in the Rwandan genocide, as they are in the current crisis in Darfur in Sudan. Some massacres, however, occur in peacetime, or may accompany armed conflict from its inception, presenting a problem to risk models that focus too heavily on current conflicts. In addition, severe and even violent repression of minorities may occur for years before the onset of armed conflict provides the catalyst for larger scale killing, as the very different cases of the Jews in Nazi Germany and the ethnic Albanians in Kosovo in the 1990s illustrate.
The state is the basic unit of enquiry in most early warning models, rather than particular ethnic or religious groups at risk. This too has an important theoretical justification, in that governments or militias connected to the government are responsible for most cases of genocidal violence. Formally, the state will reserve to itself the monopoly over the means of violence, so that where non-state actors are responsible for widespread or continued killing, it usually occurs with either the complicity of the state or in a 'failed state' situation where the rule of law has disintegrated. Certain characteristics at the level of the state will greatly increase the likelihood of atrocity, including habituation to illegal violence among the armed forces or police, prevailing impunity for human rights violations, official tolerance or encouragement of hate speech against particular groups, and in extreme cases, prior experience of mass killing. In the cases of inter alia Sudan, Iraq, China and Indonesia, which all experienced repeated episodes of mass killing in the last half century, different groups were targeted by the state at different times. Egregious episodes of mass killing targeted principally at one group have also seen other groups deliberately decimated or destroyed, including the Roma and other groups under Nazi rule, Syriac Christians during the genocide of the Armenians in the Ottoman empire, and the Twa during the genocide of Rwanda's Tutsis.
However, some groups may experience higher levels of discrimination and be at greater risk than others in any given state. The Minorities at Risk (MAR) project developed by Ted Robert Gurr at the University of Maryland contains information on some 280 groups and includes a scale estimate of the political and economic discrimination they face. The principal measure of risk developed by the project relates to the 'risk of ethnic rebellion', however, rather than to the risk of mass killing. (The existence of an armed rebellion does of course increase the chances of violent repression against a group.)
One indicator that has been tested and discarded by a number of studies is the general level of ethnic or cultural diversity in a society. Krain did not find any correlation between 'ethnic fractionalization' and the onset of genocide or political mass killing. Similarly, neither of the patterns of ethnic diversity tested by Harff had any effect on the likelihood of mass killing (although she did find the minority character of the ruling elite to be significant). These findings are supported by research on the relationship between diversity and conflict. A widely-quoted World Bank report found some evidence to suggest that certain types of ethnic or religious population distribution are more prone to violent conflict than others: 'If the largest ethnic group in a multi-ethnic society forms an absolute majority, the risk of rebellion is increased by approximately 50 per cent' and 'A completely polarized society, divided into two equal groups, has a risk of civil war around six times higher than a homogenous society'. But the study concluded that 'Substantial ethnic and religious diversity significantly reduces the risk of civil war' (Paul Collier et al., Breaking the Conflict Trap: Civil War and Development Policy, World Bank/OUP, 2003).
top
Peoples under threat 2006
Minority Rights Group International has used the advances in political science noted briefly above to identify, based on current indicators from authoritative sources, those groups or peoples most under threat at the beginning of 2006.
The overall measure is based on a basket of ten indicators, all relating to 2005. These include indicators of democracy or good governance from the World Bank, conflict indicators from the Center for International Development and Conflict Management, indicators of group division or elite factionalization from the Fund for Peace and the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, the State Failure Task Force data on prior genocides and politicides, and the OECD country credit risk classification (as a proxy for trade openness). The detailed results are presented in Table 1 in the reference section, with a description of the methodology. The top fifteen results are also summarized below.
