A UN probe of Burma - what's in everyone's best interest?

In todays' Washington Post, David Steinberg of Georgetown's School of Foreign Service argues that the US should not support the the creation of a UN commission of inquiry into the Burmese military regime's crimes against humanity and war crimes. He notes that such commissions, along with war crimes trials, sanctions, and embargoes, are popular tools for nations to 'express moral outrage' and can lead to positive outcomes, such as liberalization, increased human rights, or even regime change. But in his opinion, things are starting to look up in Burma, and we may be beginning to see 'the transformation of a "soft authoritarian" state into one that is more pluralistic'. Thus, to quote Steinberg in full,

imposing additional sanctions on Burma's regime or forming still more commissions will only salve our consciences. Neither will help the Burmese people, persuade the government to loosen its grip on the population, or even assist the United States in meeting its strategic or humanitarian objectives. In fact, such moves would hinder negotiations and relations with a new government that, even if far from a model for governance, would probably give the Burmese more political voice and freedom than they have had in half a century. If our concerns are for the well-being of the people and U.S. national interests in the region, then we might well wait for the elections and whatever government comes into power. Then will be the time to judge whether there has been a step forward and how to achieve our goals.

So in Steinberg's opinion, supporting a commission would undermine the slight cracks that may or may not be appearing in the Burmese military's grip on power. This is basically a 'wait and see' position, and a trade-off approach to the problem - let's put justice on the back burner until we can get the country in a more stable, favorable position internationally. We have to prioritize and avoid jeopardizing the ultimate goal of regime liberalization for the sake of immediate moral imperatives. But what if Steinberg is wrong? What if the slight 'indicators' of progress he notes are not sustainable, and the 'new' Burmese government is no more vulnerable to Western ideals or influence than the current one? What does it mean for the US to sacrifice a moral opportunity for a realpolitik calculation that is extremely risky at best?

In fact, there are arguments that it is indeed in the US national interest to take the moral high road here, and that a justice-first policy may actually be a better interpretation of realpolitik. An editorial in yesterday's Washington Post took exactly the opposite position from Steinberg's, recalling President Obama's Nobel Peace Prize speech in which he stated that 'when there is genocide in Darfur, systematic rape in Congo, or repression in Burma, there must be consequences'. The piece argues that 'backing a UN commission does not supplant previous US policy' and does not preclude continued pragmatic engagement. What it does, however, is signal to younger officers that hitching their futures to policies of mass killing may not be the best idea, as well as to other offensive dictators around the world that they cannot get away with behavior like Than Shwen's. Moreover, and in my opinion every bit as important as the potential deterrent effect of a commission (and of proving that Obama's got follow-through), US backing can 'provide a ray of hope and moral support to the unimaginably brave fighters for democracy inside Burma'. I think we can take this statement even further, and say that such a 'ray of hope' will extend beyond Burma's democratic activists and touch other oppressed peoples.

If it's not already clear, I'm in the editorial's camp, and not in Steinberg's....

The News Feed

A few interesting articles worth checking out:

Rob Miller writes in the Guardian about the 'Preventiva' in Bosnia and how they're obstructing the search for justice, in light of the discovery of over 50 bodies in a lake near Visegrad...

For RIA Novosti, Nikolai Trotsky recalls Gorbachev's attempts to rehabilitate Stalin-era victims of repression, and how economic 'shock therapy' unfortunately got in the way...

And from RFE/RL, a description of the 'March of Life' in Kyiv, an attempt at reconciliation between descendants of Nazis and descendants of Holocaust victims...

As the start of the ICC review conference draws near, Michael Gibbs calls our attention to the potential role of sport in reconciliation and peace building. In a comment in today's Guardian, he emphasizes that transitional justice institutions need to do a better job engaging victims in their work and suggests a novel approach:

An important first step towards meeting these challenges is moving our characterisation of victims beyond the mere fact of their "victimhood". While their rights as victims must never be ignored, it is important also to recognise victims as survivors and as stakeholders in the court's work. If our understanding of victims is limited merely to what they have suffered in the past, it will be near impossible to fully engage them in a process that aims, first and foremost, to combat impunity and secure a sustainable peace for the future of their communities.

This is why, on the eve of the review conference, victims of conflict in Uganda, Sudan, and Kenya have challenged ICC delegates to a football match. The match offers victims a unique opportunity to interact with delegates on a stage that is truly their own, and to present themselves as more than victims, ahead of their more formal role in the conference that follows.

I'm guessing some people will find this condescending, and there may be some merit in that. But I find the idea of transcending 'victimhood' and claiming 'survival' really appealing. In my own work on Ukraine, and in trying to understand how the Holodomor compares to the Jewish or Armenian genocides, I come across a lot of criticism about how these groups 'exploit' their suffering for instrumental purposes - claiming resources like territory or membership in international institutions, for example, or deflecting criticisms of human rights abuses. These are obviously controversial ideas, but they raise a legitimate question: how can we commemorate our dead, the murdered members of our identity groups, without mortgaging their memory to achieve future goals? I think notions of 'victim empowerment' can potentially help here. Our dialogues and discourses should point to overcoming - to preserving what is worth preserving at all costs. Then, perhaps, we can move beyond the 'competitive victimhood' scenarios that hold us back by causing resentment and fear - turning remembrance into a zero sum game.

