Gov. Rick Perry: "Religious Freedom Does Not Mean Freedom From Religion.”

Many of us are familiar with the supposed “war on Christmas” narrative that is propagated by theligious right as most notably put forward by those such as Bill O’Reilly, Rick Perry and Sarah Palin. However, this narrative is but a surface manifestation of a deeper dialogue that Christianity, and Christians are under attack in America. They are under attack by secularism, by liberals, by the LGBTQ community, by atheists, by nonbelievers, by those that seek to create and flourish in a truly pluralistic and multicultural civil society. A few keys issues in this diatribe can be thought of as prayer in public schools, protecting the LGBTQ community from discrimination, taking the word God off our currency and out of the Pledge of Allegiance, not allowing nativity scenes to be placed on public property and so on and so forth. Whatever side of the argument we as individuals may align; we are all, to some extent, familiar with this dialogue however superficially I just presented it.

This past week, on June 13^th 2013, Governor Rick Perry thought it necessary to sign into law the “Merry Christmas Bill”. Perry said, "People of faith too often feel they can't express their faith publicly. And if they dare display it, they find themselves under attack from individuals and organizations that have nothing to do with them or their communities for that matter."[1] This law, which goes into effect this coming September, is designed to allow religious displays in schools as long as there is more than one religion being represented or if a secular symbol is present. Whether or not this bill is necessary or appropriate is another question. The much more prevalent issue is that Rick Perry, when introducing this bill, said, “Religious freedom does not mean freedom from religion.” This is a heavy statement that requires a bit of unpacking.

Perry’s remarks reflect a fundamental misunderstanding of human rights and what freedom and religion actually means. A distinction I always find myself making when discussing these issues is that of freedom of religion and freedom of conscience. Could you tell me, off hand, what the difference between the two is? It’s actually quite difficult and requires defining the terms. What do we mean when we say freedom of religion? What does religion actually mean here? Would it be appropriate to say it includes the freedom to find meaning, purpose and joy in our lives? If so, religious organizations, tradition and dogma can become irrelevant to leading a “religious” life. Indeed, many people, especially in the past few decades are choosing to shed religious tradition and myth in favor of something more personally fulfilling whether it be a “spiritual but not religious” orientation, or identifying as a humanist or atheist or nonbeliever. This is not new information. I feel that religion is often used in an unfortunately narrow light. I often ask: “what is more religious than your conscience?” What is more religious than critical thinking? What is more religious than following your reason as far as it can take you? Whether someone is a believer or a nonbeliever, having freedom of conscience is the essence of freedom of religion.

Religious freedom is a narrow term and usually comes with narrow understanding. I prefer the term freedom of conscience as it necessary includes alternative and broader ways of understand religion as a mechanism for finding truth, meaning and purpose. Governor Rick Perry is a victim to a false dichotomy. He is a religious zealot fighting for his team against a false enemy. At the basest level, this man is limiting the religious freedom he is trying so desperately to protect. “Freedom of religion does not protect freedom from religion” is an oxymoron. Freedom of religion necessarily includes freedom from religion. This is correctly understood by many as a fundamental human right. For example, the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom (USCIRF) published an op-ed this past January entitled “Government Must Protect Nonbelievers.” In this essay Katrina Lantos Swett the Chair of USCIRF and Dr. M. Zuhdi Jasser, a Commissioner of USCIRF, say

While religious freedom is an integral part of our heritage, it also is misunderstood. A key misunderstanding concerns the matter of belief. Simply stated, religious freedom means not only the right to believe, but the freedom to disbelieve — to embrace any religion and to reject every religion. People express their religious freedom by choosing theism, atheism or any other response to ultimate questions. Religious freedom allows them to follow wherever their conscience leads.[2]

Secretary of State John Kerry echoed these remarks this past May. He said,

“Whether it be a single deity, or multiple deities, or no deities at all, freedom to believe —including the freedom not to believe — is a universal human right…But freedom of religion is not an American invention. It’s a universal value. And it’s enshrined in our Constitution and ingrained in every human heart. The freedom to profess and practice one’s faith, to believe or not to believe, or to change one’s beliefs, that is a birthright of every human being.”[3]

Whether it’s Jon Stewart calling it “Bullshit Mountain” or Bill Maher calling it “The Bubble,” Governor Rick Perry certainly lives there. Nonbelievers and secularists, including religious secularists, are continuing to be persecuted for their efforts to create a pluralistic society that protects all people from discrimination. As history has shown the most dangerous forms of discrimination are those that come with the justification of religious dogma and righteousness. Governor Rick Perry’s ignorance and intolerance of human rights and freedom of conscience is a stain upon public policy and a hindrance to the evolution of civil society.

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[1] http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/06/14/rick-perry-freedom-from-religion_n_3441187.html?ir=Religion&ncid=edlinkusaolp00000008

[2] http://www.uscirf.gov/news-room/whats-new-at-uscirf/3918-op-ed-richomnd-times-government-should-protect-nonbelievers-january-22-2013.html

[3] http://occupydemocrats.com/secretary-of-state-john-kerry-freedom-not-to-believe-is-a-universal-human-right/

Tax Exempt Status of Churches and Illegal Electioneering

It’s been a long time since I’ve written a blog post and there are a lot of ideas I have lined up. Unfortunately due to my chronic laziness I have a few that should have been posted last fall that still need to be posted. So hopefully I’ll be able to get productive and start posting again.

