Chasing The Flame

Facing the West from East Africa

I'm writing this blog in ballpoint pen on a piece of paper (the back of my e-ticket) as I sit in Frankfurt Airport.  This is the first of several attempts that I will make in the coming weeks to sort out my jet-happy summer in Ethiopia, Kenya, and Egypt.  I'm a grad student at the Kennedy School of Government at Harvard, and this summer, I did an internship at the U.S. Mission to the African Union in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia before traveling to Kenya to visit a friend and then going to Cairo, Egypt, where my family has lived for just over a decade.  Though I tried to write blogs during the trip, I found that I needed time to digest the experiences that I was having before I could write them down.

Topic #1
Views of Obama and the West in Ethiopia.  I was surprised to discover a much more mixed reaction to Obama's presidential win in Addis Ababa than I had expected.  I mean, sure, pass out picture-laden biography pamphlets about Obama's life at the African Union and be ready to run out of them before even half of all your other handouts are gone.  Drive down the street in Addis in an official U.S. vehicle with its distinctive license plates and be ready at any time to hear someone shout "Obama!" in your direction.  These were reactions that had I expected of the first black, half-East-African President of the United States.

However, I didn't expect some of the other comments that I heard from Ethiopian peers between ordering meals in traditional restaurants or sitting in cozy coffee joints while we waited for the violent weather to calm down during Ethiopia's rainiest season.  One Sunday afternoon, in particular, I was out with a group of new friends, all between their mid twenties and very early thirties.  Sitting inside Kaldi's, a coffee chain almost identical to Starbucks, the subject of our conversation turned rather abruptly to American politics. 

"Barack Obama is a Democrat!" one of my new friends blurted, surprising me with his accusing tone.

"Yes," I said.  No brainer.  But the guy that I was talking to was clearly disgusted and had no time for jokes.  Democrats, he said, support abortion and gay marriage.  Republicans, on the other hand, he countered, have morals.

Remembering and Looking Forward

Today marks the inauguration of World Humanitarian Day and the sixth anniversary of the bombing of the U.N. headquarters in Baghdad which killed 22 people – including Sergio.  Though that bombing marked the first time that the U.N. was the direct target of a violent attack, the loss of aid workers is sadly not a rare occurrence – according to Michael Bear at Change.org, 81 have been killed this year alone.

In the Huffington Post, Navi Pillay, head of the U.N. Commission on Human Rights, used the anniversary to make a strong argument for supporting human rights in the midst of humanitarian crises, stating, “It is very often abuse of human rights that causes humanitarian crises in the first place…Similarly, if human rights are ignored during a humanitarian crisis, the crisis will often deepen.”  And Mark Leon Goldberg of the UN Dispatch posted a moving PSA as well as a link to an op-ed by Samantha Power from a year ago today.

Tragically, today will also be marked by one of the worst days of violence in Baghdad since June, with multiple explosions across the city, and the U.N. is reporting that two civilian employees of the U.N. Assistance Mission in Afghanistan were among those killed in the attack on Kabul yesterday.  This occurs just a little over a week after the U.N. Security Council voted unanimously to renew their mission in Iraq for another year.  We previously reported that Staffan de Mistura was stepping down as chief of that mission, and we wish his successor, Ad Melkert of the Netherlands, previously an associate administrator of the U.N. Development Program, the very best in moving forward.  As CARE asks in their World Humanitarian Day Post, we all must take a serious look at why aid workers are being targeted more frequently and what we can do to ensure their safety.

Darfur: Are we willing to hold our elected officials responsible for inaction?

This week’s congressional hearings on Darfur and the quest for peace in Sudan could provide the necessary momentum for a shift in the Obama administration’s policy on the region which is currently under review.  Witnesses at the hearings included UN Ambassador Susan Rice, former U.S. Envoy to Sudan Richard Williamson,  Roger Winter, former special representative for Sudan to the deputy secretary of State, and John Prendergast and John Norris of Enough.

