The Cold War intervention policy dealt mainly with the dissolution of the communist regime and staving off its expansion. But, since the collapse of the Soviet Union, the idea of an active communist threat has been invalidated. Intervention can no longer be justified solely on the basis of diffusion of a communist threat. There are a different breed of menaces in the world today, and they require new justifications for intervention; yet, in the four years since 1991, the US has not been able to decide how to classify or justify involvement in situations it has choosen to intervene in. The new threats to world peace are civil wars conducted due to ethnic, racial and religious differences, like the war being fought in Bosnia. The fundamental issue of concern from the new threats is the violation of human rights. When the US fought communism, it did so because it believed in the basic democratic values of freedom for all, no matter what religion, race, color or ethnicity. Now, that that freedom is being so actively threatened and violated, can the US morally justify its right to pick and choose who to help?
The two basic questions we have come across so far are how to classify and justify future involvements in foreign situations and can the United States morally justify its right to pick and choose who to help? Therefore the purpose of this paper is to find out the new foundations that will justify all future US interventions and to insert the foundations in the existing foreign policy in the form of a clause. The first question that will be addressed is the one that asks for moral justifications of the right to pick and choose who to help. How can the US choose between two situations when there is no way to draw parallels between the two situations and there is no policy that will lead the US to make consistent choices? That the right is undenaibly wrong is proven by comparison of the Haiti and Bosnia situations. The United States chose to help the former but not the latter. Both the situations differed vastly, yet they were both grave situations and they had the one underlying fact of human rights violations in common. We want to prove that that is the only factor that should be taken into consideration, and that the classification of world crises according to human rights violations is the only justifiable classification to base the intervention decision on.
In 1994, the United States intervened in Haiti because the Haitian refugee situation was out of control. Thousands and thousands of Haitians were fleeing Haiti and crossing the Carribbean in rickety little boats. Many of them never made it, and the lucky ones who did handed themselves over to the American authorities to petition political asylum. These lucky ones were eventually taken to the American base in Cuba, Guantanamo bay, where they awaited their futures. The costs of keeping the base running with such an addendum of people prompted the United States to start serious negotiations with Haiti; failing these, the US threatened, would lead to an intervention. The talks failed, and reluctant to go back on its word, the United States invaded Haiti in order to restore its democratic government.
The situation in Haiti started when, in 1991, Haiti's newly elected democratic President, Jean-Bertrand Aritide, was driven into exile by a millitary coup led by General Raoul Cedras. Cedras set up a dictatorial state and was soon persecuting anyone who opposed him. He let his millitary and police operate without bounds so that soon any Aristide follower's life was in jeopardy. Thousands of Aristide followers were subjected to torture and abuse. People were "slain and mutilated, with body parts left as warnings to terrify others...children were forced to watch as their mother's faces were slashed with machetes" (Kramer 28). Such civil rights abuses and "brutal atrocities justify a humanitarian mission" (Kramer p28). The only way the Haitians, who were known to be Aristide followers, could escape was by boats in the middle of the night. And, the only place that was within a reasonable distance that might grant them asylum was the United States. The U.S. invaded Haiti in the summer of 1994. Political talks with Cedras again ensued, trying to force him to leave his regime peacefully. Force apparently was not enough, and since the US wanted to do everything in its power to avoid a confrontation, the US government resorted to bribing Cedras. It is speculated that Cedras left under conditions that he would be protected and financed by the United States for the rest of his life. The United States was now free to step in and "restore democratic processes" and Aristide to a country torn apart by violence and political turmoil (Thomas 28). Even though the term is feared in Washington, "nation building" is exactly what the Americans did in Haiti.
The situation in Bosnia arose when the iron curtain was torn down in 1991, and the Soviet Union could no longer control its Eastern Bloc satellite countries. Yugoslavia, always a country torn apart by ethnic differences, was one of the first countries to succumb to a break up. It divided into six smaller nations that were granted nation status by the United Nations; Bosnia and Herztogovina, and Serbia were two of them. The basis of the war that is tearing Bosnia apart is the fact that the Serbs who were established in Bosnia did not want to be separated from their ethnic mother country, Serbia. These people, who came to be known as the Bosnian Serbs, are the ones waging war on the rest of the population of Bosnia, mostly Muslims, inorder to reverse the separation decision. They "vowed to resort to arms to prevent separation" and they have (Glenny p40). A further twist was added to the situation by the following move by the United Nations: an amrs embargo was placed on Bosnia. This was supposed to deprive the Muslims and the Bosnian Serbs of their arms and eventually decrease their supplies. But only half of the plan worked. The Bosnians were the only ones who were deprived of their ammunition and protection. The Bosnian Serbs were being supplied arms and artillery by Serbia, who in turn was supplied by Russia, who has long slavic ties to the Serbian people. The professional Yugoslav army, under Serbian control, not only trained the irregular Bosnian Serb's army, it also fought along with them. The United Nations soon threatened Serbia with embargoes if it didn't withdraw its support from the Bosnian Serbs. Serbia withdrew, but enough supplies had been provided and enough of the army had been trained to cause only a small amount of damage to the Bosnian Serbs. The Muslims, meanwhile, suffered. The Bosnian Serbs then started an offensive; in a program called "ethnic cleansing" they drove the Muslims from their homes and villages, and reclaimed 'their' land. They have captured 70% of the land since war was declared. So far, from the Bosnian War, there have been 700,000 people diplaced and 250,000 people reported dead or missing. More than twenty thousand Muslim women have been raped by Serbian soldiers. The following poem, by Devanshi Gandhi, presents a sad commentary about the atrocities committed during this war:
He came toting his gun early one morning,
yet his gun isn't what scared her.
