What happened in Rwanda? posted by Richard Seymour

• While the killings were initiated by the FAR (government forces) in response to the RPF invasion, the bulk of those killed were not Tutsis but Hutus. The findings support the caim that the FAR bears responsibility for the "vast majority" of killings. However, he pattern of killings suggests that a programme of anti-Tutsi genocide was not responsible for all, or even most, of the deaths. The genocide caused, by their estimate, 100,000 of a total of 1 million deaths, with the remainder attributable to civil war, localised struggles for power, revenge killings and so on.
• In addition, the RPF itself bears significant responsibility for a significant tranch of the killings and behaved as an army of conquest, not of liberation. It did not merely carry out "spontaneous revenge killings", but large-scale massacres in, eg, refugee camps. Moreover, the killings in FAR-controlled territories abated dramatically whenever the RPF relented, thus belying the idea that the invasion had to continue to save lives.
• When the initial statistical data was disclosed to the prosecution, they rapidly lost interest in that kind of research and decided to rely on testimonies instead. They also attempted to obstruct the release of maps detailing FAR military bases, which would provide further evidence as to the pattern and nature of killings.
• When the researchers were going about their tasks, they were arrested and detained by the Rwandan military, who questioned them for a day about their motives and who they were working for. When they presented their findings regarding the pattern of killings and the victims to a conference in Kigali, they were interrupted by a member of the armed forces, who advised them that the Minister of Information had taken exception to their findings and that they were to be deported the following day, never to return to Rwanda. Following the conference, the prosecution team abruptly dropped the two researchers. The Kagame government and the prosecution has since worked to ensure that there is a single-minded, purblind focus on the FAR suspects, and none at all on the RPF.

Labels: civil war, genocide, hutu, ictr, kagame, rpf, rwanda, tutsi, US imperialism

Perpetual Peace and the End of History posted by Richard Seymour

Have a look at the following charts, the first from a study by the University of Maryland's Center for International Development and Conflict Management entitled, 'Peace and Conflict 2003' (click to enlarge):





From these, you would gather that there has been a rapid drop in warfare of all kinds since 1992, and that wars are a risk principally in poor countries without liberal institutions. On that basis, you might concur with the Prime Minister's Strategy Unit that, while the risks of war will resurge in context-specific settings, 'globalisation' is slowly guiding us toward a more stable (and less impoverished) future. In this view, the role of stable liberal capitalist states is to manage the occasional crises as societies graduate toward fuller integration into the global economy with liberal institutions and guaranteed property rights. The 'old battles' of left and right thus dispatched, it will be a relatively simple matter to maintain perpetual peace and remove the means of coercion to the background of human societies. This is the kind of doctrine that the former diplomat Robert Cooper promulgates: "there are pre-modern states - often former colonies - whose failures have led to a Hobbesian war of all against all: countries such as Somalia and, until recently, Afghanistan. Second, there are post-imperial, postmodern states which no longer think of security primarily in terms of conquest. A third kind are the traditional 'modern' states such as India, Pakistan or China which behave as states always have, following interest, power and raison d'état." It goes without saying, which is why he doesn't say it, that liberal European and North American capitalist states are the 'postmodern' ones who never think about things such as conquest (but should, in his view).

It is not quite so simple, according to Christopher Cramer's book Civil War Is Not A Stupid Thing. For instance, consider another set of figures devised through a different lens. The Uppsala Conflict Database provides an invaluable amount of free data on the level, range and types of global conflict. Here are couple of charts from their site (click to enlarge):





