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The idea that a mostly Western-based human rights community can or will create these enforcement powers within existing or future international or regional institutions, such as the United Nations, is wishful thinking. What is needed are strategies that empower grassroots mobilization by and in support of communities affected by war and violence. These are the communities, such as Northern Uganda and Eastern DRC, which must, despite the dangers, take the lead and mobilize enforcement of their human rights. If this sounds unduly harsh or impractical, look at the alternative, the current situation, where an indifferent international community essentially looks the other way while civilian populations in Africa are subjected to the most horrific conditions. Even communities in Southern and East Africa outside the war zones are not mobilizing to save their fellow human beings inside the war zones. In actual fact, mass mobilization for enforcement of human rights protections will never happen until those most affected by the violations mobilize first. Then, communities outside war zones will support that mobilization, leading to a greater chance of regional and international intervention.
Currently, the United Nations, the African Union and possibly SADC are the only international and regional bodies that have the power to send in peacekeeping forces to regions such as Northern Uganda, Eastern DRC and Western Sudan. But will they? The African Union, both late and reluctantly, sent in a small peace keeping force (after arguing whether they were peace keeping or “observing”), in a number much too small to keep the peace in an area as large as Darfur.

The African Union says it needs more capacity and the West says it will deliver that capacity, but the clock ticks away and more African people die. Kofi Annan has publicly called for greater UN action in Darfur, Western Sudan, where genocide long ago began and the killings go on and on. Yet is it not worrisome that the UN Secretary-General does not seem to have the power to send in UN peacekeeping forces to prevent another “Rwanda,” a 1994 genocide in which the world watched as up to one million people were hacked to death and the UN withdrew their peace keeping forces after rescuing the white population? Apparently, only the Security Council can approve such a resolution, and there is not sufficient will on the Council to do so.

Permanent Security Council members Russia and China claim that to send in a UN force would violate Sudan’s “sovereignty.” So what will create the will for the Security Council to intervene in Darfur? Only the people of Western Sudan can bring world attention to their plight, unless of course, others do so in sufficient numbers on their behalf. If you know about the genocide in Western Sudan, have you been part of a movement to generate intervention on behalf of the men, women and children being hacked to death by government-sponsored militia? Chances are, you know about the tsunami in Asia, and we must admire the world’s response to these tragedies. But what prevents the same response to equally and more tragic situations in Africa?

Enforcement of international law should not be limited to prosecuting the actual perpetrators of human rights violations. International law should also prevent the support of human rights violations and war, and punish those who support, fund and arm the perpetrators.

Direct U.S. support of UNITA and US organizational support of RENAMO did not offend the sensibilities of Americans whose taxes, contributions and indifference supported the killings, but should not the people of Mozambique, Zimbabwe and Angola have the right to determine if such support was legal?

With regard to the current situation in DRC, it is no secret that DRC has always been exploited for its resources. Today, that exploitation is for diamonds, cobalt, timber and coltan, the mineral required to operate cell phones. Would it be surprising to learn that 80% of the world’s coltan supply is located in Eastern DRC?

Likewise, Congolese people of DRC might also pose the question: Is it legal to fund armies that create chaos for the sake of chaos? The U.S. is not the only industrial nation that does so, but it has been the worst offender in supporting chaos in DRC for economic and political advantage. As Adam Hochschild, author of King Leopold’s Ghost wrote in the Sunday, April 20, 2003 New York Times, in an article entitled: Chaos in Congo Suits Parties Just Fine: “It has not helped that in the 1990’s the United States supplied more than $100 million in arms and military training to six of the seven African countries that have been involved in the fighting of the Congo war.”

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