Winter, Williamson and Prendergast, who have been working on or in Sudan for decades, urged Congress to take a leadership position, to stand up and stand for the principles that they and many in the Obama administration upheld as they campaigned for their current positions.  They also argued that Congress had a critical role to play as the Obama administration struggled to translate the signals coming from Khartoum.  Winter, Williamson and Prendergast urged the representatives to not be fooled by these signals and to better understand how Khartoum has effectively used the international community as it has continued to wreak havoc on the people of Darfuran d the wider region.  They also urged Congress to take a leadership role in demanding a comprehensive plan for the region, to recognize that the stop, start, piecemeal work was not only not working but was playing into Khartoum’s hands.

It seems clear that the Obama administration is split on its interpretation of events in Sudan and on the best course of action to take in the region.  U.S. Special Envoy Scott Gration continues to argue for incentives (carrots) and to question whether in fact genocide is taking place in Darfur. UN Ambassador Rice takes a much firmer stand on Sudan believing, like many of the other witnesses, that sticks should be used instead and that Sudan has not earned any incentives. She also did not publicly question the legitimacy of the genocide charge. As more of these internal debates come to light, so did the stumbling of the Obama administration’s spokespeople.  If Samantha Power were to update "A Problem from Hell," there is little doubt that she would include the exchange between the press and Assistant Secretary of State for Public Affairs PJ Crowley. Watch it here, and, as you do, reflect on this exchange between the press and State Department Spokesperson Christine Shelley shown in the first few seconds of this clip. .

This infamous exchange has now appeared in books, articles, and documentaries.  It was this response to Rwanda that set the world on fire years later---as they read Philip Gourevitch’s "We Wish to Inform You that Tomorrow We Will be Killed with Our Families," Samantha Power’s "A Problem from Hell," and watched Frontline’s Triumph of Evil, Greg Barker’s "Ghosts of Rwanda," and Terry George’s feature film, "Hotel Rwanda."  It was the shock, sadness, shame and desire to not stand by while innocent people were raped, murdered and forced from their homes that inspired thousands of people — and many men and women running for office — to dare to say, “never again, not on my watch.”  Indeed, it was their belief that something could and should be done that inspired them, us, to say it.  Power was correct in her analysis: there is no political cost for standing by, for doing little or nothing, but there should be. There should be more than a moral cost, there should be a political one. But, that is up to us, the voters, and this is where the need for leadership comes in again---it's not just that Congressional leaders need to emerge and speak out, that leaders within the National Security Council need to emerge and speak out, leaders within the Obama administration need to emerge and speak out, it’s that we do.  The only cost that will matter is a political cost and that only matters if we are willing to demand payment.

Making Things Good Again

Late August 1994, the Irish Republican Army announced a ceasefire after twenty-five years of armed conflict.  A few days later, Michael Longley’s poem, Ceasefire, was published in the Irish Times, the final lines (I get down on my knees and do what must be done/ And kiss Achilles’ hand, the killer of my son) poignantly capturing the challenging, for many unimaginable, path that lay ahead. How do you live in peace after years of violence? What does it look like? What does peace sound like? How do you learn to trust ‘the other’? How is confidence restored within communities among people who feel betrayed by their ‘own’? Must the violent past be faced in order to secure peace, coexistence or forgiveness? And what role, if any, must there be for acknowledgement, responsibility, blame, punishment or justice?

Last week, I was in Northern Ireland working with staff members from WAVE Trauma Centre who are designing a course on peace-building. On Friday, their phones started ringing all at once.  It was the press, seeking comment on leaks of the Eames –Bradley Report.  Lord Robin Eames and Denis Bradley co-chair the Consultative Group on the Past. Their awesome task is to consult across the community to figure out how to deal with the legacy of the past in Northern Ireland.  The report comes out this afternoon, but based on leaks the responses have already started. They are not encouraging.

Representatives of Sinn Fein plan to skip the event. On their website, they write:

"When the Eames/ Bradley Group were first established we expressed serious reservations about the fact that it was being formed and funded by the British government. Any report it makes will go to the NIO (Northern Ireland Office) and they will make decisions on what would happen next. Despite these reservations we did meet the group and encouraged others to do likewise.

"Nationalists and Republicans will not accept the British government attempting to portray themselves as innocent bystanders in this conflict. The British government directly and indirectly through their surrogate murder gangs were active participants in the conflict and any process of truth recovery must reflect that reality.

"The fact that the Eames/Bradley group have decided to exclude the families of those killed through British State violence from today's event adds further to the sense of unease within the broad nationalist community at the direction of this group. Given this snub Sinn Féin will not be attending today's event."