The trend in the rate of conflicts is the same for both high and low-intensity warfare. While it is clear that the rates of warfare did decline after 1992, the drop is nowhere near as sharp, and it remains at roughly the level it was before the highest point of conflict during the 1980s. The number of interstate wars declines, while the number of 'internal' wars increases. As Cramer observes, these analytical frames are not merely descriptive: to describe a war as 'internal' is to direct the focus to a particular aspect of conflict and away from others. If a war is largely fought within a given terrain, largely by actors indigenous to it or nearby, this does not mean that international forces are not powerfully involved: consider the 'civil war' in Nicaragua throughout the 1980s, or indeed any number of conflicts in which the US, UK and France in particular have intervened in or stimulated, or orchestrated. Their armies may not be involved, and increasingly we rely on private mercenaries (as per Sandline International or Blackwater USA). Yet they are directly involved. There are also wars waged by states against non-state movements, and in the past these would have been classified as 'extra-systemic' (anti-colonial wars in particular). This category has disappeared largely as imperial territories acquired the character of nation-states. Yet what if Chechnya were to win its war for independence? What is now considered a civil war within Russia would be an extra-systemic one. When did war begin, and when did it end, in Iraq? The US had been rapidly escalating a campaign of systematic bombing coupled with sanctions throughout the 1990s, arguably a state of de facto low-level, highly asymmetrical war, with Iraq's luckless inhabitants as hostages. There are forms of mass state-led orchestrations of violence, such as Gujarat in 1992 and 2002, which are not classified as civil war because they are directed against civilians and pose no threat to the state at any stage. Additionally, some wars that originate as civil wars progress into genocide rapidly, as in Rwanda. A further observation is that the extraordinary peak of conflict during the 1980s and at the end of the Cold War doesn't represent a sharp increase in the outbreak of wars so much as an accumulation of them over fifty years, which suggests that these wars have been extremely difficult to end once initiated. In other words, the two perceptions that war is becoming less frequent and less intense, and that war is limited to areas with weak states and 'underdeveloped' economies, are fundamentally unsound. Cramer adds there are too few observable trends to make many useful generalisations about what we might expect in the future. The variety of wars characterised as civil wars is far too broad in terms of origins, casualties, battle intensity, social actors involved, causes etc to produce secure categories.

Yet, one such category has proven to be rather popular with a certain kind of post-Cold War liberal - people like Mary Kaldor, Martin Shaw and Hans Magnus Enzenburger, who had been Leftists while there remained a Soviet Union - and that is the 'new war'. In this view, wars are unpolitical, usually organised around 'identity' rather than a clear programme of social change, brutal beyond any limit that might be imposed by international law or political norms - essentially a form of extended criminal activity, leeching off global financial and commodity networks in what is ominously described as 'black globalisation'. The theorists of 'new wars' also look to a post-military age, even if they are slightly less willing to accept overt empire than people like Robert Cooper. However, the empirical basis of their claims has been comprehensively undermined, as discussed here. The rate of civil wars was certainly not increasing during the period of the 'new wars'; their barbarity was on the whole a little bit less intense than Cold War ventures; the prominence of 'identity' politics wasn't absent in the Cold War period and was then, as it is now, intermingled with other political programmes (the Anglo-French axis in African politics has long outlived the colonial era and the Cold War, while the secessionism of Croatian leaders was not more important than the secessionism of Moise Tshombe in the Congo); and transnational financial and commodity flows were at least as important if not more so than during the Cold War ('conflict diamonds' being an analogue of 'conflict heroin').

Cramer has an interesting approach, which is to regard these wars on a continuum of violence that extends right into liberal democratic polities, from outright civil war in Mozambique, in which the establishment of property rights was every bit as conflictual as it was in Cromwell's Ireland, to sustained low-level class violence in Brazil, with perpetual clashes with the MST and favelas for instance, to sporadic clashes between strikers and the army in South Africa and ongoing forms of social violence in Europe and the United States. Social peace is maintained in advanced capitalist societies by organised violence that is usually extruded from the explicit theatre of politics. Yet there are examples of extreme domestic state violence, usually where population groups are seen to disrespect the fundamental (until then, apparently harmless) boundaries of property-based societies. The attacks on Waco or on the MOVE organisation in the US are two such instances. But the most violent periods in the history of modern liberal polities has been in the prolonged transition to capitalism: the enclosures, the revolts, the enslavement and colonisation, the class warfare, the mass hangings, the genocides and so on. Contempory conflict in 'developing' nations can thus be understood as part of the process of the "primitive accumulation" of capital. The 1975-1992 Mozambican civil war, mentioned before, is thus seen as being driven by a conflict over the accumulation of land and the establishment of conditions for successful capitalist agriculture. Aside from the specific business of acquiring and converting property into capital, the overal process of transition produces turmoil. Karl Polanyi observed that without the intervention of Tudor and Stuart states, the conversion to a market society, the enclosures, the transformation of humanity and land into capital, would have been a disaster sufficient to wipe out most of Europe's human beings.