Killing is currently underway in a number of the countries on the list, including in at least four of the top six countries. In Iraq the immediate concerns are the violent repression of those communities considered as opponents of the US-supported government (Sunnis in particular); continued targeting of Shi'a communities by Sunni insurgents, and forced displacement or intimidation of smaller minorities, including the Turkmen, Chaldo-Assyrians and other Christians. But there is also the threat of a larger civil conflict which would engulf all groups. In Sudan violent repression continues in Darfur, and in addition to the danger of collapse of the Comprehensive Peace Agreement with former rebel groups in the south, there also remains a threat to non-Arab groups in the centre and east of the country. In Burma the situation of a range of minority groups remains critical, particularly in Shan and Kayin (Karen) states, although largely unreported as international attention focuses on the plight of the political opposition in Yangon (Rangoon). In the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), a transitional process with a power-sharing government and the largest UN peacekeeping force in the world have decreased but failed to halt the killing, particularly in Ituri and the Kivus.
Côte d'Ivoire is the only state in the top fifteen which does not have a previous history of genocide or political mass killing, but the degree of ethnic polarization in the country and the prevalence of hate speech by political militias makes the situation extremely dangerous. It is notable that both Iraq and Afghanistan would almost certainly also have been high on this list five years ago, although the shift in the balance of power in both countries has brought with it a shift in the relative threat to particular groups. For Indonesia, the numerical result probably does not reflect the recent peace agreement in Aceh, although it is too early to say with any confidence that this will hold and other groups in the country remain under threat, notably in West Papua.
A range of situations are represented in the list, although repression of minorities by the state, sometimes in the context of a self-determination struggle, is by far the most common threat. In many cases there are also ethnic or religious killings perpetrated by armed opposition groups. Instances of communal violence are more rare, and often when they do occur (such as in the Hema/Lendu conflict in the DRC or as part of the Iraq conflict) it is with external involvement.
Peoples under threat are found in every major world region, although clearly concentrated more in some. Plotted on a map, an arc of danger can be seen stretching from the central belt of Africa, through the Horn, the Middle East, the Caucasus, Central Asia, and part of South Asia to South-East Asia. Some of the threats arise from sectarian conflict, although in most cases this is between co-religionists. There is thus little evidence here for a 'clash of civilizations', or a fault-line between the major world religions. However, some governments have used the 'war on terror' to justify the repression of their minorities and the long-term implications of this are becoming clearer. Besides the continued threat to global security posed by terrorism, there is a growing danger that operations undertaken as part of the international 'war on terror' will create a legacy of group grievance and instability. This phenomenon can be seen not just in Iraq and Afghanistan, but also in many other states on the list including the Russian Federation, Pakistan, central Asia and even in China and the Philippines.
Potential omissions to the full list in Table 1 were identified by taking the MAR data on group discrimination in 2003 and combining it with the data on current self-determination conflicts involving that group (see Table 2). The most significant case is the Palestinians in Israel and the Occupied Territories/Palestinian Authority. In addition to continued Israeli security operations and displacement due to the erection of the security barrier, the economic condition of the Palestinians has plummeted in recent years due to the conflict. Other situations that need to be monitored closely include that of indigenous peoples in Brazil, Mexico and Nicaragua, the Casamançais in Senegal, Lari in the Republic of Congo, Afar in Djibouti, Tuareg in Niger, and Malay-Muslims in Thailand, as well as Serbs and Roma in Croatia and Albanians in Macedonia.
Three groups in the European Union are identified with high rates of discrimination or potential conflict. It is interesting that these include non-citizen Muslims in France, the scene of recent disturbances in Paris and other major cities. The other two are the Roma in Greece, who have suffered a wave of forced evictions in 2004-5, continued low rates of education and literacy and an almost complete absence of Roma women from the labour market, and Catholics in the United Kingdom (Northern Ireland).
top
Preventing atrocities and protecting communities
The headline development over the last year concerning the prevention of mass atrocities was the agreement at the 2005 World Summit in September of the 'responsibility to protect' populations from genocide, war crimes, ethnic cleansing and crimes against humanity. This responsibility falls first on individual states, in respect of their own populations, and then on the 'international community, through the United Nations'. The UN has the responsibility to use appropriate diplomatic, humanitarian and other peaceful means to help protect populations. However, the agreement also envisages the use of force in appropriate cases, stating that the international community is 'prepared to take collective action, in a timely and decisive manner, through the Security Council, in accordance with the Charter, including Chapter VII, on a case-by case basis and in cooperation with relevant regional organizations as appropriate, should peaceful means be inadequate and national authorities are manifestly failing to protect their populations from genocide, war crimes, ethnic cleansing and crimes against humanity' (UN A/60/L.1, paras 138-9).
