The Motives forHumanitarian Intervention in Cambodia and the Holocaust
Murdershappen everyday. Cases of shootings or stabbings are reported throughnewspapers and television anchors, and every time there is a call for justice. Thelaw intervenes to try to prevent violence and killings from taking place in thefuture because we recognize a moral responsibility to protect people. We assumethat when violence and murders happen on a large scale, such in cases ofgenocide and mass atrocity, these same ethics will be applied. Some believe theinternational community should intervene. However, all too often countries with the resources to do so stand byand watch mass atrocity take place. After the Holocaust the world said “neveragain.” Genocide and mass killings continue to take place however, and oftenthe international community fails to offer effective humanitarian intervention.
Inthis paper I will examine some of the problems surrounding humanitarianintervention. The cases I will considerare Cambodia and the extermination of Jews in Nazi Germany during theHolocaust. By looking at these cases Ihope to discover what the incentives for humanitarian intervention are and howit is justified, with a specific focus on the United States.
Humanitarianintervention outside its borders is relatively new to the United States. Initially, this country isolated itself frominternational affairs in order to guard its own interests. Yet in the twentieth century the world beganto get smaller. The United Statesstarted to develop interests that existed outside its borders. As threats of Communism and Fascism grew, theUS isolationism policy became outdated. With the beginning of World War II, US interests were intertwined withthe rest of the world. Interventionabroad was necessary. (Klar)
Humanitarianintervention is different from other types of intervention in that it poses a certainproblem; its justification may depend more on moral grounds. It is easy for Americans to understand whythe US would intervene in a country that is a direct threat to ourinterests. It is not as easy, however,to understand intervention on a strictly moral basis. Furthermore, it might be difficult for countriesin which interventions take place to understand the justification forhumanitarian intervention.
Thedebate over state sovereignty is a major factor in this problem. The formationof the United Nations after World War II changed the way the world justifiedhumanitarian intervention. While stateshave a right to protect what is within their borders, the UN Charter declaredthat it is not just the state’s right, but it is their responsibility, toprotect their citizens. Failure toprotect citizens from events like war crimes, genocide, ethnic cleansing andhuman rights violations justifies the involvement of the internationalcommunity. In the case of human rightsviolations such as those listed by the UN Charter, a state’s sovereignty is overruledby humanitarian concerns.
Whilethe UN Charter legalizes humanitarian interventions, whether or not they takeplace is a more complicated issue. It isup to the international community to respond to cases of genocide and humanrights violations, but what motivates them to do so? Ideally, one would like to think that theimmorality of mass atrocity would motivate an intervention. However, as history proves, this has not beenthe case. Why has the United Statestaken part in some humanitarian interventions to stop genocide and not inothers? Is it solely based on a moralobligation, or are there perhaps other factors surrounding an outside country’smotive for humanitarian intervention? (Bajoria)
Thisquestion is easier to answer by examining specific cases of genocide. The firstis the most well known case of genocide in history. The Holocaust occurredduring World War II when the United States began to change its foreignpolicy. The US became involved in thewar and fought against the Germans and their allies. This effort liberated theNazi victims in Europe and put an end to genocide, but this was not necessarilywhat motivated the US to become involved.
Nazigenocide officially began in November, 1938, several years before the UnitedStates became involved in the war. What followed was the genocide of millionsof people. The victims were not onlyJewish. Hitler targeted communists andsocialists, handicapped people, homosexuals, and anyone he deemed a threat tohis campaign. Victims were confined toovercrowded neighborhoods or put in labor camps. Millions were killed in death camps or simplyshot on the spot. By the end, the Naziregime was responsible for the murder of an estimated six million people.
Asthe genocide continued through the end of the 1930’s and into the 1940’s it didnot go unnoticed. The US entered the warin December of 1941. Shortly before thennews of the mass killings of Jews in Europe hit the United States. In September of 1941 the front page of The New York Times published a storydetailing the “appalling conditions under which some 3,000 Polish Jews muststruggle to live” (Leff, 2000, p. 60). The United States government could not claim that they were ignorant ofthe situation in Europe when it was being published in a major newspaper in thecountry. However, the decision to enterWorld War II was not based on information like this. The attack on Pearl Harbortriggered the US entry to the war.
