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"FAILURE
TO PROTECT"
LLOYD
AXWORTHY
Winnipeg Free Press, July 20, 2003
Some
readers of this newspaper will recall that in the autumn of 2000,
Winnipeg was the site of a major global conference dealing with children
in war zones.
For a week, the city hosted thousands of delegates -- diplomats, NGOs,
child advocates, experts and many children from war-torn countries
-- to the International Conference on War-Affected Children. The purpose
was to forge agreement on a protocol to protect children from the
ravages of conflict and, through such an agreement, to mobilize the
international community to address one of the most pernicious violations
of the modern era: the exploitation of vulnerable young people during
times of war. It may not have been the Olympics, but it was a source
of some pride that Winnipeg was the place of a major undertaking in
the advancement of global justice and decency.
Two events of the past week brought to mind the significance of that
occasion and the legacy it left, especially for the host community
and country. The meeting endowed a certain responsibility to continue
working toward a global commitment to child protection and provide
leadership in efforts to safeguard individuals against the predators
stalking today's world.
The first event was a London meeting of leaders of progressive governments.
Prime Minister Jean Chrétien presented a Canadian proposal
that would set rules and mechanisms for international acts of humanitarian
intervention to protect people from wholesale abuse, murder and ethnic
cleansing. This was a clear commitment by the Canadian government
to advance the principle of "responsibility to protect,"
a major finding of a Commission of Experts that I established as foreign
minister after the Kosovo conflict. That commission examined the issue
of when, how and by what right the international community -- and,
for that matter, even a powerful state -- could and should overturn
the law of sovereignty and intervene in the affairs of another country.
Its recommendation was that if the government of a state was unable
or unwilling to protect its citizens against a major infringement
of the basic right to live in freedom from fear, or if the government
itself was the violator, then international intervention could be
justified -- but only after a series of tests and criteria were met.
In other words, it looked at intervention from the point of view of
the victims, not the intervener -- a lesson to remember as we witness
the revelations of trumped-up intelligence used to justify the U.S.
invasion of Iraq.
The second event was the tabling of a report called Abused and Abducted
prepared by Human Rights Watch, the Liu Institute at UBC and the Human
Rights Center at Makere University in Kampala, Uganda. It documented
the tragedy of the children of the Acholiland region of northern Uganda
as a war that has gone on for more than 18 years intensifies in ferocity,
deadliness and destruction.
A sample of results: more than 8,000 children have been kidnapped
from their villages in the past year by a nasty group of rebels called
the Lord's Resistance Army and turned into "sex slaves"
or soldiers who are sent back to kill, maim or abduct other Acholi.
If the children manage to survive this brutal treatment and escape
or are released, they find little solace. They return infected with
disease, often HIV, and are forced by the Ugandan army into displaced
persons' camps where there is little security, little food and the
strong likelihood of being assaulted. They have no livelihood except
prostitution or service in the army. Every night, 20,000 to 30,000
flee to the city streets or alleyways to escape the threat of violation,
rape or beatings inside the camps.
Is this not exactly the kind of desperate situation that delegates
to the international meeting in Winnipeg pledged to avert? Isn't this
demeaning, degrading and devaluing of the very meaning of childhood
just the kind of outrage that the prime minister's proposal of "responsibility
to protect" is designed to address? Yet the international community,
all the donors who provide billions in aid to Uganda, the UN, and
even our own country are missing in action. No one is responding with
the kind of assistance, resources and engagement that could lead to
a peaceful resolution of this festering dispute. There is little evidence
of a willingness to make a real commitment to exercise the "responsibility
to protect."
As I've made the rounds of government offices trying to evince a response,
I've heard a litany of well-argued explanations of why the situation
is too complex, why the timing is not right and why the priorities
lie elsewhere, so that only token gestures can be made. The only significant
outside assistance has been the announcement by U.S. President George
W. Bush during his recent African tour of an additional $100 million
US to fight terrorism. This will serve only to perpetuate the violence.
Meanwhile, a Ugandan friend of mine, Jeffery Oyat, reports daily on
the anguish of the people of Acholiland, the plight of their children
and, most importantly, on their sense of being abandoned by the rest
of the world. They feel neglected, forgotten and ignored.
At a time when we in the West, in the wake of 9/11 and other terrorist
attacks, ponder what it is that fuels such hatred and creates such
animosities toward us, we might do well to think of our indifference
to the children of Uganda and what message that transmits. Let me
suggest that maybe it is time for some in this community to dust off
the promises of child protection made nearly three years ago in our
city and ask our elected representatives what they are doing to keep
the flame alive.
Perhaps a few might ask, while applauding Mr. Chrétien's advancement
of a bold new idea of humanitarian intervention, why Canada cannot
make a tangible demonstration of this principle by leading the international
community in protecting the children of Acholiland.
Lloyd Axworthy is the Director and CEO of the Centre for the Study
of Global Issues at the University of British Columbia; and Minister
of Foreign Affairs, Canada (1996 - 2000).
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