This represents an advance in two major respects. Firstly, it provides support to those who argue that the purpose in the UN Charter of achieving international cooperation in promoting human rights, and the obligations of member states under treaties such as the Genocide Convention, should trump the caveat in article 2.7 of the Charter that 'nothing contained in the present Charter shall authorize the United Nations to intervene in matters which are essentially within the domestic jurisdiction of any State'. While the tension in international law between the principles of human rights promotion and non-intervention will subsist, the new responsibility to protect makes it clear that in cases of egregious abuse the principle of non-intervention is not absolute. States do not have the right to kill their peoples without interference.
It is important to note that the international community must implement its responsibility to protect first through diplomatic, humanitarian and other peaceful means, before considering the use of force. Although the willingness of the Security Council to authorize force is often considered essential when confronting the threat of genocide or mass atrocity, a wide range of possible non-violent preventive measures exist, including preventive diplomacy, conciliation and mediation, in-country human rights monitoring or observation, peace-building assistance, international exposure, international pressure, aid conditionality, and consideration of sanctions or other counter-measures, as well as measures under international criminal law to punish and deter perpetrators. As recent cases have demonstrated all too clearly, military force is a very blunt instrument and may not have the effect its promoters intend.
Secondly, the responsibility to protect covers not just genocide but also 'war crimes, ethnic cleansing and crimes against humanity'. A number of debates in the Security Council regarding humanitarian intervention, most notoriously in the case of Rwanda but also more recently in the case of Darfur, have focused on the obligations and powers in the Genocide Convention to prevent and suppress acts of genocide, inviting a protracted debate about whether a particular situation meets the legal definition of the crime. The inclusion in the responsibility to protect of other crimes under international law should help to make obsolete such wrangling over definitions - a periodic source of shame to the UN and baffling to the general public. It also means that the scope of the responsibility to protect matches the subject-matter jurisdiction of the International Criminal Court, bringing the preventive and punitive regimes for international crimes in line with each other.
Regarding the implementation of preventive mechanisms, the most noteworthy developments have been the establishment of two new posts, the UN Special Adviser to the Secretary-General on the Prevention of Genocide (a position with direct access to the Security Council) in 2004, and the Independent Expert on Minority Issues, appointed by the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights in 2005. Minority Rights Group International had lobbied extensively for the creation of these mechanisms, and they represent a major if belated recognition of the centrality of minority issues to both conflict prevention and to the prevention of mass or systematic human rights violations. Support from both within and outside the UN system will be critical to their success. The mandate and operations of these posts is described in more detail in this report under International Institutions and Law.
The World Summit formally initiated a major process of UN reform, less profound than that sought by Secretary-General Kofi Annan but nonetheless significant. The reforms include the creation of two new organs - a Peacebuilding Council, and a Human Rights Council to replace the existing Commission on Human Rights - both of which hold potential for improving protection for minorities. Detailed proposals on the composition and functioning of the Human Rights Council are due early in 2006, and are expected to propose a standing body, unlike the current Commission which only meets for six weeks a year in ordinary session. Of particular importance is the ability of the new Council to develop a robust procedure for considering situations of mass or systematic violations, given that the current Commission mechanism for considering situations where there is a 'consistent pattern of gross violations of human rights', the 1503 procedure, has become thoroughly politicized and almost completely discredited. Given also the history of poor coordination between UN bodies, the links between the new bodies may be as important as anything they are empowered to do by themselves. The Human Rights Council, for example, should be able to refer situations for urgent action to the Peacebuilding Council or to the Security Council.