Interventionaimed at stopping genocide was still not discussed. The Rooseveltadministration had no actual proof of the conditions that were described byreporters and journalists. Many peoplethought the stories were exaggerated, but as time went on the Rooseveltadministration began to feel more pressure to do something (Hasian, 13). Journalists and special interest groups urgedRoosevelt to speak out against Hitler and the Nazi Regime. Finally, in August of 1942 Roosevelt held apress conference during which he gave verbal warnings to Germany and enemy nations. Roosevelt was not alone in speaking outagainst Germany. Many allied nationscondemned his actions, but little more than verbal warnings were issued. Roosevelt was clear in that “he did not wantto be pressured into making more interventionist policy statements” (Hasian,8). His concern was primarily with thewar effort, and he was hesitant to order a humanitarian intervention.
The USinvolvement in World War II was not a humanitarian intervention. Roosevelt was morefocused on the winning the war than stopping the atrocities taking place,despite being aware of them. This doesnot mean that Roosevelt and his administration did not care, but it points outthe political implications surrounding how the international community dealswith genocide. There were vast humanrights violations against the Jews and Hitler’s other victims during World WarII, but for the United States, stopping Germany’s conquest of Europeovershadowed these. US diplomats andmilitary leaders recognized that the genocide taking place needed specialhumanitarian aid, but they considered it a post-war concern that would be dealtwith by the United Nations (Hasian, 14-15).
The UnitedStates’ approach to dealing with the mass atrocities taking place during WorldWar II was primarily from a political perspective. The fact that there were crimes againsthumanity might have been cause for intervention, yet there were political andmilitary factors that complicated the issue. The US government was preoccupied with the war and did not want to spendthe resources, if they had them, on liberating Nazi victims. It is obvious that the decision for humanitarianintervention is more than a moral issue. Political, economic and military issues also come into play.
This was evidentin the case of Cambodia. Genocide inCambodia began with events in Vietnam. As part of their effort to eliminate Communism from Southeast Asia duringthe Vietnam War, the United States carried out air attacks along Cambodia’s easternborder. These bombings were followed bythe invasion of US ground troops, which disposed of Cambodia’s current leader,King Norodom Sihanouk, and replaced him with the corrupt Lon Nol. These events helped cause Cambodia to plummetinto a state of political unrest, and they paved the way for the Khmer Rougeregime to gain support.
InApril of 1975 Pol Pot led the Khmer Rouge movement to take power in Cambodia. The Khmer Rouge idealized rural life andsupported peasants and farmers, claiming that they were uncorrupted by the Westand modern culture. The regime isolatedCambodia from outside influence. Potordered the execution of thousands of Cambodians. He targeted educated professionals and formerpolitical figures who lived in the city of Phnom Penh. As part of the campaignto destroy any hint of modern society and Western ideas, the regime destroyedbanks, libraries and much of Cambodia’s history. People were moved to the countryside wheredevastating bombings were carried out, killing millions. A five-year long civil war ensued during whichthe Khmer Rouge carried out mass killings and genocide against the Cambodianpeople.
Muchlike during the Holocaust, the United States was aware of the action inCambodia. In fact, in his essay “Cambodiaand the Perils of Humanitarian Intervention,” William Shawcross explains thatit was obvious “from the moment the Khmer Rouge won victory in April 1975 thatit was intent on creating a radical revolution of extraordinary brutality”(2). Despite these warnings, the outsideworld showed little concern. A rareexception was when, in 1978, US senator George McGovern questioned the role ofthe United States in the Cambodian genocide. He asked, “Do we sit on the sidelines and watch a population slaughteredor do we marshal military force and put an end to it?” He called upon the US to“condemn the situation and move to stop what appears like genocide” (Shawcross,2). Despite the senator’s call foraction, the United States remained inactive.
Unlikeduring the Holocaust, the US was able to ignore the violence in Cambodia. The Khmer Rouge was not a threat to itssecurity or interests. Samantha Powerspoints out that, “even when facts emerged, the American policy ofnonengagement, noncomdemnation, and noninterest went virtually unchallenged”(Powers, 90). In fact, the United States had perhaps moreincentive not to intervene. Cambodia’s formergovernment was allied with China, an enemy of America at the time of thegenocide. Furthermore, Cambodia was a Communist country. Politically, the US and Cambodia had nothingto offer one another. However, in theHolocaust, US interests were directly affected by Germany and WesternEurope. Intervention was necessary toprotect those interests, and therefore the United States was able to justifyits involvement in WWII. From a moralperspective the issues in Cambodia and the Holocaust were the same. However, political, economic and militaryfactors were ultimately what motivated the US decision whether or not tointervene.