It was the look in his eyes,
or shall I say, the absence of any sign of life,
that made her tremble and quiver.
She knew why he had come,
even though she was only a child
in the middle of a war she didn't understand.
When he left her, He left her a woman,
A woman with an unwanted child to bear.
So, she left this world,
a woman inside a child's body,
raped of her innocence,
and impregnated with fear (Gandhi,1).
President Clinton has listed three justifications for U.S. intervention in Haiti. According to him the human rights abuses in Haiti needed to be addressed; and all peaceful means of resolving the conflict had been exhausted, and finally, the United States could no longer accept a situation that contributed to the sudden flee of thousands of refugees from the Haiti (Allis 30). This quote seems to imply that the violence committed in Haiti was somehow more violent that the atrocities being committed in Bosnia and that is the reason the United States has not intervened in Bosnia. Does a child watching her mother being mutilated sound more pathetic than that child, herself, being raped. This question cannot be fairly answered by anyone, because to tell the truth, no one can make that judjement call; and no one has a right to make that judjement call. Do not the human rights abuses in Bosnia need to be addressed? As written earlier, two hundred and fifty thousand to three hundred thousand Bosnian Muslims are reported dead or missing. Haiti's entire population probably doesn't even consist of three hundred thousand people. Yet, Haiti elicited an immediate and overwhelming response from the United States. Another fact that Bosnia has in common with Haiti is that all diplomatic channels have been exhausted. The United Nations has come up with plan after plan to appease the Bosnian Serbs by dividing up Bosnia into proportionate parcels, yet, all plans have been rejected by the Serbs. The last peace plan awarded 51% of the land to the Muslims, and 49% to the Bosnian Serbs. The plan was once again rejected by the Serbs and a stalemate has pursued since. Since "all peaceful means of resolving the conflict had been exhausted" does it mean that the United States is now going to intervene in the Bosnian situation?
Where there is comparison there is always contrast. There are differences between the two situations of Haiti and Bosnia. The questions is: are the situations so vastly dissimilar that we can supress the moral obligation we felt towards the Haitians, and close our eyes to the Bosnians? One of the differences is the fact that Haiti is so much closer to the United States than Bosnia. So the reasoning behind intervension in Haiti could either be 'be kind to your neighbors' or 'do unto others as you would have them do to you'. For the first one, the word neighbor is a relative term. We will all neighbors once mankind starts travelling to other planets. Infact, in this age of computer technology, Haiti may as well be as far away as Bosnia or vice versa. If we want to create a better world we have to start treating all the countries as neighbors and not show disfavor towards those that are far away.As for the second phrase, Haiti never has and will never be able to help out the United States. This is not just a hollow assumption; if one looks at the past one hundred years of Haiti's history and sees how many times the U.S. has rescued it, a good extrapolation of the past will not differ greatly from Haiti's future history.
Another difference between the two situations is that the United States did not have to deal with the Bosnian refugees as it did with the Haitian refugees. Is this statement, in a twisted way, implying that if the Bosnian refugees had pounded on America's gate, the U.S. would have interferred in the Bosnian War? It might be a great relief for the Bosnian refugees to hear that had only a few thousand of them tried to cross the Atlantic in rickety little boats their brothers and sisters and other kin folk might have been saved back in Bosnia. After all the Atlantic is an ocean whereas the Carribean is only a sea. A different perspective on the refugee situation could be the money America could save. The United States did have to handle the Haitians in person. It would be easier and cost effective if, instead of providing for a constant flow of refugee Haitians, the US could get to the heart of the problem and solve that and then MAGIC! No more current refugees, since they can all be deported without the threat that they will try to come back again, and no more future refugees! Money saved by intervention. In Bosnia, intervention would probably cost money. Could that be one of the reasons that the U.S. hasn't intervened in Bosnia: monetary retainment, if not gainship. U.S. thoughts: "we cannot gain any money by going to Bosnia so we might as well save some by not going?"
