So while some of the rebels in Sierra Leone perhaps deserved some sympathy – many were brutalized as children or forced recruits – that does not mean that they should have been given any quarter during the war. Not while they still possessed large amounts of weaponry and the will to wreak havoc and terror on the civilian population, turning yet more innocent children into killers.

The rebels in Sierra Leone were no Che Guevaras, no romantic Robin Hoods fighting for the people, no freedom fighters in Sudan, no pro-democracy guerrilla forces in Burma: these were terrorist bandits with no political or ideological aims, who had turned the most horrific and terrible acts imaginable into their own brand of fun and games. A such, they possessed no sense of justice; they had no understanding of peace; they held nothing sacrosanct; no level of bestiality escaped them; they know only war and they deserved no sympathy. As such, they elevated terror to a religion, hatred to a creed, cruelty to an art form, and oppression and evil had become their gods.

The only way to deal with such people at the time was to disarm and dispossess them of their territory by force. And that, in short, meant waging war against them. And that is what the United Nations – with all its massive funding and resources – a force of 13,000 rising to some 20,000 peacekeeping troops in 2002 – failed spectacularly to do. And that is what the ‘mercenaries’ of Executive Outcomes and then the British forces of the Parachute Regiment, the Marines and the UK Special Forces did so successfully and so well. For in each case, with only a few hundred crack troops, these forces spoke the only language that the rebels were willing to understand – that of war. Any residual sympathy for the rebels could come later. After they had been stopped. After an end to the reign of carnage and terror. Then and only then could the brutalized child soldiers, the tortured adolescent torturers and the orphaned killers be put into demobilization camps and the process of rehabilitation begun.

But for the leaders of the rebel groups – for the agitators and the torture chiefs and the controllers of these legions of horror – there should be only war-crimes tribunals and the implacable rule of law. The carrot and the stick – the promise of assistance and the military deterrent – both had to be employed to bring an end to the rebel nightmare. It is not just the military and the governments of countries like the UK who believe this; after witnessing the dark years of rebel mayhem in Sierra Leone, most if not all of the aid and humanitarian groups working in the country had reached the same, stark conclusion. They had accepted that first and foremost, the rebels had to be crushed militarily – before any political and humanitarian solution to the nation’s problems could be found.

Writing in April 2001, William Shawcross of the international Crisis Group (ICG) – a world-renowned think tank – is absolutely clear on this point. “If the RUF does not surrender, Britain, with the UN’s backing, should support the Sierra Leone Army to defeat it. British forces are popular in Sierra Leone. They are training the ragtag SLA for an eventual showdown with the rebels. Remarkably, a mass rally at the end of last year called for Britain to re-establish colonial rule. British officers should now be placed in the chain of command of the SLA.’ Shawcross is clear on another point too: that the UN’s peacekeeping efforts in Sierra Leone were an abject failure. ‘Why were the UN not up to doing the job? Because they did not have an adequate mandate and their performance was woeful. The UN’s failures reflect the bitter realities of peacekeeping today. Western countries would rather pay third world nations than send in their own troops.’

http://www.crisisgroup.org/home/index.cfm?id=2028&l=1&m=1

The ICG’s own April 2000 report on the options for Sierra Leone concluded that: ‘The world community must help Sierra Leone take decisive military action against the RUF. The military option could be spearheaded by UK trained and led SLA forces, with the UN securing the areas regained. The UK should provide military and intelligence backup to guarantee the safety of UN forces. The Kamajors could provide additional security for local villages and settlements.’ The ICG called for an immediate UN Security Council resolution demanding that the RUF surrender, followed by military action against those who refused, led by British forces.

But why did Britain eventually take the risk of intervening in Sierra Leone? What were the key British interests there that led to the will being found to intervene on such a dramatic level? What made the Blair government willing to put British troops in harm’s way in some obscure country in West Africa that most of the British public had never even heard of? Sierra Leone has some strategic value: it possesses West Africa’s only deep-sea port, at Freetown. Twice it served the British well, once as a port for naval operations during the Second World War, and once as a naval base during the Falklands War. But this in itself is hardly reason enough to explain the British military interventions of recent years. A popular rumor doing the rounds among British troops at the time of the first major military initiative – Operation Palliser – was that Blair had a special affection for Sierra Leone, as his father was once a schoolteacher there. Possibly. But that hardly explains why Blair, himself a shrewd political operator, was willing to risk so much in the killing fields of this ex-colony in a remote corner of Africa.

At its simplest, Blair had pinned his colours to the mast as early as April 1999, when, writing in a Newsweek article, he called for a ‘new internationalism’ that would not tolerate those who ‘visit horrific punishments on their own people to stay in power.’ In his so-called Chicago speech of the same month, Blair spoke of ‘the most pressing foreign policy problem we face being to identify the circumstances in which we should get actively involved in other people’s conflicts.’ In this speech, Blair identified five criteria by which to judge whether British forces should be sent to intervene overseas. ‘First, are we sure of our case? Second, have we exhausted all diplomatic options? Third, on the basis of a practical assessment of the situation, are there military options we can sensibly and prudently undertake? Fourth, are we prepared for the long term? And finally, do we have national interests involved?’

In making such pronouncements, Blair was sending a powerful signal to the US administration in particular: the UK would no longer follow the hands off approach to Africa of a US military which had been badly mauled in Somalia. For the New Labour government the proof of concept for this ‘new internationalism’ would be Sierra Leone. ‘Britain’s use of force in Sierra Leone follows similar instances of military interventions in Iraq (1998), East Timor (1999) and the Balkans (1999)’, argues Paul Williams, ‘that have been waged by the New Labor government purportedly in the defense of values rather than territorial ambitions.’

