A Montreal Institute for Genocide and Human Rights Studies augusztusban jelentette meg “Mobilising the Will to Intervene: Leadership and Action to Prevent Mass Atrocities” c. jelentését. Az intézet társigazgatója Roméo Dallaire, az 1993-1994-ben Ruandában állomásozó UNAMIR I, ENSZ békefenntartó egység parancsnoka. A szerzők a jelentést a repülőgép-szerencsétlenségben tragikus hirtelenséggel elhunyt Alison Des Forges-nak ajánlják.
A magyar külügyminisztérium által felállítani kívánt Budapesti Népirtás Megelőzési Nemzetközi Központnak előnyére vállhat az ilyen és ehhez hasonló külföldi intézmények “best practice”-einek tanulmányozása.
A 160 oldalas dolgozat a következőket tartalmazza:
“…[w] we are struck not by the absence of the will to intervene to prevent genocide, but by the presence of the will not to intervene, a negative thrust evident among the leaders of Canada, the United States, and other democracies when confronting the great mass atrocities of the 20th and 21st centuries. These mass atrocities were surely “contrary to moral law and the spirit and aims of the United Nations,” as the U.N. expressed it in 1946, but “moral law” and “the spirit and aims of the United Nations” carry very little weight in the national interest and partisan political calculations that shape foreign policies in the capitals of the great democracies.
This report was born in hope - our hope that concrete factual analyses and practical recommendations can change the way our democratically elected political leaders think and act. We ask for nothing less than a paradigm shift, a change in how our leaders view the world. Specifically, we seek to persuade the leaders of Canada and the United States to adopt a concept of the national interest that incorporates the notion that preventing genocide and mass atrocities serves the interests of their people and not doing so puts the welfare of their citizens at risk. The age of the global village has dawned. Ignoring instability and conflict leading to genocides and mass atrocities today seriously threatens the health, security, and prosperity of our two peoples. We can and we must change. “Yes we can prevent genocide and mass atrocities” is our motto for achieving a better and more secure future, not just for societies vulnerable to mass atrocities, but for our children and grandchildren right here in North America.
The fundamental goal of this report is to identify strategic and practical steps to raise the capacity of government officials, legislators, civil servants, non-governmental organizations (NGOs), advocacy groups, journalists, and media owners and managers to build the political will to prevent mass atrocities. The Will to Intervene (W2I) Project report, Mobilizing the Will to Intervene: Leadership and Action to Prevent Mass Atrocities, draws on interviews with more than 80 foreign policy practitioners and opinion shapers in Canada and the United States. Many of the interviewees participated directly in Canadian and American government decision making during the 1994 Rwandan Genocide and the 1999 Kosovo crisis.
The interviews furnished us with an inside view of the decision making processes that shaped each country’s responses to Rwanda and Kosovo, exemplifying a failure to act and a strong will to act. The W2I Project’s researchers also wanted to understand what civil society groups and the news media could have done to ramp up the pressure on Prime Minister Chrétien and President Clinton to save lives in Rwanda. We wanted to learn if civil society played a role in the decisions of Canada and the United States to preserve lives in Kosovo and what considerations propelled the decision to intervene. We designed our questions with an eye to the future, hunting for “lessons learned,” informed not only by our interviews, but also by scholarly studies of Canadian and U.S. Government policies.
One of the major outcomes of the W2I study is the finding that when leadership at the top is absent, civil society in Canada and the United States must strongly pressure governments to broaden their concept of “national interests.” Saving the lives of innocent civilians in future Rwandas and Kosovos is vital to saving lives in Canada and the United States. More and more, our security is threatened by neglected crises in faraway places. Thanks to the growth in international travel by business people, tourists, and aid workers, infectious disease outbreaks arising in once ignored areas like the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Sudan, and Zimbabwe now pose real challenges to our public health. As well, mass atrocities undermine the foundations of political stability in entire regions of the globalized international economy and threaten our economic prosperity. Our stake in international security has converged with our stake in humanitarian principles as never before. We need to redefine our national interests more broadly, not only to help failing states, but also to help and protect ourselves. W2I’s message to Canadian and American politicians is that to be a responsible leader you must spearhead policies and programs that prevent mass atrocities.”
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