Peter Robinson, the current First Minister of Northern Ireland and leader of the Democratic Unionist Party (DUP), said in anticipation of the report:

"As yet, I have not seen a copy of the group's recommendations but media reports on the issue are both disappointing and disturbing.



"Dealing with the legacy of the past is a monumental task. It must to be handled with sensitivity and due care for the needs of innocent victims with the maintenance of justice at its core. We will not allow any whitewashing of the past in order to absolve those guilty of heinous acts carried out against innocent people.



"We will not give our support to any proposal which would blur the line between the terrorist and the innocent victim nor will we accept or endorse the work of any process which would seek to absolve murderers and criminals of their guilt.

"

He added: "This process has been a waste of time. The group was urged by the DUP to recognise that Northern Ireland needed an innovative approach to deal with the past, not an imitation process from other conflicts. We will be ensuring that the Government does not insult the innocent victims of terrorism by giving any weight to
these offensive recommendations."

The launch of the report today was met by more anger, primarily focused at the proposal of a £12,000 payment for families of all those killed. Lord Eames refers to the sum as a “recognition payment.”

At the news conference, Eames said, it’s "time for society to take the final step out of conflict by dealing with the legacy of the past." "We know that one size does not fit all and we are not imposing a one size fits all approach.”  "But we are recommending... one package that offers many different options for individuals and communities."

Other recommendations include:

• An independent Legacy Commission to last five years with a £100m bursary to tackle the tasks of securing reconciliation, justice and information recovery
• Reconciliation Forum to help the Legacy Commission and the existing Commission for Victims and Survivors for Northern Ireland (CVSNI)
• The nearest relative of each person who died in the conflict should receive a £12,000 "recognition payment"
• A new Review and Investigation Unit to replace the police Historical Enquiries Team and the Police Ombudsman's unit dealing with historical cases
• No new public inquiries
• The Group did not propose an amnesty for crimes linked to the conflict, but recommended the Legacy Commission should make proposals on how a line might be drawn
• An annual Day of Reflection and Reconciliation and a shared memorial to the conflict

It’s far easier to break things than to put them back together.  Reconstruction and repair require imagination, hope and a leap of faith as well as a huge dose of patience and pragmatism.  So, after mass violence, what do you think it takes to “make things good again”?  What are the necessary ingredients? What would you recommend?

--Karen Murphy, Facing History

 
 

During the Holidays, Remembering the Forgotten

This week, my colleagues at the International Rescue Committee and I welcomed an Iraqi refugee to the United States.  A musician, he had been persecuted under the regime of Saddam Hussein.  Following the invasion of Iraq, he was harassed by insurgents and religious fundamentalists.  Finally, he fled to Turkey.  He became one of the millions of Iraqis who sought a terror-free existence and ended up living without rights in a neighboring land.

Meeting him at the airport was a deeply moving experience.  For months, the IRC had been working to bring this man to the United States.  Suddenly, he was standing right in front of me.  I know his road won’t be easy.  To resettle in America and find a job in these distressed economic times will be challenging.  Still, his is a success story, the first step on a journey realized.  At last, he can live and express his music in peace.

The International Rescue Committee has been helping people like this Iraqi gentleman for 75 years.  When the IRC was  founded in 1933, there were no refugee programs or government agencies working to ensure the safety of uprooted peoples.  Paris fell to the Nazis in 1940, and the IRC spirited thousands of refugees---many of them artists, and political and academic leaders who had suffered under Hitler---to freedom.  Leaving the airport, I couldn’t help thinking that 75 years on, while the number and diversity of the people the IRC helps has changed, our mission hasn’t.  

This is the time of year when people think about their families and want to be near their loved ones.  It’s supposed to be a time of peace.  As humanitarian workers, we’re keenly aware of all we have to do to ensure that it is.  We remember that many crises seem to hit around the holidays:  last December’s post-election carnage in Kenya.  In 2006, the escalating violence and suffering in Darfur.  We think of those who lost their lives during the Pakistan earthquake of 2005 and the Asian tsunami of 2004.  

