Intervention: humanitarian, military, civilian or nonviolent?

a discussion paper by Christine Schweitzer

The discussion on interventions - "humanitarian", civilian, military, nonviolent - dominates the discourse in the peace movements as well as in peace research. It has taken the place which (total or partial) disarmament and civilian-based/social defence had in former times. Conflict resolution sometimes has almost become a synonym for "going abroad to help to settle violent conflicts", and in many Western European countries "peace corps"-projects have developed. The following paper aims at pointing out some of the discrepancies and ambiguities around the concept of intervention, as well as trying to lay out WRI's role in the context of nonviolent conflict intervention (1).

Is there a right to intervene? The debate on conflict intervention centres largely on the question of its legitimation. But it confuses often the question of general legitimation of conflict intervention with the legitimation of military means which are only one of several dozens of means of intervention. (This is especially true for the ethical debate which concentrates on the concept of "just war".) In international law there is the ongoing debate on limits of the rule of non-interference. Here again a lot of ambiguity can be observed. While on the one hand some states - USA for one - present themselves as stout defenders of the law of non- interference, they are often among the first to break this rule when it suits their purpose.

Similar reservations need to be made for those protagonists of the Southern hemisphere who say that they generally oppose all interference - it often turns out that only certain actors (like "the North" or the Security Council were what they really talked about, while interventions -including military ones - by peer states or their bodies (like OAS) are accepted.

Thirdly it has to be realised that in the times of economic and communicational globalisation it is almost impossible not to intervene in one way or the other. Intervention can be seen as a normal function of international as well as transnational interaction.

Therefore the conclusion seems inevitable that not the general "if at all" is the question but the setting down of an ethical framework defining the how-s and who-s.

NGO intervention can be as harmful Only very rarely the legitimation of intervention of non-state actors is questioned. What about conflict intervention by non-state actors? While the "official" debate on intervention for most part just skips them, the alternative peace movement-Green party discussion often proposes NGOs and "civilian intervention" as THE alternative to state and/or military intervention. NGOs have become one of the major actors in the field of conflict intervention. They run the bulk of the humanitarian aid sector, in some countries to the extent of taking over government functions (Mozambique). They are usually much more powerful in economic terms than national NGOs, thereby not only generating income possibilities for nationals, but at the same time - distorting the relative importance local NGOs would have if they had to resort to resources within their country, - creating dependencies which usually backfire sooner or later when inflation starts, - and leaving a virtual desert behind them as soon as they turn to the next, by then more fashionable conflict.

Because of their power they tend to impose their own values, political views, and views on how to handle things on the locals who soon become dependent on the well-meaning of the internationals to receive funding. In short, pursuing their own political or ideological purposes they often exert something which can well be called cultural imperialism.

All these problems - and more could be named - indicate strongly that an ethical framework for conflict intervention of NGOs is as much needed as a framework for intervention of state actors is needed. Of course, some NGOs have formed their own set of ethics, like the International Red Cross. But others - and this seems to be especially true also of many peace organizations never came around even to ask the question (2).

Civil intervention When "civil" is understood as the opposite to "military" then all interventions are civil interventions where no military means are used. This is fine as a definition but gets problematic as soon as it is assumed that this means that civil interventions are "non- violent" and therefore "better" than military ones. There are several methods in the list of "civil interventions" - with economic sanctions on the top of the list - which are potentially not less violent (3).

This means that the term of civil intervention is much too vague to be considered a positive alternative to military intervention. Instead it should be asked what the goal of the intervention is, and what its methods are, not who the actor (state, NGO) is or which instruments (military, international organizations) he uses. In our eyes, conflict interventions could be called nonviolent when 1. The goal of the intervention is - either to work on the conflict, taking the interests of all conflict parties into account, - or to act in solidarity with a movement for social justice, aiming at supporting this movement, and

2. there is no use of deadly violence, be it of direct physical or structural nature.

Nonviolent intervention as an alternative political concept The usual objection against nonviolent interventions is that they allegedly do not work in all cases, especially not when a conflict has already escalated to war. ("Non-violence doesn't work in times of war"). Usually there are three strategies distinguished which need to take effect concertedly to influence a war: peace-keeping (4), peace-making (5) and peace-building (6). While the latter two by their nature are of a nonviolent nature, the first, peace-keeping, is usually associated with the use of military means. That would mean that a strategy aiming at the abolishment of war and therefore of all military needs to concentrate primarily on alternatives to military peace-keeping (7).

The discussion among pacifists on "civilian intervention" as alternative to military intervention concentrates on two proposals: First the institutionalization of a "Civilian Peace Corps" or something similar (World Peace Guard, Civilian Peace Service etc.) meaning a unarmed body taking over the full range of tasks military peace-keepers assume (including interpositioning and escorting of humanitarian aid). Second the creation of an "international police force".

Before dealing with the former, the latter proposal shall be summarily discarded as a fallacy: As long as there is no "world state" (and who really wants that anyway), and as long as there are groups which do not want to deny themselves the advantages got by resorting to armed conflict, a "police force" would be nothing different than an army with a different name. Armed conflicts wouldn't become more harmless if the force fighting it where called police. It would still need the same level of deadly force.

Peace Corps - a promising concept? Peace Corps are described as large bodies of civilians into a conflict area, assuming tasks of interpositioning, mediation and negotiation, giving support to local groups, working on reconstruction projects etc, shortly: assuming the whole range of task military peace-keepers assume nowadays. Their advantage would be, their protagonists argue, that being unarmed they would neither provoke the conflict parties nor have the power to impose well-behaviour, and therefore need to resort to methods of nonviolent dealing with conflict. The questions which remains unanswered is how much the identity as military makes the conflict parties to respect peace-keeping units. In a militarised context civilians usually are not held in high esteem and there is no empirical evidence in one way or the other if nonviolent peace- keepers would be able to compensate for this disadvantage. In any case, the fact that civilian aid workers and monitors are more and more becoming targets of armed aggression in many conflict areas makes it clear that being unarmed and nonviolent in itself does not mean to be safe from violence. There is no risk-free course of action.