There were a lot of issues related to religion in politics that came up during the last election cycle. One of the most important of these issues is illegal electioneering done by churches and their tax-exempt status. In 1954, the Johnson Amendment was signed. It requires political neutrality from churches in order to maintain their tax-exempt status. Nonetheless, illegal electioneering by churches and pastors is commonplace. Here are three examples for this past election cycle:

1.     Senior pastor Terry Fox in Wichita, Kansas ran an ad in the Wichita Eagle stating that he would speak “about how the Obama administration and its socialist agenda is [sic] making the way for the Antichrist to take over the world.” He hosts a weekly radio show for his church and on it he said, “There’s no question in my mind that the sitting president we have today is far more evil and far more committed to a one-world government.” They openly endorsed Rick Santorum during the Republican Presidential Primary violating IRS rules. Their church publication, The Summit Informer, regularly includes illegal political campaign intervention. 

2.     Perhaps you saw this one in the news: a church in Leakey, Texas posted this on a sign outside their church, “Vote for the Mormon, not the Muslim! The capitalist, not the communist!”

3.     The San Diego Union-Tribune reported that Skyline Church Pastor Jim Garlow said at the end of his sermon, “Some came to hear my endorsement. My endorsement will be Jesus. I’ll tell you whom I’m going to vote for, but I don’t think that makes it an endorsement. I’m going to vote for Mitt Romney, but I’m not telling you to.”

Many would wrongfully point out that this is a free speech issue. This is not about free speech. This is about using tax money as a subsidy for partisan political activity.

In 1969, the Supreme Court ruled in Walz v. Tax Commission of the City of New York that religious tax exemptions did not violate the establishment clause of the 1^st amendment because they were granted to all religions. They justified their position because the do not transfer any revenue to the churches; they merely refrained from collecting taxes. However, this amounts to a government subsidy that all taxpayers contribute to, and only some utilize. This maintains a privilege given to some at the expense of others. The Supreme Court even said so itself in the 1983 ruling of Regan v. Taxation when it said that “both tax exemptions and tax deductibility are a form of subsidy that is administered through the tax system.” Once again, these are contradictory points of view from the US Supreme Court. On the one hand, religious tax exemptions do not violate the first amendment, but they can be thought of as a subsidy.

Here is a little background information: Churches get three main types of exemptions…income taxes, property taxes and taxes on donations (tithing).

The qualifications for a tax-exempt status are as follows:

1.     The organization must be organized and operate exclusively for religious, educational, scientific, or other charitable purposes (i.e. not political)

2.     Net earnings may not benefit any private individual or shareholder

3.     No substantial part of its activity may be attempting to influence legislation

4.     The organization may not intervene in political campaigns

5.     The organizations purposes and activities may not be illegal or violate fundamental public policy.

The overarching reasoning for this tax-exemption is that churches provide a public benefit. But what benefit does a church provide that couldn’t be fulfilled by some other nonreligious organization? Charity work can be done by anyone, you can learn about religion from any number of locations, and the advancement of religion itself is not a charitable act.

There are a number of negative consequences of the current system:

1.     Resources are being used by churches that could be used more effectively or more efficiently elsewhere

2.     Churches have an unfair business advantage with tax exemptions

3.     Taxpayers are responsible for the portion of taxes that churches are exempt from paying

4.     Churches are given preferential treatment

5.     Churches participate in political and lobbying activities with little or no sanctions brought against them (such as loss of tax exempt statues)

6.     Sanctions against churches have little or no effect due to the lack of regulations and oversight

This amounts to taxpayers indirectly supporting churches. I am forced to ask: “Why should my tax dollars go to support the subsidy of a religious organization that I am opposed to?” “Why should my taxes support the subsidy of the Mormon Church when they spent millions of dollars pushing proposition 8 in California.”

The fifth and sixth items on the list are very closely related and stem directly from the fourth. The prohibition of political and lobbying activity was the trade off made for churches to be tax exempt in the first place. In fact, the IRS makes it very clear that a churches failure to adhere will result in their tax-exempt status being revoked. The problem is the IRS’s inability or (more likely) unwillingness to adequately enforce this. Many churches break this rule, often overtly as in the examples above, and even feel that the rule infringes on their right to free speech. Many have even arrogantly claimed that restricting their ability to be involved in politics is a restriction on their religious freedom.

Religious organizations must understand that the tradeoff was made because religious political and lobbying activism poses a threat to the separation of church and state. But to some like Rick Perry, there is no such thing as the separation of church and state. He said as much when he claimed:

"This separation of church and state, which has been driven by the secularists to remove those people of faith from the public arena, there is nothing farther from the truth…When you think about our founding fathers, they created this country, our Constitution, the foundation of America upon Judeo-Christian values, biblical values and this narrative that has been going on, particularly since the ’60s, that somehow or another there’s this steel wall, this iron curtain or whatever you want to call it, between the church and people of faith and this separation of church and state is just false on its face…The idea that we should be sent to the sidelines, I would suggest to you, is very driven by those who are not truthful…Satan runs across the world with his doubt and with his untruths and what have you and one of the untruths out there is driven –  is that people of faith should not be involved in the public arena."

Perhaps the most disturbing aspect of this quote is that Satan drives those who push for separation of church and state, those that defend secular public space. It is inherently evil and must be combated. It’s warfare with truly cosmic and transcendent implications.

Thanks to a complete absence of sanctions or supervision, churches can, and do, freely abuse their tax-exempt status. This is an ongoing problem that in my opinion necessitates revoking all religious organization’s tax-exempt status. Last year, Italy decided to revoke their churches property tax exempt status. As a result, their tax revenue will dramatically increase. A study at the University of Tampa quantified the amount of US tax revenue lost at $71 billion. This is more than the federal government budgets for education (69.8 billion).