The most important difference in the two situations is the fact that Haiti was a controlled enviroment; the United States knew what to expect and how much military power was required to overcome the Haitian military if, that is, any resistance was offered. Bosnia, on the other hand, is chaos. The Bosnian Serbs are powerfull, and they are armed. In ground combat, it is very likely there will be many American casualties; and it is in no way dicernable how long the conflict will last. Taking the calculated risk of getting stuck in Bosnia for an indeterminable period of time is not what the United States wants. Now the question of when the US would intervene has been narrowed down to "what would be worth it to the United States to expend American lives and time?" Are not a few American lives worth the fact that the Bosnian situation will be resolved? More people will be saved than will die in the battle because of that battle. The combat between the Americans and the Bosnian Serbs will have three major impacts. One, it will directly save lives. Two, it will cut short this demented and ugly war, and thus save lives in the future. If the situation gets taken care of then, as cheesy as it may sound, the world will be one step closer to world peace than it was before. At the present moment, is it not a hassel for the United States and the United Nations and the European community to worry about Bosnia everyday? Three, if the Serbs knew the Americans were coming, they would loose some of their bravado and back off anyways. The third reason sounds more like a hope that what will be the reality, but it is not that farfetched. The Serbs have next to minimal opposition presently. Once they realize that they will be fighting someone who is more powerfull and better equipped than themselves, wouldn't they hesistate even a little? Looking at it from a moral perspective, does the United States only intervene for supposedly humanitarian reasons when either it recieves a reward of some sort or it is assured that only a few American lives will be lost? Whatever happened to helping without worrying about the self? Looking at the situation from a superpower standpoint: Russia intervened, albeit indirectly, on behalf of the Serbs, so why cannot the United States intervene on behalf of the Muslims? This paper provides proof that inconsistencies exist in the United States foreign policy.
This is the proposal that this paper puts forth: the United States should provide military aid to defenseless people, who are being masacred on the basis of ethnicity, religion, or nationality. The single similarity of innocent people being abused should be the driving force behind any intervention There are risks in every military expedition, but some risks are worth taking, especially if the end result means world order; even at the expense of American casualties and monetary expenses. This policy would eliminate the inconsistency that exists in the current policy. The basis of intervention would not be what the United States gains, but entirely a humanitarian effort. We propose a more compassionate foreign policy versus the avaristic attitude. Building a foundation on the basis of helping the defenseless, we can incorporate the following points into the foreign policy: 1) all diplomatic resources must be utilized and we must try to go as early as possible, before the situation gets out of hand, 2) our visit should be welcomed by those being oppressed, and 3) projected American casualties have to be less than the number of people who will be saved.
The situations in Haiti and Bosnia are very different. But common amongst them is the factor that is the basis of the clause that is being suggested be added to the existing foreign policy: human rights violations. This is a very important factor because in the coming years the world is going to see a lot of ethnicity based flare ups. The reason for these flare ups is the fact that after the end of the Cold War Russia lost control over its own Balkan states and over its Eastern Bloc satellites. These countries are tasting freedom once again, and any group that denies them that freedom is asking for a war. Bosnia was one of the first examples. Another one is flaring up in Russia. The Russians have marched into one of its 1991 breakaway republics Chechnya and the Chechens are revolting. The future predicts harrowing and twisted conflicts based on ethnicity. There is no right or wrong with someone's race or ethnicity. No one has the solution for this type of conflict. But they are going to keep on poppoing up unless and until someone puts their foot down and stops these conflicts before they have a chance to get as complicated and nasty as Bosnia. This someone can only be the United States of America because they are the only ones who have a past history of settling situations, and because they are the only one with the resources. If the proposed clause is added to the foreign policy then future situations like Bosnia will be taken care of.
There is an album on photograhs put toggther by a Bosnian photographer that has been smuggled out of Bosnia by refugees. It is on the internet for the world to see the horrors being committed in Bosnia. PHOTOGRAPHS OF WAR
WORKS CITED
Allcock, John. "Yugoslavia in Transition." UTCat Plusu (1991)
Allis, Sam. "This Time We Mean Business." Time (September 19,1994): p30-33.
Barnes, Edward. "Invasion on Hold." Time (August 15, 1994): p22-23.
"Bosnia Embargo Issue At UN." The Associated Press (Clarinet) 3 November 1994
"Destination Haiti." Time 26 September 1994: 38
Friedman, Thomas L. "Leaders in Haiti Wrong to Think They can Stall U.S., Clinton Says." New York Times (October 29, 1993): p3.
Gandhi,D. "WAR." UT Cooperator, p1.
Glenny, Misha. "The Fall of Yugoslavia." UTCat Plus (1992)
Kramer, Michael. "The Case for Intervention." Time (September 26, 1994): p28.
Langan, John. "Justice Or Peace? A Moral Assessment of Humanitarian Intervention in Bosnia." America Vol.170 (February 12, 1994): p9-15.
Nairn, Allan. "The Eagle is Landing." The Nation (October 3,1994): p344-348.
Nelan, Bruce W. "Hurry Up and Wait." Time Vol.143 (June 20, 1994): p40-42.
"Who's Fighting Whom In Bosnia." The Associated Press (Clarinet) 11 November 1994
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