Williams identifies five reasons behind the Labour government’s intervention in Sierra Leone. First, a concern to protect British citizens. Second, a humanitarian impulse to do something as Sierra Leone teetered on the brink of the abyss yet again. Third, the defence of democracy via military means, reflecting a decision to back up the government of President Kabbah. Fourth, a way to translate the Labour government’s ethical foreign policy imperatives into practice on the ground – promoting peace, prosperity and democracy on the African continent. And fifth, the urgent need to intervene to bolster the credibility of UN peacekeeping operations.

Blair’s new doctrine of Western involvement in the developing world has most recently seen itself played out in the high-profile British military role in Gulf War Two – in the so-called ‘raid and aid’ policies of the British forces around Basra. At its simplest, it rests upon the precept that no amount of aid an humanitarian assistance can help a country ruled by anarchy and chaos – and that first and foremost security must be imposed. That security can be imposed only by a competent military force – one mandated to use lethal means wherever necessary. In the wake of military action, aid agencies and humanitarian groups can move in to help the civilian population, and peace deals and political settlements can be drawn up. In a post-9/11 world, that policy sees itself being played out in the UK’s ongoing military role in Sierra Leone, in the Australian military intervention in the Solomon Islands, and the US military’s (limited) intervention in Liberia – where Western powers recognize that far-off conflicts left to fester can rebound in terms of international terrorism.

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I definitely agree with the author that in an age of unprecedented globalization the worlds hot-spots are a breeding ground for the next generation of terrorists. I would also say that dealing with such hot spots in exceedingly difficult and complicated. How do we try to ensure that yesterdays allies (e.g. Afghanistan) don’t become tomorrows terrorist breeding grounds.

I would make the argument that EVERY situation has unique cultural, political, social and geographic aspects to it. I have already in this series of posts commented on the vast differences of fighting rebels in a secluded jungle vs in an urban environment in the midst of civilians.

I also believe there is always a very human element (which in some ways I feel like that the British military is closer to than the US) to any such conflict. However, I do believe there are some very common principles that can be applied across many conflicts.

1. I do agree there needs to the might and the will of military presence that can react quickly and with unfettered force to against clearly corrupt armed groups.
2. This has to be done in a such a way as the general populace (a) do not feel like that this force is “in their grill” (as a friend of mine put it); (b) feel like this force is effective (i.e. not standing by while atrocities take place) and (c) is competent and effective in achieving its mission and leaving a good chance for a lasting peace.
3. Hearts and Minds: The ONLY chance there is for long term success is to win and maintain the hearts and minds of the general populace. This will only be accomplished by showing a clear alternative to joining radical armed groups. This requires proactive investments in education and infrastructure. Ironically, Hammas was doing a good job of this in the Middle East. While we can all point clearly to the hypocrisy of their policies, in truth their execution of them for the human element of public perception was better than anything any democratic forces were doing in the region.
4. There needs to be a certain amount of depoliticizing around intervention (almost impossible), simply put the longer term solutions require policies that extend beyond the terms of democratically elected officials, and while they require accountability to succeed they also need time to take effect (esp education).t

If I were to try to boil this down I would say there are three categories of people involved:

1. Innocent Bystanders: Who have the ability to turn for or against and intervening force mainly based on the effectiveness of the intervening force that need to have their hearts and minds won over and sustained.
2. Instigators: Who need to know that there is retribution that is swift in response to their criminal behavior and that they are NOT beyond the long arm of justice.
3. Participants (or potential participants): These are the people who either (a) have been compelled unwillingly; (b) have joined through lack of vision of a better pathway or (c) are sitting on the fence to join either from seeing no alternative or from other motive. These are people who need to see the carrot and the stick.

In my mind the great failure of most of western foreign policy and military intervention comes in our assessment and execution of 1 and 3. Instigators will always instigate. Where we have failed is understanding the high cost of intervention on the innocent bystanders – I made the argument in one of my earlier posts that the death tolls in Iraq under US Military rule for the average Iraqi is higher than when they were living under the rule of a dictator. In a similar fashion UN peace keeping missions in (and the US mission in Somalia) showed the innocent bystanders that they were (a) incapable of providing adequate security and (b) created collateral damage that had a direct effect on the innocent bystanders. The result of this is both turning these people against the intervening force and driving a subset of them into the participant category (probably at a higher rate than participants are being killed by coalition forces).

Participants are by far and away the most crucial group of people that need to be considered. From here future instigators are recruited, and participants recruit innocent bystanders. While there is NO excuse for their behavior, and little quarter can be afforded in a direct confrontation with them it is this group that need to understand most the carrot and the stick. There HAS to be an alternative path for them. (Note: in an almost perverse analogy I consider them to be the same as illegal downloaders of music and video’s – when the way that people consumed media changed there had to be viable legal alternatives before people would change the pirating ways – in a similar fashion I would argue that in an age of globalization and global competition it behooves us to look to world bodies and local administration bodies to create (a) a just framework of government; (b) world-class education and (c) stability of infrastructure that shows an alternative path to a discontented populace.

There are many failures of western powers, many corruptions of western based global corporation and many failure of international governing bodies – however, in many of these conflicts the people have become participants due to a dissatisfaction of many years of corrupt local governance. That discontentment and animosity will only grow once western ideals of democracy are layered on top of this without answering the demands of security and education / infrastructure first.

In the next blog post I will address security, and then move onto education and infrastructure.