Additionally there are critical questions to be asked about the proposed structural frameworks, more practical organisational question and the danger that such project might fire back in at least two ways. Structurally, peace corps would need an international umbrella, be it the EC (like in the ECPC-proposal of the European Green party), the OSCE or the UN. All those (state) umbrellas would have their own agendas in a conflict, casting doubt on the capacity of a peace corps to really work for a solution of the conflict(s).

More practical organisational questions are if there would be enough funds released and bureaucracies made flexible enough to allow speedy deployment (preferably before an escalation of the conflict has set in). In our eyes dangerous are two other aspects: First, there is the very real danger that a Peace Corps would be used as an element in an all-encompassing strategy which includes military warfare (sorry: "peace-making"). NATO could use the support of civilians to relieve them from tasks they are not really well equipped to do. They favour civilian forces (as long as they are controllable) as an addition to the military forces. If the goal is getting rid of the military, it is not such a good idea by starting to give them a civilian counterpart, thereby making them more effective!

Secondly, there is the danger that a peace corps might support the position of politicians in some countries who want to introduce a General Service. WRI rejects a General Civilian Service as it rejects Military Service. Peace Corps and Civilian Peace Services are often confused or even consciously combined with concepts of General Services, making the latter more acceptable by promoting the first. That leaves us with the following dilemma: On the one hand it seems that without the development of an alternative concept for peace-keeping (comparable to the definition of social/civilian- based defence as an alternative for military defence), there is no way of preventing military intervention forces. On the other hand, the existing proposals for peace corps and peace services deploying larger numbers of personnel leave so much to be desired that they can be considered more harmful than useful.

Nonviolent conflict intervention in the context of WRI For the War Resisters network nonviolent intervention has always been an important aspect of its work. WRI was at the heart of the World Peace Brigade, one of the first nonviolent intervention projects developed on an international base. Key WRI people were involved in initiating Peace Brigades International, and WRI plays a key role in the Balkan Peace Team. And besides these long-term projects, WRI has been involved in and supported several actions like the Sahara Protest Action, Support Czechoslovakia, Operation Omega, Operation Namibia and Time For Peace.

Besides that, nonviolent intervention has always had a second more practical meaning for WRI. WRI groups and similar-minded groups actively intervene in the conflicts these groups are involved in as an action of solidarity. They help each other by providing international publicity in cases of persecution, by organizing exchange about experiences and strategies, by serving as communicational channels, sometimes also by providing material aid. Coming back for a moment to the problems NGO intervention might cause, also WRI groups need to ask themselves if this support is really of a reciprocal nature, if there is really no tendency to impose ideas and standards on affiliates in other areas, if we are always conscious enough of the danger of dependencies created. But on the whole the principle of accepting the lead of the local groups has been well-established, thereby minimising some of these dangers.

Summary In this text it has been argued that globalisation has made it impossible not to intervene in one way or the other, and therefore the general question of "is there a right to conflict intervention at all" is rather futile. Therefore the important issue to define a framework of ethical principles to be considered if a conflict intervention is proposed. Secondly, it was argued that the term "civil intervention" is much to broad and unclear to be useful, and should be replaced by the term nonviolent conflict intervention. And thirdly, two approaches to nonviolent intervention are outlined which need to go hand in hand: the definition of a political alternative to military interventions, and practising nonviolent conflict intervention as an action of solidarity within the WRI network.

Footnotes

It is necessary to define the term conflict intervention because there are several sometimes contradicting definitions. Here in the broad sense intervention means "any way to influence a system of domination, no matter if this is done without violence or with the use of violence". Conflict intervention in the narrow sense means: "influencing a conflict in another system of domination as an external party". (Both definitions follow Ernst-Otto Czempiel, "Die Intervention - Politische Notwendigkeit und strategische Moeglichkeiten", in Politische Vierteljahresschrift 35/H3, 1994, pp402 ff)
One exception to this deficiency is the formulation of ten ethical principles of the two British researchers Nick Lewer and Oliver Ramsbotham (Something must be done: Towards an ethical framework for humanitarian intervention in international social conflict, Peace Research Report No 33, University of Bradford, August 1993).
Sometimes the effect of economic sanctions can be as disastrous or even more disastrous than a military attack. In Iraq 600,000 children have died because of the economic sanctions according to official figures released by UN.
Peace-keeping means the "prevention, containment, moderation and termination of hostilities between or within states, through the medium of a ...third party intervention" (J. Childe, "Peacekeeping and the inter-American System" in Military Review 6/10, 1980)
Peacemaking is concerned with the search for a negotiated resolution of the perceived conflicts of interests between the parties." (Stephen Ryan, Ethnic Conflict and International Relations, 2nd edition, Aldershot:Dartmouth Publishing Company, 1995, p. 106)
"Peacebuilding is the strategy which most directly tries to reverse those destructive processes that accompany violence..." (Ryan 1995:129)
Sometimes a fourth strategy called "peace enforcement" is distinguished from peace-keeping, meaning using superior force to stop parties from actual fighting. The term was introduced by the former General-Secretary of the UN, Mr. Boutros Boutros-Ghali. But looking hard for historical examples wouldn't yield many examples of a third army actually stopping a war (Syria in Lebanon was one of the few cases). Therefore it shall not be treated separately from peace-keeping here.

War Resisters' International
5 Caledonian Road, London N1 9DX,
Britain Phone: +44 171 278 4040
Fax: +44 171 278 0444
Email: warresisters@gn.apc.org