This year, the Democratic Republic of Congo descended deeper into chaos.  Somalia became the world’s most dangerous place for aid workers.  The IRC responded to deadly floods in Ethiopia, cyclones in Myanmar and displacement caused by violent conflict in Georgia.  In Darfur, millions of Sudanese families remain displaced and in danger.  I think back to women and children I met in Darfur in 2006 and wonder where they are, if they are, today.

Of course there are bright spots.  And it’s important not to lose sight of them:  the health epidemics averted, the children educated, the rape survivors who were able to reclaim their dignity and the refugees enjoying the safety and comfort of new homes.  Still, I’m struck by what “victory” constitutes---sometimes, merely the ability to continue providing a lifeline to those living hungry, homeless and afraid.

Soon, a new president will take office.  We have high hopes that he will pay attention to humanitarian crises and increase the amount of aid that the United States devotes to them.  Our hopes are tempered by the financial crisis and a long list of other presidential priorities.  Whatever happens, the IRC stands firm on the values and commitments we have made:  helping vulnerable people on every step of their journey from harm to home.

Photo Credit: Emily Holland 

"The Disease of Misrule and Corruption"

The UN Security Council met early this week in New York, where discussion turned to the situation in Zimbabwe. Since August, a cholera epidemic has ravaged the region, killing 978 people and infecting more than 18,000. Notwithstanding the seriousness of this outbreak, this epidemic is only a symptom of the massive institutional problems facing the country today.

According to British Foreign Secretary David Miliband, it seems that "the disease of misrule and corruption" lies at the bottom of Zimbabwe's current crises.

In more general terms, UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon pointed to the lack of effective leadership as the reason for Zimbabwe’s continued woes. "We continue to witness a failure of the leadership in Zimbabwe to address the political, economic, human rights and humanitarian crisis that is confronting the country and to do what is best for the people of Zimbabwe," he said.

One of the most apparent failures has been the lack of a peaceful and equitable leadership transition.  President Mugabe lost the first round of the March presidential election to opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai; but following brutal attacks on his supporters, Tsvangirai withdrew from the run-off round. Both leaders agreed to a power-sharing arrangement in September but have since failed to form a government. Some say this is because Mugabe refuses to relinquish key ministries to his opponent. 

The AP reports that this political impasse has paralyzed public services, including water, sanitation and health systems. While the lack of clean water and sanitation fuels the cholera epidemic, a virtually collapsed health-care system can do little to contain it. Without medicine, equipment or wages for staff, most hospitals have been forced to close. According to the NYT's Celia Duggar, "The capital's two largest hospitals, sprawling facilities that once would have provided sophisticated care in just such a crisis, had largely shut down weeks earlier after doctors and nurses, their salaries rendered virtually worthless by the nation's crippling hyperinflation, simply stopped coming to work."

The Southern African Development Community (SADC) has been charged with mediating this tense situation, but neither SADC nor the Zimbabwean government sees a role for the UN in this process.  Nevertheless, Ban’s remarks to the Council implored SADC to act quickly and with stronger unity in order to end the political crisis.The talks ended without any motion to censure Mugabe, which according to BBC News was due to opposition from South Africa.

This goes to show that the lack of accountable leadership in the halls of government can have far-reaching, and in this case deadly, effects on the ground. Hopefully, South African leaders will emerge from these talks with a renewed commitment to Zimbabweans and the basic need for good health and better government.

Why aren't there more Barack Obamas?

My wife, a longtime supporter of John McCain, nonetheless grew teary-eyed with pride during Barack Obama's acceptance speech on the night of November 4. Having grown up in Africa and the Middle East, Obama displayed to her a new picture of American leadership representing those of us who have experienced the world beyond U.S. borders in a prolonged, outlook-changing way.

Of course, Obama also embodies a long-anticipated vote of confidence to many African Americans as well. It's no small feat that the United States elected its first black President.

But how? How did we get here? How did Obama overcome the barriers other black candidates have faced to muster the widespread confidence necessary among the electorate to win a presidential election?

I am convinced that a large piece of the answer is this: no president before Obama brought such varied personal experience to the office. We may think first of the way Obama brings racial diversity to the White House, but without the social capital Obama accrued during his time abroad --his diversity of geographic experience -- he likely would never have achieved what he did.