Theidea that humanitarian intervention should be carried out anytime human rightsviolations, mass atrocities, or genocide occurs is proven to beunrealistic. In the cases of the Holocaustand Cambodia it is easy to see that there was more than morality involved inthe US decision on whether or not to intervene. Political influences were unavoidable. In fact, it seems that politicswere at play in making the decision whether or not to intervene in nearly allcases of genocide. This has happened inSomalia, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Northern Uganda, and Myanmar. During the crisis in Sudan a high-rakingmember of the UN Security Council even declared that the situation in WesternSudan was genocide. Giving this labelacknowledges that there are unjustified human rights violations taking place,but the United States still failed to carry out a humanitarian intervention. Inmany cases of genocide the international community was aware of grave humanrights violations, yet inaction remained the most common reaction. There is no guarantee that genocide willgenerate a response from the rest of the world. (Janssen, 1-2)
Humanitarianintervention seems to be more motivated by international interests rather thana moral obligation. In his essay“Humanitarian Intervention and the Prevention of Genocide,” Dieter Janssenpoints out how political interests stopped the UN Security Council fromauthorizing humanitarian intervention in Sudan and Kosovo. He explains,
The Security Council, for example,could not decide on tough sanctions against Sudan’s oil industry in order toforce the government in Khartoum to comply with UN resolutions concerningDarfur, because a Chinese veto threatened to scuttle any such resolution. In1999 the threat of a Russian veto thwarted any of a Security Council mandatefor NATO to intervene in Kosovo. (9)
Like in the cases of the Holocaust andCambodia, external factors affected how the UN responded to the situations inDarfur and Kosovo, proving that it takes more than simple moral factors toinspire the international community to react.
Thereis also an issue of what internal interests a country has when it comes tohumanitarian intervention. As in the case of Cambodia, it seems that the internationalcommunity will stand by and permit violence to take place if it poses no threatto them. Even when people are aware of thesituation they are able to ignore it, and so they do so. They can simply turn off the news and avoidreading articles in the paper. Genocide in other countries has little affect onthe lives of American citizens. Only when the government recognizes thatgenocide has ramifications in their own country do they see cause to react toit. The Holocaust provides an examplefor this. The United States had information on the mass killings taking placein Nazi Germany, but they only became involved in World War II after the attackon Pearl Harbor. When the conflict came to US soil a reaction wasgenerated. The reaction was based onpolitical factors and national security, not on the genocide happening inEurope. Some cases of genocide and massivehuman rights violations that have not received humanitarian intervention havecaused more deaths than the cases where intervention has taken place. Humanitarianintervention is selective. The decisionto intervene in some countries and not others is a result of decisions made bya government based on their own countries self interests. (Orosco, 3-4)
Thequestion is how do we bring nations to intervene in humanitarian issues whentheir self-interest is not at stake? Can we create a world in which moralitytriumphs over the political agendas of the world’s leaders? Are there incentives for humanitarianintervention that go beyond political, economic or military motives? Historyhas shown the unwillingness of politicians to invest their country’s resourcesin helping a country that has no connection to their own. It might be difficult to convince citizensthat their government is justified in spending tax dollars in a foreign countrythat is of no interest to them.
Thefact that the US and other countries sometimes avoided humanitarianintervention when it seemed to justified on moral grounds calls for the need ofan institution that prevents leading countries from ignoring genocide and massatrocity. There must be acknowledgementof a moral responsibility to prevent or intervene in instances of mass humanrights violations. In a recent visit tothe United States Holocaust Museum in Washington DC, President Obama addressedthe issue of the United States’ role in genocide prevention. He revealed that his administration formed anAtrocities Prevention Board. The primarygoal of the board is to “develop government-wide strategies for finding ways tointervene before mass killings take place” (Thrall). This is a step in the right direction. The Obama administration has framed the issueof genocide intervention as a moral responsibility, stating, “preventing massatrocities and genocide is a core national security interest and a core moralresponsibility of the United States” (Thrall). This calls upon the US to intervene whether or not they have securityinterest in the country. It justifieshumanitarian intervention as a moral duty.