Several new phases in this so-called "primitive accumulation" have been opened up in recent years: the clean sweep in Russia and Eastern Europe; the neoliberalisation in India and Latin America; the reconstitution of private capitalist class power in China; the rapid acceptance of neoliberalism by nominally leftist parties in most advanced capitalist states etc. The aggressive programmes of the happily defunct Multilateral Agreement on Investment, and similar initiatives by the World Trade Organisation, seek to extend this process. These policies don't necessarily cause wars in and of themselves any more than they cause the process of "primitive accumulation", but they have the capacity to aggravate an already existing set of conditions, or interact with other elements (such as arms and commodities markets, financial flows, 'ethnic' or identitarian tensions etc). Cramer's argument thus rebukes both the liberal view of violence as something surpassed by (post)modern states, and the liberal view of development as something that is technical, and can be achieved with a careful management of pain and consequences by very knowledgeable graduates from Oxford or MIT. Development is a deeply political process with powerful motors toward violent conflict, and capitalist development is not less so than any other kind despite the formal disavowal of political violence in capitalist ideology. The process of transition, it should be said, is not one with a determinate end. At no point is every form of commons enclosed and privatised, and nor could it be: there remain struggles over who will possess how much, what will belong to all and what will belong to a few, what conditions will apply to the labour force and how oppressed groups will be treated within the social hierarchy. And, as it is a crisis-ridden system, managed and sustained in large part by the projection of extreme force, the fantasy of perpetual peace and a post-military society is (at least this side of the socialist revolution) a dense revisionist palimpsest that papers over centuries of historical reality.

Labels: capitalism, civil war, clash of civilisations, end of history, peace, war

That friend/enemy distinction again. posted by Richard Seymour

Friends and enemies, my spotted arse. If your name is Nick Cohen, or Christopher Hitchens, and you wish to preserve the delicate ecology of your delusions about Islamofascism being the one true and original cause of all Bush's various distributions of belligerence and affection, kindly look away now. You want to know what matters in Sudan, apart from the oil in the south of the country? This stuff:



Who would want that? Coca-Cola. Oh, of course, the article claims (on the basis of nothing more solid than company denials) that Coca-Cola does not trade in gum arabic with Sudan. In other words, Coca-Cola has unilaterally, without any legal pressure to do so, and in considerable secrecy, disinvested from its main supplier of a staple ingredient of its product. What are the odds? Well, what the article doesn't mention is that when sanctions were first applied to Sudan ten years ago, after bin Laden had fled the country, Coca-Cola was among those who pressed for and won an exemption for gum arabic. Sudan produces most of the world's gum arabic, about 80%. It is used by the producers of drinks, inks, chewing gum, gummed sweets and so on to maintain consistency in the product at various temperatures or to stop it from getting too sticky. Since it is actually the main import from Sudan to the US, exempting gum arabic was pretty much abandoning the sanctions policy. This is probably why Khartoum felt confident in replying to Bush's threat of sanctions that it would take away the nation's number one counter-dental weapon. At any rate, Coca-Cola would not have purchased the substance directly from the Gum Arabic Co Ltd based in Sudan: it would have use of US-based import services like Import Services Co Ltd. If it matters, Coca-Cola does have several plants in the country, exploiting legal loopholes that it probably lobbied for in the first place. There is nothing, I protest, unique at all about this, or about Coca-Cola. Pfizer also have an interest in the matter, as do newspaper producers and various others. These chaps are used to making their highly profitable commodities with vital inputs from places where the struggle over control of a substance intersects with class struggle and forms of harsh oppression. What the hell would compel them to behave otherwise? Oh, sure, Bashir is an enemy today. Yeah yeah yeah.