The global landscape is changing, and Americans -- many of them deeply reticent about their place in a multipolar world -- recognize nonetheless that the United States needs a leader who is well-prepared to navigate, communicate and negotiate this new international landscape.

So why aren't there more young minorities in the United States with an Obama-like international resume? Here's one reason: only 1 in 100 U.S. college students study abroad; of those who do study abroad, only 3% are African American, Hispanic or Native American. No doubt aspects of it were difficult, but Obama's unusual family background amounted to an enormous windfall, catapulting him over and above his peers -- African American and otherwise. Most minority students in the U.S. don't have access to that sort of social capital.

But there are a few bright spots -- organizations that are actively trying to give minority students the tools to understand and impact the world. The video linked above was produced by Bardoli Global, a nonprofit that brokers opportunities for African American, Hispanic and Native American students to do intensive study abroad in emerging economies, followed by almost a year of close mentoring and a professional internship. (Full disclosure: I am a member of Bardoli's board of directors and cannot resist the urge to point out that the organization is currently amidst a very exciting capital campaign. If you're interested in supporting their work, please visit this fundraising page.)

Another bright spot is Global Citizen Year, designed to engage thousands of diverse young Americans in a transformative year of global service between high school and college and create a pipeline of new American leaders uniquely suited to combat the global challenges of the 21st century.

Sound familiar? Efforts like these are the keys to access more widely the experience that Barack Obama brings to the U.S. Presidency. If they succeed, we will see more of him.

Unilateralism in Darfur?

Sunday's New York Times Magazine included an interesting Q & A with Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice.  (One of the gems is Ambassador Chris Hill's advice that Americans consider how our advice is taken globally, particularly with respect to democracy promotion.)  The Q & A is worth a full read, but one thing struck me, and I'd be grateful if anyone could shed some light on what Rice had in mind.  She is quoted as saying, "I have regrets about Darfur, real regrets. I don’t know that there were other answers. The president considered trying to do something unilaterally — very difficult to do."  I have done a little bit of searching to figure out just what unilateral act(s) the president considered, and I've come up empty.  Military?  Economic?  If you understand the reference, please respond in the comments.  And how serious was the consideration of doing something unilaterally?

Meanwhile, see former SYG Kofi Annan's remarks in today's IHT, which concludes thus:

Responding to a claim by Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, for example, who said Washington had worked "day and night" to end human rights violations in Darfur, Annan smiled before remarking: "I don't know about day and night. It depends how long your days and your nights are."

"The world could not give them 18 helicopters," he said. "We could have done more - and should."

Vote!

It’s pretty clear that turnout is massive everywhere today.  My polling place on the westside of Los Angeles was mobbed, the line somewhere around an hour wait, and friends and family report the same throughout the greater LA area and in places around the country.  I’ve voted in a different place in every presidential election since 1988 (Berkeley, Washington, overseas twice, LA) and not since 1992, when I voted in Berkeley, have I felt the kind of joy, energy and excitement that we see voters experience worldwide, particularly in transitional societies.  Today feels like we are a nation in transition.  We will, I suspect and hope, be electing a potentially transformational president.  The key will be to carry over today’s excitement into tomorrow’s hard work.  Voting no on California’s Proposition 8 reminded me that it’s not all sunshine on the other side of 11/4.

My wife and I took our kids today, and this post over at TPM Cafe really captures the excitement of the day.  We should savor it.

Transition guides for our president and our democracy

Soon we'll no longer have presidential candidates. We'll have a president-elect. News outlets will (grudgingly) switch from contest mode to covering actual policies and decisions. The president-elect will be deluged with calls to hurry up and get a jump on governing. And Americans will be tempted to sit back and "see what this guy is going to do for me," so to speak.

All of this is natural but not necessarily beneficial -- or inevitable. Gary Mitchell directs readers to Stephen Hess, senior fellow emeritus at the Brookings Institution and "veteran of almost every presidential transition since Eisenhower-to-Kennedy." Hess recently collected his accumulated wisdom on the subject by writing What Do We Do Now: A Workbook For The President-Elect.