Whilethe creation of the Atrocities Prevention Board shows progress toward solvingthe issue of humanitarian intervention, its success is questionable. It is primarily focused on using militaryintervention to prevent violence (Thrall). This ignores the idea that diplomatic efforts might be more effective.Furthermore, stating that the US must intervene when any potential massatrocity takes place will lead to more interventions around the world. Does itassume that the United States is responsible for all cases of genocide? This isnearly impossible. How does the USchoose which mass atrocities require intervention and which do not? This allowsfor the possibility of the government to continue making decisions based ontheir own interests and not on a moral responsibility.
Changing themotives for humanitarian intervention is a complicated problem and one that isfar from being solved. There needs to bea shift in how the rest of the world sees its role in cases of genocide andmass atrocities. As human beings we must open our eyes to the devastating humanrights violations taking place around the world. We must be the voice of thosewhose voices have been taken from them. When a group of people’s existence isbeing threatened the political, economic and military connections with acountry should be secondary. Humanitarian intervention in cases of genocide isnot just a political issue, but it is also a human issue. As human beings we have a moralresponsibility to protect the lives of others when they cannot protectthemselves.
Works Cited
Bajora, Jayshree. “The Dilemma ofHumanitarian Intervention.” Council onForeign
Relations (2011). Web.
Hasian Jr., Marouf. "Franklin D. Roosevelt, The Holocaust, AndModernity's Rescue
Rhetorics." CommunicationQuarterly 51.2 (2003): 153-173. Academic Search
Complete. Web.
Janssen, Dieter. "Humanitarian Intervention And The Prevention OfGenocide." Journal
Of Genocide Research 10.2(2008): 289-306. Academic Search Complete. Web.
Klar, Nicholas. “The U.S. – From Isolation toIntervention.” The Klar Books Site,1993.
Web.
Orosco, Jose-Antonio. "Defending The Great Community: Royce's ConceptOf
HumanitarianIntervention." Transactions Of The Charles S. Peirce Society 46.2
(2010): 266-281. AcademicSearch Complete. Web.
Powers, Samantha. A Problem FromHell: America and the Age of Genocide. New York,
NY: HarperCollins, 2007. Print.
Shawcross, William. "Cambodia And The Perils Of HumanitarianIntervention." Dissent
(00123846) 49.2 (2002): 47.Academic Search Complete. Web.
Thrall, Trevor. “Never Again? Obama’s Big, Risky Plan for PreventingGlobal
Atrocities.” The Atlantic. The Atlantic Monthly Group(2012). Web.
Murdershappen everyday. Cases of shootings or stabbings are reported throughnewspapers and television anchors, and every time there is a call for justice. Thelaw intervenes to try to prevent violence and killings from taking place in thefuture because we recognize a moral responsibility to protect people. We assumethat when violence and murders happen on a large scale, such in cases ofgenocide and mass atrocity, these same ethics will be applied. Some believe theinternational community should intervene. However, all too often countries with the resources to do so stand byand watch mass atrocity take place. After the Holocaust the world said “neveragain.” Genocide and mass killings continue to take place however, and oftenthe international community fails to offer effective humanitarian intervention.
Inthis paper I will examine some of the problems surrounding humanitarianintervention. The cases I will considerare Cambodia and the extermination of Jews in Nazi Germany during theHolocaust. By looking at these cases Ihope to discover what the incentives for humanitarian intervention are and howit is justified, with a specific focus on the United States.
Humanitarianintervention outside its borders is relatively new to the United States. Initially, this country isolated itself frominternational affairs in order to guard its own interests. Yet in the twentieth century the world beganto get smaller. The United Statesstarted to develop interests that existed outside its borders. As threats of Communism and Fascism grew, theUS isolationism policy became outdated. With the beginning of World War II, US interests were intertwined withthe rest of the world. Interventionabroad was necessary. (Klar)
Humanitarianintervention is different from other types of intervention in that it poses a certainproblem; its justification may depend more on moral grounds. It is easy for Americans to understand whythe US would intervene in a country that is a direct threat to ourinterests. It is not as easy, however,to understand intervention on a strictly moral basis. Furthermore, it might be difficult for countriesin which interventions take place to understand the justification forhumanitarian intervention.
Thedebate over state sovereignty is a major factor in this problem. The formationof the United Nations after World War II changed the way the world justifiedhumanitarian intervention. While stateshave a right to protect what is within their borders, the UN Charter declaredthat it is not just the state’s right, but it is their responsibility, toprotect their citizens. Failure toprotect citizens from events like war crimes, genocide, ethnic cleansing andhuman rights violations justifies the involvement of the internationalcommunity. In the case of human rightsviolations such as those listed by the UN Charter, a state’s sovereignty is overruledby humanitarian concerns.