The Blue Book

On Friday night I attended a screening of The Blue Book, an event jointly organized by the Oxford University Armenian Society and the Oxford branch of the Aegis Society. The documentary film, made by Gagik Karagheuzian, follows the British Armenian historian Ara Sarafian as he refutes a Turkish petition to the British Government denying the authenticity of archival documents related to the Armenian genocide.

What really struck me was how little mutual ground the Armenians and the Turks share in this debate. At one point, the film shows Mr. Sarafian at a major forum on Turkish-Armenian relations at Istanbul University in 2006, and then again, debating a Turkish historian on a Turkish television program. On both occasions, Mr. Sarafian is unfailingly polite and refuses to be baited. But whereas in the Russian-Ukrainian case, the 'genocide thesis' is often a matter of interpretation of evidence, for the Turks this dispute is twisted into an attempt to undermine the evidence itself. This makes academic debate seem like an almost impossible task - how can you debate someone when you're talking about two different things?

Although a brave effort and very educational, the film is a bit slow at times. I'm not sure it would appeal to wider audiences, because it's often too academic - for example, there are long segments of Sarafian in the archives, explaining in meticulous detail how the methodology of the Blue Book refutes the falsification claims. This can feel like listening to an paper at an academic conference. I don't think this is a problem in itself, but it's something to think about if the film were ever to be used to 'sell' the Armenian cause to a wider variety of audiences. But then again, I don't think that's the film's purpose.

During the question and answer period following the screening, I asked Mr Sarafian what he feels is the value of third-party official recognition, such as the genocide resolutions recently struck down in the US Congress. He answered that such recognition is 'vitally important,' for two reasons. One is that in such polarized circumstances, you sometimes need an external point of reference, someone who can put pressure on the deniers. And the second is that genocide does not belong to any one ethnic group - each example is, literally, a crime against all of humanity. I definitely agree with the latter point, and it's something I often hear among Ukrainians. I also agree with the first point in principle, but I think there are problems. Britain can certainly apply moral pressure, because of it's 'democratic' credentials, and even political pressure because of its role in the EU and as a world power. But because Turkey views the British Government as complicit in the 'falsification' of documents from 1915, I worry that this could undermine its credibility as an external point of reference.

In response to another question, this one from an Armenian, Mr. Sarafian also mentioned that Armenians in the diaspora have to careful of their language to avoid confirming popular fears that Armenians are going to 'come back' and repossess their lands from the Turks. This is an interesting perspective on diaspora-homeland relations, because so many definitions of diaspora privilege the desire to return to the homeland. But for groups like the Armenians and the Ukrainians (with the possible exception of the 'fourth wave'), the desire to return does not equate to a desire to 'move back'. These diasporas are often several generations removed from the homeland, and in the case of the Armenians, the homeland they were dispossessed of as a result of the genocide has been superseded by an independent republic. But this is a dilemma - how does a diaspora express its connection to a homeland that is often more 'there' than 'here', in a way that communicates emotion without possessiveness?

One final rambling from me: during the question and answer period, two people raised their hands to mention the recent 'rapprochement' between Russia and Poland over Katyn. One suggested that Russia's approach could be seen as a corrective to Turkey's view that the Armenian 'genocide thesis' is an insult to the Turkish people as a whole, given that Russia is the legal successor to the Soviet Union and yet through Katyn, appears to have found a way to condemn the Soviet regime without condemning the current Russian people or government. I don't agree with these comments. I think Katyn is the anomaly in Russia's approach to its past - Russia has certainly not moved closer to many Ukrainians' desire to discuss Holodomor, nor has the country resolved its own conflict over the role of Stalin in its national history. The recent debates over whether to include Stalin's image on Victory Day posters is emblematic of this. I think the contradictions in Russian approaches to the past should intrigue us as much as these occasional moments of historical 'openness' - under what conditions is denial a sustainable position?

It's perhaps unsurprising that many commentators are embedding yesterday's plane crash in a wider chain of tragic events in Polish history, particularly the Katyn massacre itself. For example, in the Guardian, Neil Ascherson imagines that the Poles are now asking themselves, 'have we truly escaped from the nightmares of Poland's past? Or have the demons returned to surround us once again, those giant bloodstained phantoms who came out of the forest to destroy every Polish generation for two centuries?' And in the New York Times, Liz Robbins notes that the death of Wojciech Seweyrn, a diaspora Pole and the son of an officer killed at Katyn, is seen by his friends as being part of a 'circle. It's terrible, after 70 years he survived, and then he died in that area close to his father'. I think it's important to recognize that the Poles have suffered a hell of a lot in their history, but I worry about too much emphasis on cycles of victimization and on determinism. My hope is that the Poles, and the world that's now watching them, will use this horrible event to press for internal political reconciliation as much as to raise awareness about their history.