In the European region, the High Commissioner on National Minorities of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe has continued to undertake effective conflict prevention work. The mandate of the High Commissioner is to provide early warning and, as appropriate, action at the earliest possible stage with regard to tensions involving minority issues which have the potential to develop into a conflict. The High Commissioner is empowered to conduct on-site missions and to engage in preventive diplomacy, promoting dialogue, confidence and cooperation. This involves regular first-hand contact with both minority and government representatives.
The UN Secretary-General has in the past remarked that other continents would benefit from a similar mechanism. While it is often not appropriate to export in toto European mechanisms elsewhere in the world, important features of the OSCE High Commissioner post could be replicated elsewhere. Regional mechanisms, for example in the context of the African Union, might be more readily accepted by states than UN involvement and would certainly have the potential to facilitate preventive action and confidence-building measures at an early stage in situations of tension involving minorities.
The work of Minority Rights Group International
Kofi Annan concluded his address to the Stockholm International Forum on 26 January 2004 with an honest appraisal of the international community's state of readiness to confront mass ethnic killing: 'I long for the day when we can say with confidence that, confronted with a new Rwanda or a new Srebrenica, the world would respond effectively, and in good time. But let us not delude ourselves. That day has yet to come and we must all do more to bring that day closer.' Despite the progress that has been made since he spoke, there remains what Annan identified as a lack of political will.
The ability to identify in advance situations where peoples are under threat, combined with faster reporting than ever of the onset of violence, means that states sitting on political bodies such as the Security Council can no longer claim that they were not aware of what was happening. And a growing public interest in the human cost of war and repression, greatly aided by the broadcast media as well as by non-governmental organizations (NGOs) in nearly every country in the world, has placed increasing pressure on politicians to respond. The dissemination of systematic information about the position of minorities is an essential part of this process and a strategic objective of Minority Rights Group International. Authoritative, independent sources of information about minorities are particularly important given the fact that minority issues often become highly politicized, whether in the context of national politics, bilateral relations between states, or in the international 'war on terror'.
It is not just in situations of open conflict that this work is necessary. Much of the daily grind of human rights monitors such as UN special rapporteurs or the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights consists of tracking violations against members of minorities, although they are not always recognized as such. Most gross violations of human rights committed in the world today are targeted at groups, frequently because of their ethnic or religious identity. At the same time, it is becoming increasingly accepted that the implementation of international standards on minority rights can defuse ethnic and religious tension, both inside countries and across borders. The Carnegie Commission on the Prevention of Deadly Conflict concluded in 1997 that '...attempts at suppression [of ethnic, cultural or religious differences] have too often led to bloodshed, and in case after case the accommodation of diversity within appropriate constitutional forms has helped prevent bloodshed.'
Minority Rights Group International works with its partner organizations in over 50 countries, providing technical support to promote constitutional or legal reform, building the capacity of non-governmental organizations, campaigning against discrimination, promoting access to development opportunities, confronting the disenfranchisement of whole sectors of societies and their exclusion from decision-making. Education reform and land rights are a particular focus of this advocacy, as is countering the multiple discrimination faced by minority and indigenous women. The very fact that the marginalization suffered by many communities is routine means that their position is unlikely to receive international attention.
But communities in over a third of the countries where Minority Rights Group works have experienced mass killing in recent history. For many others, the threat is always there. Fear is an insistent component of the discrimination they face, and the long-term hopes for peace and stability in the countries where they live depend on that threat being lifted.
top
'Never again': statements made during commemorations on the 60th anniversary of the liberation of the Nazi concentration camps, January 2005
…despite our fervent promises never to forget, we know that there have been far too many occasions in the six decades since the liberation of the concentration camps when the world has ignored inconvenient truths so that it would not have to act, or when it acted too late. …even when we may find it too difficult to act, we at least have an obligation to tell the truth. …we remain hopeful that when generations to come look back on this time, they will see that we were dedicated to fulfilling the pledge that arose from the ashes of man's inhumanity toward man: Never again.