Whilethe UN Charter legalizes humanitarian interventions, whether or not they takeplace is a more complicated issue. It isup to the international community to respond to cases of genocide and humanrights violations, but what motivates them to do so? Ideally, one would like to think that theimmorality of mass atrocity would motivate an intervention. However, as history proves, this has not beenthe case. Why has the United Statestaken part in some humanitarian interventions to stop genocide and not inothers? Is it solely based on a moralobligation, or are there perhaps other factors surrounding an outside country’smotive for humanitarian intervention? (Bajoria)
Thisquestion is easier to answer by examining specific cases of genocide. The firstis the most well known case of genocide in history. The Holocaust occurredduring World War II when the United States began to change its foreignpolicy. The US became involved in thewar and fought against the Germans and their allies. This effort liberated theNazi victims in Europe and put an end to genocide, but this was not necessarilywhat motivated the US to become involved.
Nazigenocide officially began in November, 1938, several years before the UnitedStates became involved in the war. What followed was the genocide of millionsof people. The victims were not onlyJewish. Hitler targeted communists andsocialists, handicapped people, homosexuals, and anyone he deemed a threat tohis campaign. Victims were confined toovercrowded neighborhoods or put in labor camps. Millions were killed in death camps or simplyshot on the spot. By the end, the Naziregime was responsible for the murder of an estimated six million people.
Asthe genocide continued through the end of the 1930’s and into the 1940’s it didnot go unnoticed. The US entered the warin December of 1941. Shortly before thennews of the mass killings of Jews in Europe hit the United States. In September of 1941 the front page of The New York Times published a storydetailing the “appalling conditions under which some 3,000 Polish Jews muststruggle to live” (Leff, 2000, p. 60). The United States government could not claim that they were ignorant ofthe situation in Europe when it was being published in a major newspaper in thecountry. However, the decision to enterWorld War II was not based on information like this. The attack on Pearl Harbortriggered the US entry to the war.
Interventionaimed at stopping genocide was still not discussed. The Rooseveltadministration had no actual proof of the conditions that were described byreporters and journalists. Many peoplethought the stories were exaggerated, but as time went on the Rooseveltadministration began to feel more pressure to do something (Hasian, 13). Journalists and special interest groups urgedRoosevelt to speak out against Hitler and the Nazi Regime. Finally, in August of 1942 Roosevelt held apress conference during which he gave verbal warnings to Germany and enemy nations. Roosevelt was not alone in speaking outagainst Germany. Many allied nationscondemned his actions, but little more than verbal warnings were issued. Roosevelt was clear in that “he did not wantto be pressured into making more interventionist policy statements” (Hasian,8). His concern was primarily with thewar effort, and he was hesitant to order a humanitarian intervention.
The USinvolvement in World War II was not a humanitarian intervention. Roosevelt was morefocused on the winning the war than stopping the atrocities taking place,despite being aware of them. This doesnot mean that Roosevelt and his administration did not care, but it points outthe political implications surrounding how the international community dealswith genocide. There were vast humanrights violations against the Jews and Hitler’s other victims during World WarII, but for the United States, stopping Germany’s conquest of Europeovershadowed these. US diplomats andmilitary leaders recognized that the genocide taking place needed specialhumanitarian aid, but they considered it a post-war concern that would be dealtwith by the United Nations (Hasian, 14-15).
The UnitedStates’ approach to dealing with the mass atrocities taking place during WorldWar II was primarily from a political perspective. The fact that there were crimes againsthumanity might have been cause for intervention, yet there were political andmilitary factors that complicated the issue. The US government was preoccupied with the war and did not want to spendthe resources, if they had them, on liberating Nazi victims. It is obvious that the decision for humanitarianintervention is more than a moral issue. Political, economic and military issues also come into play.
This was evidentin the case of Cambodia. Genocide inCambodia began with events in Vietnam. As part of their effort to eliminate Communism from Southeast Asia duringthe Vietnam War, the United States carried out air attacks along Cambodia’s easternborder. These bombings were followed bythe invasion of US ground troops, which disposed of Cambodia’s current leader,King Norodom Sihanouk, and replaced him with the corrupt Lon Nol. These events helped cause Cambodia to plummetinto a state of political unrest, and they paved the way for the Khmer Rougeregime to gain support.