The Freedom From Religion Foundation is now suing the IRS to enforce its laws. Funny that you have to sue these days just to get people to do what they are supposed to be doing.

Government Must Protect Nonbelievers

The following op-ed appeared in the Richmond Times-Dispatch on Sunday January 20, 2013.

On Wednesday, the United States observed its annual National Religious Freedom Day. This day commemorates the Virginia General Assembly’s adoption in 1786 of Thomas Jefferson’s Virginia Statute for Religious Freedom and celebrates the enshrining of this right in the U.S. Constitution and our country’s culture.

While religious freedom is an integral part of our heritage, it also is misunderstood. A key misunderstanding concerns the matter of belief. Simply stated, religious freedom means not only the right to believe, but the freedom to disbelieve — to embrace any religion and to reject every religion.

People express their religious freedom by choosing theism, atheism or any other response to ultimate questions. Religious freedom allows them to follow wherever their conscience leads.

Through such documents as the 1948 Universal Declaration of Human Rights and the 1966 International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, nations around the world have acknowledged on paper that freedom of religion or belief is an inalienable human right.

These documents capture the broad essence of the right, speaking of “freedom of thought, conscience and religion.” Yet according to a Pew Research study released last August, nearly 75 percent of the world’s population lives in countries in which this fundamental freedom is significantly restricted.

The U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom (USCIRF), on which we serve, has found that countries that typically persecute atheists also target members of disfavored or minority religious communities and individuals belonging to majority faiths who dissent from government-sanctioned interpretations.

In a number of nations, disseminating atheist views is specifically prohibited or restricted. Among these countries is Egypt, which USCIRF recommended in 2012 that the State Department add to its list of the world’s worst religious freedom violators. Just last month, Alber Saber was given a three-year jail sentence in Egypt for “offending” religion as a result of administering an atheist Facebook page.

Another such country is Indonesia, which USCIRF continues to monitor due to its permitting serious religious freedom abuses. Last June, Alexander Aan, a 31-year-old civil servant, was sentenced in Indonesia to a 2½-year prison term for creating a Facebook group supporting atheism and posting questions about the existence of a deity and cartoons depicting and insulting the Prophet Muhammad.

Both of these cases underscore how states that persecute atheists violate not only freedom of religion or belief, but other precious freedoms, including freedom of expression. They remind us that, in the end, freedom is indivisible. There is no bright line that can be readily drawn in the sand to separate them.

The implication is clear. Those who stand unequivocally for other freedoms, including freedoms of speech and press, association and assembly, also must support religious freedom, just as those who stand for the right of believers to follow their conscience must do the same for nonbelievers.

While history bears stark witness to the persecution of atheists in the name of belief and believers in the name of atheism, the call of conscience requires us to pursue a brighter path of freedom and dignity for all. Thus, as we mark National Religious Freedom Day, we’d do well to recall these wise words from the Virginia Statute for Religious Freedom:

“No man shall be compelled to frequent or support any religious worship, place or ministry whatsoever ... nor shall otherwise suffer on account of his religious opinions or belief.”

For believer and skeptic alike, freedom of thought, conscience, religion or belief merits our firm support around the world.

Katrina Lantos Swett serves as chairwoman of the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom (USCIRF). M. Zuhdi Jasser serves as a USCIRF commissioner. To learn more about the commission, go to uscirf.gov.

UN Peacekeeping: Bosnia 1992-5

The 1992-1995 Bosnian War was initiated after the breakup of Yugoslavia. The Slovenian and Croatians seceded from Yugoslavia in 1991 and the Socialist Republic of Bosnia and Herzegovina also tried to pass a referendum for independence but was rejected (boycotted) by the Bosnian Serbs who desired their own republic. They received support from the Serbian government of Slobodan Milosevic and the Yugoslav Peoples Army (JNA) and the sporadic fighting then turned into an all out war, crossing the newly created international borders. Bosnia has long been a multi ethnic territory, inhabited by Muslims (44%), Orthodox Serbs (31%) and Catholic Croats (17%). The conflict could be described as a territorial conflict but is was largely an ethnic cleansing forcing all non-Serb, mostly Muslim, populations out of Bosnia. The human rights abuses were many including ethnic cleansing, genocide, mass rape and psychological oppression. The most recent research places the number of people killed in the Bosnian War at around 100,000–110,000 and the number of people displaced at over 2.2 million. This makes the Bosnian War the most devastating conflict in Europe since WW2. Estimates of the numbers raped range from 20,000 to 50,000 and for the first time in history, sexual violence, on its own, was not just considered a crime against humanity but led to its first conviction. Understanding the UN’s role in the Bosnian conflict necessitates the context of the peacekeeping missions that came before, most notably in Somalia and Rwanda. I highly suggest you read the previous posts about those conflicts before reading on.

Many blamed the UN and specifically the DPKO for the failures. Kofi Annan however, says to the contrary, “The limits on our resources, the extreme reluctance of troop contributors to take risks with their troops, and, above all, the profound division over policy and strategic direction that often existed among members of the Security Council were often conveniently forgotten when apportioning responsibility for what was routinely referred to in those years as the ‘crisis in UN peacekeeping’” (60). Understanding the climate of international governance and how Rwanda and Somalia shaped UN peacekeeping efforts is critical to understand the evolution of UN involvement in Bosnia.