And interesting side-note of this is that one of the great humanitarian US capitalists, the cuddly sweetheart Warren Buffet, is the largest single shareholder in Coca-Cola (and until recently was on its board), and has many shares in the PetroChina Oil Company which is of course one of the main investors in the Sudanese oil industry. His main profit-making enterprise, the Berkshire Hathaway company, which made almost $100bn revenues last year, is a co-owner of the Washington Post. The Washington Post, is of course, one of the main vectors for articles alerting readers to 'genocide' in Darfur and clamouring for an American war. But since the Washington Post is printed with ink, it is highly likely that it makes use of one of the many suppliers of gum arabic that trade with the Gum Arabic Company. Anyway, while Buffet has been funding the Sudanese government's war on rebels in various ways, he has also devoted a huge amount of the fortune he has amassed to the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation To Civilise The Non-Adult Races. They are currently sponsoring an immunisation project in Darfur, god love them. So, yes, let's recap: the 'West' fights wars for 'values', in an existential struggle with 'the enemy', and the Washington Post articulates those 'values' while Coca-Cola symbolises them. Warren Buffet is the single largest beneficiary of them, and thus defends liberal institutions and free markets at all costs. The 'enemy' fights wars for 'values' also, although pre-modern barbarian ones. Mired in its lousy particularism, its bureacracy, its Oriental Despotism, it cannot be reconciled at any length with American Values™. Hence, the existential struggle.

Labels: capitalism, civil war, imperialism, loot, sudan

On not saving Darfur posted by Richard Seymour

The Save Darfur Coalition are experiencing massive turmoil after alienating aid workers by running a series of advertisements funded by anonymous sponsors, in which they called for armed intervention and strong sanctions, and claimed to be representing aid agencies that they did not in fact represent:

Sam Worthington, the president and chief executive of InterAction, a coalition of aid groups, complained to Mr. Rubenstein by e-mail that Save Darfur’s advertising was confusing the public and damaging the relief effort.

“I am deeply concerned by the inability of Save Darfur to be informed by the realities on the ground and to understand the consequences of your proposed actions,” Mr. Worthington wrote.

He noted that contrary to assertions in its initial ads, Save Darfur did not represent any of the organizations working in Darfur, and he accused it of “misstating facts.” He said its endorsement of plans that included a no-flight zone and the use of multilateral forces “could easily result in the deaths of hundreds of thousands of individuals.”

Another aid group, Action Against Hunger, said in a statement last week that a forced intervention by United Nations troops without the approval of the Sudanese government “could have disastrous consequences that risk triggering a further escalation of violence while jeopardizing the provision of vital humanitarian assistance to millions of people.”

Aid groups also complain that Save Darfur, whose budget last year was $15 million, does not spend that money on aid for the long-suffering citizens of the region.

So, they've fired the executive director and re-organising the bureaucracy. The Save Darfur elite has principally been Christian fundamentalists and Zionist leaders, and haven't been particularly apt at contributing to peace in Darfur in the past. I have argued before that armed intervention would be a disaster, but there is a current of liberal opinion which buys Bush's sincerity in the matter and hopes for some sort of military intervention in the form of no-fly zones (and check out that headline, by the way). This is not as unlikely as a full-scale war or bombardment, even though I am sure Bush is merely flattering a couple of key Republican constituencies. Blair was said to be pushing no-fly zones as a preparatory for military intervention earlier this year. A US senator who has returned from a photo-op tour of a refugee camp in Darfur has called for a no-fly zone.