InApril of 1975 Pol Pot led the Khmer Rouge movement to take power in Cambodia. The Khmer Rouge idealized rural life andsupported peasants and farmers, claiming that they were uncorrupted by the Westand modern culture. The regime isolatedCambodia from outside influence. Potordered the execution of thousands of Cambodians. He targeted educated professionals and formerpolitical figures who lived in the city of Phnom Penh. As part of the campaignto destroy any hint of modern society and Western ideas, the regime destroyedbanks, libraries and much of Cambodia’s history. People were moved to the countryside wheredevastating bombings were carried out, killing millions. A five-year long civil war ensued during whichthe Khmer Rouge carried out mass killings and genocide against the Cambodianpeople.
Muchlike during the Holocaust, the United States was aware of the action inCambodia. In fact, in his essay “Cambodiaand the Perils of Humanitarian Intervention,” William Shawcross explains thatit was obvious “from the moment the Khmer Rouge won victory in April 1975 thatit was intent on creating a radical revolution of extraordinary brutality”(2). Despite these warnings, the outsideworld showed little concern. A rareexception was when, in 1978, US senator George McGovern questioned the role ofthe United States in the Cambodian genocide. He asked, “Do we sit on the sidelines and watch a population slaughteredor do we marshal military force and put an end to it?” He called upon the US to“condemn the situation and move to stop what appears like genocide” (Shawcross,2). Despite the senator’s call foraction, the United States remained inactive.
Unlikeduring the Holocaust, the US was able to ignore the violence in Cambodia. The Khmer Rouge was not a threat to itssecurity or interests. Samantha Powerspoints out that, “even when facts emerged, the American policy ofnonengagement, noncomdemnation, and noninterest went virtually unchallenged”(Powers, 90). In fact, the United States had perhaps moreincentive not to intervene. Cambodia’s formergovernment was allied with China, an enemy of America at the time of thegenocide. Furthermore, Cambodia was a Communist country. Politically, the US and Cambodia had nothingto offer one another. However, in theHolocaust, US interests were directly affected by Germany and WesternEurope. Intervention was necessary toprotect those interests, and therefore the United States was able to justifyits involvement in WWII. From a moralperspective the issues in Cambodia and the Holocaust were the same. However, political, economic and militaryfactors were ultimately what motivated the US decision whether or not tointervene.
Theidea that humanitarian intervention should be carried out anytime human rightsviolations, mass atrocities, or genocide occurs is proven to beunrealistic. In the cases of the Holocaustand Cambodia it is easy to see that there was more than morality involved inthe US decision on whether or not to intervene. Political influences were unavoidable. In fact, it seems that politicswere at play in making the decision whether or not to intervene in nearly allcases of genocide. This has happened inSomalia, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Northern Uganda, and Myanmar. During the crisis in Sudan a high-rakingmember of the UN Security Council even declared that the situation in WesternSudan was genocide. Giving this labelacknowledges that there are unjustified human rights violations taking place,but the United States still failed to carry out a humanitarian intervention. Inmany cases of genocide the international community was aware of grave humanrights violations, yet inaction remained the most common reaction. There is no guarantee that genocide willgenerate a response from the rest of the world. (Janssen, 1-2)
Humanitarianintervention seems to be more motivated by international interests rather thana moral obligation. In his essay“Humanitarian Intervention and the Prevention of Genocide,” Dieter Janssenpoints out how political interests stopped the UN Security Council fromauthorizing humanitarian intervention in Sudan and Kosovo. He explains,
The Security Council, for example,could not decide on tough sanctions against Sudan’s oil industry in order toforce the government in Khartoum to comply with UN resolutions concerningDarfur, because a Chinese veto threatened to scuttle any such resolution. In1999 the threat of a Russian veto thwarted any of a Security Council mandatefor NATO to intervene in Kosovo. (9)
Like in the cases of the Holocaust andCambodia, external factors affected how the UN responded to the situations inDarfur and Kosovo, proving that it takes more than simple moral factors toinspire the international community to react.