In February 1992, after the disintegration of Yugoslavia, at the end of the Cold War, the Security Council approved the deployment of UN peacekeeping troops (UNPROFOR) to oversee the confrontation between Serbian and Croatian forces. After full-scale war broke out in April 1992, the conflictt proved to be largely one sided. Serb militias and paramilitary forces, with help from the Yugoslav army, displaced around 1 million people from their homes. All non-Serbs were forcibly removed even from areas where they constituted a majority population. Pressure slowly began to build on the international community to “do something.” Boutrous-Ghali however was quite reluctant to add another peacekeeping mission in the Balkan territories. In May of 1992, Marrack Goulding was sent on a fact-finding mission to better assess the escalating situation. Goulding reported on the conflict and noted that they were attempting to create “ethnically pure” regions through any means necessary. Although, he ultimately concluded, “in its present phase this conflict is not susceptible to UN peacekeeping treatment” (62). As time went on, the barbarity and human rights violations continued without any international witness. Nonetheless, reporting on the conflict eventually began to reach the community of nations. The images evoked familiar sentiments to the WW2 era, further adding to the pressure for the international community to “do something.”

In June 1992, UNPROFOR assumed control of the Sarajevo airport and used it as a hub for humanitarian assistance to the population. Later that year, in September, the Security Council approved an increase to UNPROFORs strength in order to protect convoys delivering humanitarian aid. However, “doing something” at this stage still did not involve engaging in combat. Many, including the US and Germany, began to debate the validity of the traditional nonconfrontational peacekeeping norm. Many began to call for engaging in combat through air power, which would keep risks for troops on the ground at a minimum. Although there were around 40,00 troops across Bosnia, they were lightly equipped, widely dispersed, vulnerable and still reliant on the consent of all involved parties to carry out their tasks.

There were three major purposes of the UN peacekeepers in Bosnia. First, deliver food and medicine, which involved protection of other humanitarian agencies such as the Red Cross as well as protection for convoys. Second, to “contain the conflict and mitigate its consequences as far as possible, making sure it did not spread…” (64). This also involved enacting various constraints such as no-fly zones and weapon-exclusion zones. Third, attempt to reach a peaceful settlement to the conflict including local cease-fire agreements. Annan says, “while these were all important goals, they did not constitute a clear political objective for the UN mission” (65). The peacekeepers were simply not there to end the war.

In 1993, the city of Srebrenica was filled with upwards of sixty thousand Muslim refugees. Bosnian Serb forces targeted the town and began to lay siege with daily bombardments. This action necessitated a strict reaction from the UN.  In response the Security Council demanded that Srebrenica be considered a “safe zone” as well as other threatened towns such as Zepa, Gorazde, Bihac, Tuzla and Sarajevo. However, this did no more than provide a temporary respite. UN forces, already stretched thin, were beginning to be widely recognized as grossly inadequate and Kofi Annan knew that the attainment of more troops would be near impossible. No cosponsors, including the US, France, the UK, Russia and Spain, were willing to increase their troop presence. Nor were they willing to even redeploy existing troops to the newly established safe areas for their protection. General Maurice Baril then gave a presentation to the Council calling for an additional 32,000 troops to implement the safe areas concept. Cosponsors reacted with anger accusing the DPKO of “incompetence” and “failing to properly conduct their duties.” Their preference was still the “light and minimum” option drawn up by France that called for a force of only 5,000 troops.  

These deep divisions in the Security Council outlined not just the differences in opinion on the nature of the conflict but also the means of appropriate action. The main area of disagreement was in the use of air power to engage militarily. By spring of 1995, cease-fires were failing and the conflict was intensifying. The need for more direct intervention in the conflict began to be more widely acknowledged. NATO forces began performing targeted air strikes around Sarajevo but in retaliation, Serb forces illustrated the vulnerability of UN troops by capturing and holding hostage 400 UN personnel. Their tactic worked and air strikes immediately ceased.

After three years of UNPROFOR presence, the conflict not only continued but also worsened. UN forces were continuously “obstructed, targeted, denied resupply, and restricted in our movements” (70). In July 1995, Bosnian Serb forces overran Srebrenica. Thousands of Muslim Bosnian men and boys were immediately executed. The exact figure of the murdered is still unknown. As a reaction, UN forces began to solidify their positions with concentrated troop density and better-defended positions. The Rapid Reaction Force (RRF) was created with seven thousand British, French and Dutch troops and heavy artillery. NATO air power was again authorized and threats were given to the Serbs that if they attacked safe zones there would be continued NATO air strikes. The Serbs saw this as a bluff. And continued to operate on the assumption that if attacked, the UN presence would wilt and withdraw.

The straw that broke the camel’s back was a mortar strike on Sarajevo in August. It targeted one of the cities main markets, where people were lined up for bread. Thirty-nine people were killed. On the first night alone, over one hundred aircrafts from the US, the UK, France, Spain and the Netherlands destroyed 24 targets, including strikes near the Serb headquarters in Pale. Jets were attacking “arms depots, command and control centers, artillery positions and surface-to-air missile batteries” (72). But most importantly, UN troops were now in well-defended and concentrated positions preventing fear of reprisal and hostage taking. This was called Operations Deliberate Force and it broke the hold of the Bosnian Serbs. This action required the Security Council to take sides, to actively embrace war over peacekeeping. The Serbs who once controlled in between 70-80% of the territory were forced to negotiate. The Dayton Accords were born and they effectively ended the war in Bosnia. The peace has continued to hold.

After these three failures of Somalia, Rwanda and Bosnia, it was clear that reform to the UN peacekeeping process was needed. Kofi Annan wanted to acknowledge, with complete honesty, the recent history of failure. Any successful reform he said, needed to come from such honesty. The Brahimi Report released in August 2000 was his contribution. The report needed to address the inherent shortcomings in UN peacekeeping, particularly in civil war scenarios, as they are the most common form of conflict in the world today. As Annan said, “Almost all peacekeeping operations since 1992 have been deployed to conflicts that cannot be readily categorized as between countries, and there are now, at the time of writing, almost 100 thousand uniformed personnel serving on sixteen such operations” (78).

Nonetheless, the consent of belligerent parties, impartiality and the use of force only in self-defense had to remain the “bedrock of peacekeeping.” Annan suggested however, that peacekeepers needed more viable means for self-defense, that any self-sustaining peace must to be continued through long-term development efforts. The bureaucracy of the Secretariat, Security Council and troop-contributing governments needed significant improvement: clearer communication and cohesive coordination with decision-making. Most importantly, Annan says, member states could no longer use the deployment of forces as a “fig leaf designed to conceal their unwillingness to intervene with the true commitment necessary, as a means of appeasing demands for forceful humanitarian intervention” (77).

The Brahimi Report, perhaps more importantly, outlines a larger issue, which Annan calls “complicity with evil.” How can the UN, mandated with peacekeeping and the protection of civilians, merely watch the murder, rape and brutalization of civilians without taking any action? Annan’s intent is to show that UN peacekeepers, when they witness such violence against civilians, must have the authority to stop it. He elaborates,

Evil in civil war zones occurs due to the will of the conflict protagonists, which must be rounded upon, confronted, and stopped – through force if necessary. But while I was serving as secretary general, there were many in the international community, in diplomatic missions, and in capitol cities around the world, who clung to a vision of the UN Charter that, in their view, said that the use of such force was unacceptable…this left me with what would become my greatest challenge as secretary general: creating a new understanding of the legitimacy, and necessity, of intervention in the face of gross violations of human rights” (78-9).

In the next few blog posts I will discuss Annan’s views on sovereignty and human rights, focusing on East Timor, Kosovo and Darfur. 

UN Peacekeeping: Rwanda 1994

Prior to the 1994 genocide, Rwanda has had ethnic power struggles for some time, between the Tutsi minority (who occupied a privileged position in the colonial administration before independence) and the Hutu majority. The former Tutsi dominance of the colonial era gave way to Hutu dominance through a violent power struggle following independence from Belgium in 1962. After independence many remained fearful of a Tutsi return to power. 

In 1990 the predominantly Tutsi Rwandese Patriotic Front (RPF) launched an assault from Uganda against the Hutu dominated government of President Juvenal Habyarimana. In February 1993, the RPF launched its largest offensive and came within 15 miles of Kigali, the Rwandan capital city. Under pressure from France, Belgium and the US, the RPF and the Rwandan government entered negotiations to end the conflict. This resulted in the Arusha Accords, signed in August of 1993. The accords established a power sharing democratic government that represented both sides and a unified army composed of both sides. As part of this agreement, a neutral UN force was to be deployed to uphold the deal.

Although there was much resistance to sending a peacekeeping force to Rwanda, the UN Assistance Mission in Rwanda was created (UNAMIR). The vote to approve UNAMIR happened just days after the Somalian catastrophe. The US was insistent on rejecting any situation that might put their troops in a potentially forceful situation. Domestically, the US also had an agenda for reducing the budget for UN peacekeeping missions. In 1994, the US rejected a proposed peacekeeping contingency fund that would allow for the US to provide emergency financing for rapid peacekeeping efforts. The US was becoming more and more isolationist in its foreign policy altogether. They still owed around “$900 million in unpaid contributions to the regular UN budget and its peacekeeping expenses” (50). Congress had “refused to approve [these contributions] despite the legal obligation as a UN member state” (50). However, this is another topic that I’ll hopefully write about in another post. As a result, the US first argued to send only 100 troops for UNAMIR. 8,000 were requested, with a 5,000 troop minimum requirement. The US sent 2,500.

The international community was somewhat ignorant of Rwanda and its history. There was awareness of a history of ethnic conflict and also in neighboring Burundi. However, UNAMIR was cast off with an air of optimism. It seemed like much safer ground than Somalia. However, the UN troop deployment got off to a rocky start. By December 1993, it was clear that the forces were “totally inadequate.” No troop contributing country had been willing to supply a self-contained 800-man infantry battalion. This was considered an essential force for the capital city of Kigali. Instead two battalions were given, one from Belgium consisting of 398 men and the other from Bangladesh consisting of 370 men (of which only 266 arrived). UNAMIR was meant to have 22 armored personnel carriers and eight helicopters yet no country was willing to provide them, which meant a lack of deterrent capability, and a reserve mobile force. Engineers and logisticians were reassigned as infantry due to this lack. The carrier vehicles that were provided were completely “dilapidated”, and only five were serviceable. They often broke down and had to be towed by other carriers. This was an embarrassment. The potential for a disaster started to become much clearer and fear grew of a repeat of Somalia but with a considerably smaller military presence, and without “any possibility of reinforcement” (53).

Romeo Dallaire, the force commander of UNAMIR, in January of 1994 wrote to the DPKO detailing the growing crisis. Later in April, from his car, he witnessed two Belgian peacekeeping troops being held and beaten. He could do nothing but negotiate. He said, “I just can’t get those guys out of there. I just don’t have the forces.” In response, the DPKO told Dallaire to pressure President Habyarimana, that if violence did occur that the Security Council would take action. This was meant to convey the impression that powerful nations could bring serious repercussions upon Rwanda.

In April 1994, a plane with President Habyarimana and President Cyprien Ntaryamire of Burundi was shot down. Everyone was killed. The Hutu government initiated violence. They blamed the RPF and the Tutsis for the attack. The following day, the ten Belgian troops assigned to protect the Prime Minister of Rwanda were captured. They were ordered to lay down their weapons and not engage in combat by their commander Luc Marchal. The prime minister was then assassinated and the troops murdered and mutilated. Massacres began to spread beyond the capitol. Civilians were being killed in the open by government troops, militias and bands of Hutu civilians.

Any collapse on the Arusha Accords would result in the termination of UNAMIR, and the Rwandan government knew this. Shortly after the violence began, a senior Rwandan official spoke of a plan to kill the Belgian peacekeepers. He said, “We watch CNN too, you know,” This was referring to the Somalian crisis. He knew that if UN troops were attacked and killed, the troop-contributing countries would pull the rest of their forces out. He was correct. Five days later the Belgian government pulled its troops out of Rwanda. This was the core fighting force of UNAMIR. It effectively gutted UNAMIR of any clout. By April 27^th 1994, the Security Council voted to bring the UNAMIR force down to only 270 troops. There was simply no interest in becoming involved. Bob Dole effectively portrayed this perspective saying, “I don’t think we have any national interest here. I hope we don’t get involved…the Americans (US citizens in Rwanda) are out. As far as I’m concerned, in Rwanda that ought to be the end of it” (58).

Secretary General Boutros-Ghali pushed for a major military intervention but it was unanimously rejected. The Security Council took no responsibility for the worsening situation in Rwanda and continuously denied the fact that it was genocide. At this point an estimated 200,000 people had been killed. 250,000 more people had escaped into Tanzania, the largest mass exodus of refugees ever witnessed by the UN. Eventually, on May 17^th, the council reestablished UNAMIR calling it UNAMIR II and called for a force of 5,500. However, once again, no one was willing to provide these troops. Annan said,

At DPKO, we spent endless days frantically lobbying more than a hundred governments around the world for troops. I called dozens myself, and the responses were all the same. We did not receive a single serious offer. It was one of the most shocking and deeply formative experiences of my entire career, laying bare the disjuncture between the public statement of alarm and concern for the suffering of other people on the one hand, and, on the other, the unwillingness to commit any of the necessary resources to take action. The world knew the scale of the killing in Rwanda, and yet we could not get anyone, from governments across the world, to do anything serious to help (59).

The genocide eventually ended due to the victory of the RPF. They overthrew the government in July but not before 800,000 Tutsi and moderate Hutu’s had been murdered. 800,000 people were killed in Rwanda in 100 days. A new government was established, and after this, troops were finally sent to UNAMIR II, well after the genocide and civil war was over. The lesson here, Annan says, is that the genocide and protection of citizens could have happened if there was the military capacity and political will. However, in 1994 “there was simply no culture or precedent in the international system of UN intervention in an internal conflict to use military force decisively to protect citizens” (59). Combined with the impact of Somalia, the result was inaction. 

UN Peacekeeping: Somalia 1993

Introduction:

I am beginning to read Kofi Annan’s new book Interventions: A Life in War and Peace. I don’t know very much about the history of the United Nation or its evolution of purpose and scope since its inception after WW2. This book provides a thorough account of major world events including human rights issues and abuses, civil wars, peacekeeping, global governance, the millennium development goals and terrorism. As I read this book, I’ll be posting little summaries of interesting information particularly, the history and facts of certain events that I believe most of us, myself included, have a limited and narrow understanding.

In my studies at DU in International Human Rights, I did not focus on human rights issues through the lens of major international conflicts or civil wars in the developing world. I also did not focus on genocide of which DU has many classes and expertise.  In my undergrad work (Contemplative Psychology and Religious Studies), I also did not have the opportunity, outside of my lack of personal initiative, to learn a lot about international affairs and various humanitarian conflict-type situations. From this vantage point, I view this book as an incredible learning tool to make up for this lack. Most of us I think, myself included, have either an idealistic, pessimistic, reductionist or naive understanding of how the UN operates in regard to peacekeeping and responses to conflicts around the world. Having the facts of what actually happened from the perspective of the former UN secretary general is invaluable.

Annan begins his book by describing the complex world of UN peacekeeping, especially in the context of civil wars. He focuses on three examples that he refers to as the United Nation’s “toughest-ever crises – and greatest of failures” (32): the 1993 Somalia crisis, the genocide in Rwanda in 1994 and the massacre in Srebenic, Bosnia in 1995. I want to briefly go over his testimony of these events. Hopefully, they will not only provide historical knowledge but also elucidate the inherent complications of peacekeeping and global governance.

Background Context:

In between WW2 and the 1980s, there were only a handful of UN peacekeeping missions. Before 1988 there were only a dozen, but between 1988 and 1992, another ten were created. This is due in part to the Cold War. In its early years, the five permanent members of the Security Council (Russia, China, the UK, France and the US) were not able to contribute troops to peacekeeping efforts mainly due to the potential for escalating Cold War rivalry. After 1988 and the beginning of the end of the Cold War, the Security Council was able to agree more often without this kind of confrontation. There were many peacekeeping successes during this time including monitoring ceasefires between Iraq and Iran, the political transition in Nicaragua and the withdrawl of Cuban troops from Angola. Most notable however was Operation Desert Storm in response to the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait in 1990. The response was a UN-authorized, US-led coalition. Almost a million men and women were deployed from 34 countries.