His recommendations may surprise you, especially if you're eager for our next president to roll up his sleeves and get started making waves early. There are some things the president-elect should do swiftly, writes Hess -- among them: assemble the White House staff; identify the key national security, homeland security, and economic security nominees; bring Congress into the act from day one in office. But at least as many of Hess's recommendations appeal to caution -- avoid actions that "use up precious political capital and spill blood in the waters"; be careful about magnanimous gestures of bipartisanship; "Take a cue from Lincoln in 1860 and FDR in 1932" and "wait your turn" to get started (even if the lame duck president calls for you to step up); and finally, "Break glass only in case of emergency" -- in other words, show the respect for those outside of your administration that has been lacking over the past eight years.

Mitchell compliments Hess for creating "a kind of 'Cliff Notes' or 'Transitions for Dummies,'" giving "interested observers an opportunity to evaluate this presidential transition, just like symphony-goers who take musical scores to concerts to know whether the conductor and the orchestra got it right."

It’s not just the economy, stupid

I am writing from London where the news of a recession is everywhere. You may have read that many of the UK’s local authorities had invested their money in Icelandic banks that have since gone bust. Even Cambridge University is worried—it stands to lose L11 million. And then there are the workers who invested their pensions. There’s also a good deal of anxiety over a European Union response versus a national response. What seemed clear over the past few days was that nations were saying, "we will take care of our own," whether it was Switzerland, Germany, or England. And that’s what I want to think about here: what does it mean, what does it look like, to take care of your own? How do we make that idea more inclusive as economic and other pressures conspire to (potentially) make us more insular and self-protective?

No one really knows what the fallout from this economic crisis will look like or what effects it will have on foreign policy. There is little doubt that countries will have less money to spend on non-domestic concerns. Part of what enables a politician to take risks or try new things in an international arena is the political capital they enjoy at home. Consider, for example, Tony Blair and his work on the Good Friday/Belfast Agreement. He was riding high in the UK and knew that he had a window for bringing things together. He seized the opportunity and moved fast. The political leaders who emerge in the coming elections (US, England, South Africa, to name a few) will be judged in large part by how they handle the economic crisis. Their ability to manage it and to restore confidence will essentially allow them and their citizens to think and act more globally.

Of course, there are other actors in the field. Ngos play a huge role in shaping and implementing foreign policy. They are also often the primary actors in the field. It’s sometimes the individuals who work for ngos who send up the red flags, rally the troops and otherwise tell the governments of the world that a country is on fire or that a people are at grave risk. (I can’t help but think that photojournalists like Ron Haviv, Tyler Hicks and James Nachtwey do this, too, and I hope that we are not looking at budget cuts in media that prevent these stories and images from getting out.) But ngos have to raise their budgets and there is no telling what it will be like to do this in the current and worsening economic climate.

Holbrooke and Kagan in Foreign Affairs

We spend so much time these days focusing on the grave errors of this Administration that we sometimes neglect the broader picture of where we should be headed come January 2009. Luckily, Foreign Affairs, the eminent journal of the Council on Foreign Relations, has published two pieces in its current edition that deserve to be read together and subjected to serious debate. 

The first is by Richard Holbrooke, who must be on a very short list of potential secretaries of state. Holbrooke, an often brilliant writer and memoirist, is interested in “restor[ing] the United States to its proper world leadership role,” beginning with repairing “the domestic economy and the United States’ reputation in the world.”  He rightly places closing the detention center at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, at the top of the agenda, calling its closure “not just desirable but imperative.”  He then goes through an impressive tour d’horizon of problem areas that deserve major and immediate American policy commitment. One may quibble with Holbrooke’s ordering of these priorities, but he is surely right about the depth of troubling decisions facing the next president.

Robert Kagan, well-known for his 2003 book, Of Paradise and Power, and commonly considered one of the leading neocon thinkers and early supporters of the war to oust Saddam Hussein, largely puts aside detailed policy prescription. Kagan remains a classic realist, one who sees “a world of selfish states and selfish peoples – which is to say, the world that exists.” Given this background, one might expect a riposte to Holbrooke with a defense of the Bush years and perhaps a post-Bush agenda that adheres to the goals of exporting liberal democratic traditions worldwide. That is there in his article, and yet Kagan resists caricature. His piece steers away from grand calls for renewed American leadership and instead, more descriptively than prescriptively, presents an argument for sobriety about the limits of America’s power to get what it wants.  Given what you may know of Kagan, the following excerpt (with my italics) may surprise you: