As UN Security Council acts to stop mass killings, will US Congress?
by Peter Yeo
04/13/14
In the Central African Republic, an explosion of violence between
Christian and Muslim militias has led to thousands of civilian
murders.
Two decades after the monstrous genocide in Rwanda, we find ourselves
asking if history is about to repeat itself in the Central African
Republic.
When 800,000 people were murdered in 100 days in Rwanda, the world
dragged its feet to respond. From early on, the U.S. knew enough to
save lives, but--opportunity after opportunity--it declined. The same is
unquestionably true of the UN and for dozens of world leaders and
allies who failed to act. When it was over, those leaders spoke the
words that should have been on all of our lips from day one: "never
again."
Today, just as we are observing the 20-year commemoration of Rwanda's
genocide, that promise at last took one important step toward
fulfillment.
To the north and west of Rwanda lies another landlocked African
nation, where mass atrocities are constant, and the threat of genocide
grows more real by the day. In the Central African Republic, an
explosion of violence between Christian and Muslim militias has led to
thousands of civilian murders.
As it was described by UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, who visited
CAR this past weekend, the nation has just in the past year "suffered
the collapse of the state... and gruesome mass killing that has
instilled widespread terror and sparked an exodus," adding The
international community failed the people of Rwanda 20 years ago. And
we are at risk of not doing enough for the people of the CAR today."
Any one of these concerns would have been enough to spark global
intervention. Together they have catalyzed the UN Security
Council--with strong leadership from U.S. Ambassador Samantha Power--to
send 11,800 peacekeepers to CAR, under a mandate to protect civilians,
restore rule of law, promote a political process and prevent,
investigate, and report on human rights abuses.
In approving this mission, which will take five months to fully
transition from an African Union to UN operation, the UN Security
Council and its members have done right by the memory of Rwanda. And
while the UN's action is by absolutely no means a catchall to
addressing the world's atrocities--for example, Syria--the CAR response
nonetheless can profoundly change the lives of civilians, millions of
whom are facing humanitarian disaster.
Still, our obligation does not end there. While approving this mission
gives rise to hope that violence can be halted in CAR, to truly back
this effort, the U.S. must also fund its part.
When President Obama submitted his FY 2015 budget request to Congress
this year, he wisely anticipated needs in places like CAR, creating a
"Peacekeeping Response Mechanism" to pay for the U.S. share of a
potential mission. Now, the ball is in Congress' court to see if the
U.S. will follow his lead, and set aside such funding to pay new bills
for a CAR mission next year.
As it stands, the U.S. is already in the red on its UN peacekeeping
dues. The current FY'14 budget underfunds UN peacekeeping by a
debilitating 12 percent. It provides no funding for the UN mission in
Mali - a mission the U.S. specifically asked for in the Security
Council, and which Republicans and Democrats hailed.
If we fail CAR in the same way we have failed Mali--if we continue to
make promises we cannot keep--the U.S. will show without doubt that
little has been learned from the horrors of Rwanda.
Addressing atrocity through the UN means that the U.S. does not have
to take on these crises all on its own. In fact, our UN partners will
foot roughly three quarters of the bill. What's more, a U.S. GAO study
has shown that sending UN peacekeepers to fulfill such dangerous
missions--the missions we've asked for--is one-eighth the cost of the
U.S. going it alone. In addition, while peacekeeping is not a
panacea, it can play a valuable role in efforts to stabilize countries
wracked by conflict and [...]
http://mobile.thehill.com/blogs/congress-blog/foreign-policy/203326-as-un-security-council-acts-to-stop-mass-killings-will-us
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