Another theme is the hope that this tragedy will move Poland and Russia closer. In the New York Times piece mentioned above, Liz Robbins quotes Michael Kennedy, dean of Brown University's Watson Institute for International Studies, who finds it encouraging that both Polish and Russian reports on the crash have focused more on sympathy and grief than on politics. He claims that 'the great variable for me is how Russia will recognize this moment as an opportunity to move ahead. It's a great opportunity for Medvedev and Putin to go beyond the rapprochement that existed yesterday'. Paul Lavelle said something similar in Russia Today's coverage of the crash. But I don't completely understand the connection between this tragedy and potential historical reconciliation. If the Kremlin has motives for keeping some Katyn archives closed, I can't imagine that a plane crash would change that. Conversely, if calculations were already shifting, as Putin's joint commemoration with Tusk signaled, then the wheels were already in motion and this event will serve more as a catalyst than a turning point. And in the wider scheme of the Kremlin's historical policy, let's not forget that Katyn is one among many issues - internally, for example, there's still the problem of how to remember Stalin, while externally the Holodomor has been an ongoing thorn in the side of Russian-Ukrainian relations (which may improve now that Yanukovych is in office...). Thus, I think we need to place the role of the crash in bringing about a rapprochement between Poland and Russia in its wider context. I hope for the best, because I feel that Katyn needs more recognition and awareness, but we should be realistic about the fact that it is one dimension of a deeper issue.

I awoke to the shocking news that the Polish President, Lech Kaczynski, along with several top officials, was killed in a plane crash in the forests outside Smolensk. The picture to the side highlights that Poland is understandably in national mourning, as the tributes pile up outside the Presidential Palace in Warsaw. Kaczynski was a high-profile if controversial figure in Poland and internationally. He and his identical twin brother, Jaroslaw (who he appointed Prime Minister after his election to the Presidency in 2005) started out as child actors, were later involved with Lech Walesa's Solidarity movement, and finally broke with the movement to form their social conservative party Law and Justice (which his brother currently chairs), which after taking power promised a 'moral revolution' in Poland.

It's very early on, but already some trends are evident in the press coverage of the crash. Everyone's commenting on the irony - Poland's intellectual elite has died in Russia, en route to commemorate the Katyn massacre in which Soviet secret police officers murdered 15,000 Polish officers (the cream of Polish society) on Stalin's orders. It's also worth noting that Kaczynski was heading to the site of the massacres independently from the Polish Prime Minister, Donald Tusk, who earlier this week jointly commemorated the dead with Russian Prime Minister Putin - see Anne Applebaum's interesting commentary on this historic event. Kaczynski's politics, particularly his embrace of NATO membership for Ukraine and Georgia and his championing of a US missile defense shield in Poland, were a thorn in the side of Polish-Russian relations, which is partly why the apparent 'rapprochement' over Katyn is so interesting... But to return to the subject of the crash, lots of people are also asking questions about what will happen to Poland now that there's such a huge gap in public life - its President, the head of the army, and the head of the central bank have all been killed. For my part, I can't help but wonder how this tragic accident will affect Poland's politics of memory, given that those individuals in charge of World War II memorials and the Institute of National Remembrance also perished.

I've just had a look at my 2010 Reading Resolutions, and I can't say I'm doing spectacularly. But a recent crisis of confidence has inspired some reading that could have been a resolution in its own right, and I think partly fulfills my intention to read something that I think couldn't possibly interest me. Someone recently asked me what would happen to the Prime Minister if there was a hung parliament - would he stay in office? I was also asked about why the new healthcare bill in the US might be considered fascist. I couldn't answer either of these questions, and I panicked. Now, I know that neither British politics nor domestic policy in the States is my 'area,' but since I have two degrees in political science and a third one in progress, I felt unbearably guilty for being so uneducated. Perhaps it comes down to insecurity, in the sense that political science is a wide field and I have a different set of interests within it. But I ran right out and bought some introductory texts on British politics and fascism - and one on Communism, for good measure. And to my surprise, what started as an attempt just to sound smarter became truly educational, in the sense that I find myself more genuinely interested in these topics than I thought I would be. For example, I'm less inclined to skip the nitty-gritty articles on the election campaign in Britain when I read The Guardian each morning, and I definitely understand more than I used to. I'm actually following the campaign now because I want to, because I find it increasingly fascinating, rather than just because I'm afraid someone might ask me something I won't be able to answer. This is a good feeling. So what's next? Well, since I've started with three books in Blackwells' Very Short Introduction series, I think I'll continue with it - I'm eyeing the Scotland volume, having just spent a long weekend there, and I know I could brush up on Northern Ireland and The American Presidency. But (almost) any topic is fair game...luckily they're 3 for 2!

Now as to the politics of memory, Russian and Polish leaders will for the first time mark the 70th anniversary of the Katyn massacre together...questions about the fate of Raoul Wallenberg, a Swedish diplomat who saved tens of thousands of Hungarian Jews during the Holocaust, are raised again...and memories of the Prague Spring are influencing Czech citizens' perceptions of the new arms control treaty between Russia and the US.

In the near future, look out for some musings on the press coverage of the recent Moscow metro bombings, and by extension, on views of the Chechen wars in general...