Paul WolfowitzDeputy Secretary of DefenseUnited States of America
We must never forget the victims. We must never dishonour their memory by allowing the ugly poison of racial prejudice and hatred to hold sway again. We must remember above all the Holocaust did not start with a concentration camp. It started with a brick through the shop window of a Jewish business, the desecration of a synagogue, the shout of racist abuse on the street.
Tony BlairPrime MinisterUnited Kingdom
Let us do everything we can so that people today, politicians and state leaders, are not ashamed for their words and for their deeds, so that we can be honest and open before everyone who helped to bring this victory closer at the price of their suffering, blood, tears and lives, before everyone who has remained here forever, in Auschwitz. And we are responsible for making sure that what happened here never repeats - never, nowhere and with no one.
Vladimir PutinPresidentRussian Federation
To remember is to be present. But it also means to take action. …It is for that reason that France mobilized her energies to support the adoption of the Rome Statute [of the International Criminal Court] in 1998 and why she will continue to support the principle and the permanent implementation of international criminal justice. Some forms of interference are legitimate. Crimes against humanity must find refuge and respite nowhere. France will never fail to shoulder her responsibilities, on her national territory and in the international community, in order to prevent such returns to the shadowy darkness of history.
Jacques ChiracPresidentFrance
China's ancient wisdom tells us that past events remembered can educate generations to come, that history is our mirror and guide and that true courage comes with the awareness of shame. …such tragedies should never again be allowed to happen. Good intentions are not enough. Efforts are required from all countries. … The responsibility for ensuring the common future of humanity rests heavily on the United Nations, whose role must be enhanced, not weakened, and whose authority must be upheld, not compromised. This is in the interests of the world's people; it is a duty of the world's Governments; and it is a responsibility of the world's statesmen.
Wang GuangyaChairman of delegationChina
Paul Wolfowitz and Wang Guangya were speaking at the twenty-eighth special session of the UN General Assembly in New York, 24 January 2005 (see UN A/S-28/PV.1); Vladimir Putin and Jacques Chirac at memorial events at Auschwitz - Birkenau, 27 January 2005 ; and Tony Blair at a memorial event in London, 27 January 2005.
top
1. Iraq, Shi'a, Sunnis, Kurds, Turkmen, Christians, smaller minorities, 22.04
2. Sudan, Fur, Zaghawa, Massalit and others in Darfur; Dinka, Nuer and others in South; Nuba, Beja, 21.17
2. Somalia, Issaq, Darood (Puntland), Bantu, 21.17
4. Afghanistan, Hazara, Pashtun, Tajiks, Uzbeks, 20.69
5. Burma/Myanmar, Kachin, Karenni, Karen, Mons, 20.03Rohingyas, Shan, Chin (Zomis), Wa
20.03
6. Dem. Rep. of Congo, Hema and Lendu, Hunde, Hutu, Luba, 19.61Lunda, Tutsi/Banyamulenge, Twa/Mbuti, 19.61
7. Nigeria, Ibo, Ijaw, Ogoni, Yoruba, Hausa (Muslims) and Christians in the North, 18.21
8. Burundi, Hutu, Tutsi, Twa, 17.99
9. Angola, Bakongo, Cabindans, Ovimbundu, 17.26
10. Indonesia, Acehnese, Chinese, Dayaks, Madurese, Papuans, 16.54
11. Côte d'Ivoire, Northern Mande (Dioula), Senoufo, Bete, newly-settled groups, 16.17
12. Uganda, Acholi, Karamojong, 15.84
13. Ethiopia, Anuak, Afars, Oromo, Somalis, 15.78
14. Russian Federation, Ingush, Lezgins, indigenous northern peoples, Roma, 15.64
15. Philippines, Indigenous peoples, Moros (Muslims), 15.52

Source: Minority Rights International