Thereis also an issue of what internal interests a country has when it comes tohumanitarian intervention. As in the case of Cambodia, it seems that the internationalcommunity will stand by and permit violence to take place if it poses no threatto them. Even when people are aware of thesituation they are able to ignore it, and so they do so. They can simply turn off the news and avoidreading articles in the paper. Genocide in other countries has little affect onthe lives of American citizens. Only when the government recognizes thatgenocide has ramifications in their own country do they see cause to react toit. The Holocaust provides an examplefor this. The United States had information on the mass killings taking placein Nazi Germany, but they only became involved in World War II after the attackon Pearl Harbor. When the conflict came to US soil a reaction wasgenerated. The reaction was based onpolitical factors and national security, not on the genocide happening inEurope. Some cases of genocide and massivehuman rights violations that have not received humanitarian intervention havecaused more deaths than the cases where intervention has taken place. Humanitarianintervention is selective. The decisionto intervene in some countries and not others is a result of decisions made bya government based on their own countries self interests. (Orosco, 3-4)
Thequestion is how do we bring nations to intervene in humanitarian issues whentheir self-interest is not at stake? Can we create a world in which moralitytriumphs over the political agendas of the world’s leaders? Are there incentives for humanitarianintervention that go beyond political, economic or military motives? Historyhas shown the unwillingness of politicians to invest their country’s resourcesin helping a country that has no connection to their own. It might be difficult to convince citizensthat their government is justified in spending tax dollars in a foreign countrythat is of no interest to them.
Thefact that the US and other countries sometimes avoided humanitarianintervention when it seemed to justified on moral grounds calls for the need ofan institution that prevents leading countries from ignoring genocide and massatrocity. There must be acknowledgementof a moral responsibility to prevent or intervene in instances of mass humanrights violations. In a recent visit tothe United States Holocaust Museum in Washington DC, President Obama addressedthe issue of the United States’ role in genocide prevention. He revealed that his administration formed anAtrocities Prevention Board. The primarygoal of the board is to “develop government-wide strategies for finding ways tointervene before mass killings take place” (Thrall). This is a step in the right direction. The Obama administration has framed the issueof genocide intervention as a moral responsibility, stating, “preventing massatrocities and genocide is a core national security interest and a core moralresponsibility of the United States” (Thrall). This calls upon the US to intervene whether or not they have securityinterest in the country. It justifieshumanitarian intervention as a moral duty.
Whilethe creation of the Atrocities Prevention Board shows progress toward solvingthe issue of humanitarian intervention, its success is questionable. It is primarily focused on using militaryintervention to prevent violence (Thrall). This ignores the idea that diplomatic efforts might be more effective.Furthermore, stating that the US must intervene when any potential massatrocity takes place will lead to more interventions around the world. Does itassume that the United States is responsible for all cases of genocide? This isnearly impossible. How does the USchoose which mass atrocities require intervention and which do not? This allowsfor the possibility of the government to continue making decisions based ontheir own interests and not on a moral responsibility.
Changing themotives for humanitarian intervention is a complicated problem and one that isfar from being solved. There needs to bea shift in how the rest of the world sees its role in cases of genocide andmass atrocities. As human beings we must open our eyes to the devastating humanrights violations taking place around the world. We must be the voice of thosewhose voices have been taken from them. When a group of people’s existence isbeing threatened the political, economic and military connections with acountry should be secondary. Humanitarian intervention in cases of genocide isnot just a political issue, but it is also a human issue. As human beings we have a moralresponsibility to protect the lives of others when they cannot protectthemselves.
Works Cited
Bajora, Jayshree. “The Dilemma ofHumanitarian Intervention.” Council onForeign
Relations (2011). Web.
Hasian Jr., Marouf. "Franklin D. Roosevelt, The Holocaust, AndModernity's Rescue
Rhetorics." CommunicationQuarterly 51.2 (2003): 153-173. Academic Search
Complete. Web.
Janssen, Dieter. "Humanitarian Intervention And The Prevention OfGenocide." Journal
Of Genocide Research 10.2(2008): 289-306. Academic Search Complete. Web.
Klar, Nicholas. “The U.S. – From Isolation toIntervention.” The Klar Books Site,1993.
Web.
Orosco, Jose-Antonio. "Defending The Great Community: Royce's ConceptOf
HumanitarianIntervention." Transactions Of The Charles S. Peirce Society 46.2
(2010): 266-281. AcademicSearch Complete. Web.
Powers, Samantha. A Problem FromHell: America and the Age of Genocide. New York,
NY: HarperCollins, 2007. Print.
Shawcross, William. "Cambodia And The Perils Of HumanitarianIntervention." Dissent
(00123846) 49.2 (2002): 47.Academic Search Complete. Web.
Thrall, Trevor. “Never Again? Obama’s Big, Risky Plan for PreventingGlobal
Atrocities.” The Atlantic. The Atlantic Monthly Group(2012). Web.