Aside from ignoring the advice of aid groups who are working in the area, this suggestion is noticeably indifferent to the people it is supposed to be designed to help. It might make liberals feel good to demand the use of force when there are plainly atrocities going on. It certainly overcomes the feeling of helplessness to imagine that the President of the most militarily powerful nation of the world might be on your side. But such a policy is not only impracticable, in that it expects no-fly zones to be imposed over a region almost the same size as France, and not only destructive since it threatens to stop or dramatically curtail aid flights. It effectively puts international forces in charge of a substantial portion of Sudan, rather than empowering the residents of Darfur themselves. And it inaugurates de facto, and sustained, military confrontation with the government of Sudan, which would have potentially catastrophic consequences. It is an imperialist policy, that is, not a solution that has been conceived with a view to enhancing the condition of Darfurians on any front. As I've said, there is another way to go about solidarity with the oppressed of Darfur - support the resistance. If you really think the resistance are right, and the government wrong, in the current civil war then support the right side and send your aid to them. Contact representatives of the oppositional movements and try to find out if and how you can help. If you think neither side is right, then support pacification and negotiations.

Labels: 'humanitarian intervention', civil war, darfur, imperialism, islamism

Behind the new Palestinian 'civil war' posted by Richard Seymour

Outbreaks of violence anywhere in the world are, axiomatically, the doing of "men of vah-lence" (you've got to say it in your best BBC accent). These are either non-state actors, or from the wrong states. Palestine's latest outbreaks of factional warfare are the work of such men, while Israel's air strikes - as always 'retaliation', in this case for some pathetic Qassam rocket attacks - are not. The latter have generated threats of suicide attacks from Hamas, which is presumably an exercise in inter-organisational positioning rather than a serious attempt to cow Israel - although, as it happens, Gambetta's 'rational choice theory' account of Palestinian suicide attacks presents plenty of evidence that there are some limited strategic advantages to this form of combat.

At any rate, don't you think it's odd that after months of a unity government, Hamas and Fatah are once again at each other's throats? Yeah, me too. Couldn't be anything to do with this, could it? Title: "Document details 'US' plan to sink Hamas". Quote:

On April 30, the Jordanian weekly newspaper Al-Majd published a story about a 16-page secret document, an "Action Plan for the Palestinian Presidency" that called for undermining and replacing the Palestinian national-unity government.

The document outlined steps that would strengthen Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, build up Palestinian security forces under his command, lead to the dissolution of the Palestinian Parliament, and strengthen US allies in Fatah in a lead-up to parliamentary elections that Abbas would call for early this autumn.

The Majd document is based on a Jordanian government translation of a reputed US intelligence document that was obtained by the newspaper from a Jordanian government official. The document, an official at the newspaper said, was drawn up by "Arab and American parties" and "presented to Palestinian President Abbas by the head of an Arab intelligence agency". The document is explosive.

Should Abbas give his agreement to the plan - which is not yet certain - he would be complicit in a program to undermine his own government.

Understanding the implications of the document, Jordanian government officials ordered that the publisher's printing house stop the presses while that edition's plates were confiscated. "The Jordanian security services, which censor newspapers in advance, intervened during the night to stop our print-run," confirmed Fahd Al Rimawi, an editor at Al-Majd.

On May 1, the Jordanian government explained its decision in a statement issued by the president of the Jordanian Press Association, Tareq al-Moumani. The statement claimed that Al-Majd had repeatedly published reports "based on information taken from intelligence sources and offends the country's security and interests".

Time magazine's Tony Karon reckons that there is a move by the thuggish Fatah minister for state security, Mohammed Dahlan - "Washington’s anointed favorite" as potential "Palestinian Pinochet" - to sieze power. It has been suspected in some quarters that Dahlan takes cash from the CIA (and it would be surprising if they weren't backing the 'moderates'), while Elliot Abrams - co-responsible for the Venezuelan coup attempt - devised Washington's plan to arm Fatah factions against Hamas. So, we could be talking about another coup effort underway.

Labels: civil war, coup, fatah, hamas, Israel, palestine