This new era of peacekeeping however also led to the alteration of its principles. Codified in 1973, the formal rules of peacekeeping were as follows:

· Peacekeeping troops could only be deployed only with the consent of the parties to the dispute.

· Peacekeeping had to be strictly impartial in their deployment and activities.

· Peacekeepers could use force only in self-defense.

· Peacekeepers should be mandated and supported by the Security Council in their activities.

· Peacekeeping operations had to rely on the voluntary contributions of member states for military personnel, equipment, and logistics.

The then Secretary General Boutros-Ghali was commissioned to present a document on how the UN might operate in the transforming geopolitical climate. He created a document called An Agenda for Peace. In this document he focused on the rising civil war conflicts around the world and how they demanded a new level of international intervention. He also proposed that due to the nature of these types of conflict, the deployment of UN peacekeeping forces should no longer require consent from all parties. This change presented a new level of risk for peacekeeping forces. Force was now something to be more prepared for. Troop contributing forces had to accept this new level of risk as well as higher levels of political will and commitment. However, these risks and commitments were largely unrecognized as it was hard to foresee how these conflicts and peacekeeping missions would play out.

The UN peacekeeping governing structure is highly complicated. Firstly, you have the Security Council, which has the power to form a UN field operation and is “responsible for determining its mandate, objectives, and parameters” (36). Second, the UN Secretariat, which is the administrative body of the UN, manages operation logistics and day-to-day practicalities. Thirdly, the troop contributing countries retain authority over the forces they deploy. This creates a bureaucratic nightmare. Decision-making is fragmented and the communication and coordination between governing bodies can be difficult. Reform of this system was never pushed for because none of the peacekeeping missions up to this point had displayed its flaws in a serious way. Troop contributing countries also benefited from the existing structure. For instance, the deployment of troops in peacekeeping efforts carries their foreign policy humanitarian ambitions and the deployment of troops allows one to take responsibility for responding to crises. However they are able to abdicate a certain amount of responsibility by simultaneously deploying troops without proper acknowledgement of the inherent risk.

Case One: Somalia

In 1991, Somali President Barre fell out of power and his void gave way to an intense power struggle between interim president Ali Mahdi Mohamed and the chairman of the United Somali Congress, General Mohamed Farrah Aidid. Power structures eventually gave way to multiple armed factions and competing gangs that created a series of mini-wars. The Somali civilian population suffered greatly from these conflicts and the UN presence was not capable of dealing them. A great famine was created not just due to environmental reasons but also due to the armed forces consciously obstructing aid from reaching the population. Annan said, “services and systems of trade and food distribution disappeared as the months rolled past” (39). A large portion of the population suffered from malnutrition. “1.5 million were considered at immediate risk of death.” Delivering humanitarian aid was simply not enough. At the transition from 1991 to 1992, some agreements were reached culminating in a ceasefire in March of 1992. As part of this deal the UN Operation in Somalia was created (UNOSOM). This operation was created to oversee the ceasefire and to accompany humanitarian aid around the country.

Despite the ceasefire, in August of 1992, eleven Red Cross workers were killed in Kismayo (a southern port city). 250 tons of food was stolen from the ports. Gangs and looters were blocking food trucks in Mogadishu. People, including children, were dying of malnutrition even at UN feeding centers. It was becoming clear that the political resolution was not taking hold. The capabilities of the UN mission were “inadequate.” All efforts to increase aid were met with responding efforts to disrupt their access to the population. Food warehouses were full while “an estimated 3,000 Somalis were dying every day, with perhaps 300,000 already dead” (42).

Boutros-Ghali recommended that the use of force was “the only feasible option.” The Security Council then unanimously adopted a measure (UNOSOM II) that established any means to secure an “environment for humanitarian relief operation in Somalia” (42). The US, under George H. W. Bush, sent 28,000 troops and twenty other countries collectively provided another 17,000. This force however was thought to be in Somalia for a short period of time. It was there merely to “prepare the way for a return to peacekeeping and post conflict peacebuilding. (42). Initiatlly this mission was very successful. Humanitarian supplies were being delivered to 40% of the country. The troops were being pulled out even as the fighting continued.

With a much smaller troop presence and a more fragmented command structure, a mandate was given to begin disarming the competing factions within Somalia. This force was never above 20,000 troops. This mandate presented many problems. For example, any faction targeted for disarming would find itself in a disadvantaged position against its rivals. No Somali warlord was about to let this happen. Following a series of small incidents, 25 Pakistani soldiers were killed and fifty other wounded. General Aidid was blamed. Attention quickly shifted away from the broader picture of peacekeeping, peacebuilding and disarmament to focus on capturing this one man. This focus was the straw that broke the camels back and ultimately crippled the UN mission in Somalia and sent the country into years of chaos. Boutros-Ghali sent a separate force of US troops specifically to hunt General Aidid. This chain of command was independent of the UN mission and was done so without the knowledge of existing UN troops in Somalia. The attempt to capture General Aidid failed horribly and resulted in “two helicopters being shot down, 18 US soldiers killed, and scores of others wounded” (45). Images were screened around the world of dead US soldiers stripped naked and dragged through Mogadishu streets.

This level of causalities was not anticipated and in response, there was a call for an immediate end to US involvement. This gutted the UN mission, taking its best-trained and best-equipped soldiers away from a worsening situation. The rest of the troops from other nations, being now more vulnerable, followed suit and pulled out of Somalia. As Annan said, “Thus ended the greatest experiment ever attempted to use peace enforcement in a mission motivated by humanitarian goals” (45). Somalia was abandoned and the population was punished by perpetual civil chaos and suffering. The world saw fit to ignore Somalia until it was recognized that international terrorists began to emerge there years later.

This failure brought into clear view the “dysfunctional nature of the peacekeeping system” (46). President Bill Clinton even said after this mission that the US would never again put troops in harms way in a UN peacekeeping mission. There grew an international aversion to taking risks. Nonetheless, more peacekeeping missions were deployed in more civil wars around the world. Unfortunately the very first operation to occur after this failure in Somalia and in this new UN climate was the Rwandan genocide in 1994. I will post about Rwanda and Bosnia in a separate post.

Meditations for the Humanist - Part 2 - Tolerance and DOMA

“The peak of tolerance is most readily achieved by those who are not burdened with convictions.” – Alexander Chase

An intolerant person is defined as one who “wishes others to live as the thinks they ought, and who seeks to impose his practices and beliefs upon them” (Grayling 2002, 7) True tolerance states that humanity thrives most by “permitting a variety of lifestyles to flourish, because they represent experiments from which might be learned about how to deal with the human condition” (Grayling 2002, 7-8).  Democracy has a similar aim in that a government run by the people, for the people, must include the voices and active participation of all demographics for it to flourish, especially if it is to afford the protect of minority rights. There is an inherent danger in democratic style government, namely majority oppression of minorities.

Grayling says,

Tolerance is, however, not only the centerpiece but the paradox of liberalism. For liberalism enjoins tolerance of opposing viewpoints, and allows them to have their say, leaving it to the democracy of ideas to decide which shall prevail. The result is to often the death of toleration itself, because those who live by hard principles and uncompromising views in political, moral and religious respects always, if given half a chance, silence liberals because liberalism, by its nature, threatens the hegemony they wish to impose.

Foreseeing this danger, the founders blessed us with the Bill of Rights as well as checks and balances in government. This was done in order to protect all citizens, especially minority demographics from majority oppression, including religious oppression.

The traditional republican platform has always had a foundation in states rights and a smaller federal government. The power of the federal government was seen as a threat to personal liberty.  However, when it comes to civil liberties and human rights issues, puritan morality seems to trump this age-old Republican value. This is becoming quite relevant with various contemporary social issues, especially homosexuality, marriage and the DOMA (Defense of Marriage Act). 

Traditionally marriage has been a religious ceremony, and many prefer it to remain as such. However, in this country, in this secular country, marriage is a civil right. Vermont, Connecticut and New York, which all have legalized gay marriage, now content that DOMA is a violation of states rights. They contend that the federal government has not right or authority to regulate the institution of marriage. The civil rights granted by marriage simple have nothing to do with religion, such as social security benefits, child-care tax credits, family and medical leave to take care of loved ones and COBRA health care for spouses and children. By denying a citizen these civil rights, they are thereby being denied human rights. The fourteenth Amendment to the Constitutions provides all citizens equal protection under the law. The Universal Declaration of Human Rights also speaks to this issue in its first, second and seventh articles, which says “All are equal before the law and are entitled without any discrimination to equal protection of the law…”

DOMA is designed to prevent the legalization of same-sex marriage at the state level. The LGBTQ community is being discriminated against as they are denied this equal protection. They are being denied their civil/human rights. Once more, they are being denied this right from the Republican Party that supposedly champions personal freedom and liberty and views the Federal government as intrusive and oppressive. This is a fabulous example of how the Republican platform has lost its way. It is no longer centered around small government and states rights, but it has been hijacked by moralistic, intolerant religious fanatics who at their very core are opposed to the liberalism, pluralism and democratic ideals that America is founded upon.

I am not saying that marriage cannot be a religious ceremony. What I am saying is that in a democratic, pluralistic society, those who do not wish to be religious, those who do not want religion to have any part of their civil/human rights, shouldn’t be denied their rights because it makes religious people uncomfortable.

By providing the same rights to all citizens, society will thrive and become more cohesive and functional. Chris Kluwe, the punter for the Minnesota Vikings said, “You know what having these rights will make gays? Full-fledged American citizens just like everyone else, with the freedom to pursue happiness and all that entails. Do the civil-rights struggles of the past 200 years mean absolutely nothing…?” Chuck Norris recently said a thousand years of darkness will not ensue. And many prominent figures who claim that hurricanes and other natural disasters are Gods punishment for sanctioning equality are intolerant religious bigots who should not be tolerated, let alone be given a platform to spew their fear. Intolerance itself is merely a symptom of fear and insecurity. And this is what the Republican Party has become in my eyes, a political party based on intolerance rooted in fear and insecurity. The relevant question is….”Should the tolerant tolerate the intolerant?” And the answer is obviously no. Tolerance must protect itself. No one can force another to adopt a certain viewpoint or practice. The only coercion should be argument and honest reasoning, which is what we would expect from our government. Religious freedom does not entail the right to discriminate. Protecting minorities and civil rights is not an attack on Christianity. It is compassionate. It is based in identification with all of humanity, regardless of creed, sex, color of skin and any other label. It is based in ethics, an ethics encouraged not by religious discourse, but by secular discourse, which provides and equal footing for all. For a deeper in depth discussion please see my previous post “Tolerating the Intolerant.”

http://www.npr.org/blogs/thetwo-way/2012/09/09/160840674/states-rights-and-doma-clash-on-a-shifting-battlefield?ft=1&f=1001

Grayling, A.C. (2002). Meditations for the Humanist: Ethics for a Secular Age. Oxford: Oxford University Press.