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Politics

Weapons of Mass Erection II

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The story is back!  [See my blog below, dated 2 May].  More charges that Col. Gaddafi is distributing Viagra to soldiers in order to encourage mass rape.  This time, we have the chief prosecutor for the International Criminal Court, Luis Moreno Ocampo, making the claim.  He asserted that Gaddafi is buying containers of the drug to enhance the possibility of mass rape.   “[Viagra is] like a machete,” Ocampo said. “It’s new. Viagra is a tool of massive rape.”

At this stage, it is rather impossible to judge the veracity of the charges.  Pfizer wasn’t too pleased.  They addressed the issue back in May, and have trotted out the same line again.  

That highlights the simple fact that these sorts of allegations have consequences.  A major pharmaceutical worries about its pocketbook and the ICC wades into new territory, where a drug that helps men produce and maintain an erection (but, notably, does not increase sexual drive) is likened to the instruments of Rwandan genocide.  I’m not so concerned about Pfizer or Ocampo. I’m concerned about people, and what if means to them to live in fear.  And I’m concerned for the deterrent power of treating rape in war as a crime.

Rape being used as a weapon of war is probably as old as dirt.  It destroys the enemy community from within; a most visceral communication of dominance.  Rape being officially recognized as a weapon of war, though, is in its relative infancy.   Really, only in the late Nineties, for example with the 1998 decision in the Akayesu case before the Int’l Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda, finding that mass rape constituted a form of genocide, or its codification as a crime against humanity in the statutes defining the ICC (becoming law in 2002). 

Legalities being what they are, many people still see rape as inevitable in war, like muddy boots or trampled fields.  After all, soldiers are men, and men deprived of female companionship fall prey to their own pent up desires.   Even more shocking is when women themselves feel this way, that rape is a bad but without the conviction that it is wrong.  Rapists akin to locusts rather than criminals.

My concern today is with the future course of the transformation of rape in war from collateral damage to crime.  If charges of mass rape become part of conflict’s landscape, if the propaganda machines of the two sides routinely cry systematic rape, for how much longer will the charge retain its force?  How long before falsified charges of rape give credence to future denials?   To brutal dictators shrugging rape off as the self-serving bleats of politicians like Ocampo and Rice?  So while hoping that nobody has been raped at all, I also have to hope that Ocampo’s charges are based on actual evidence, because victims of rape will be the big losers if the ICC has been chasing a ghost of WMD.

Politics

Weapons of Mass Erection

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If you managed to snatch some news on Friday not involving the “Kate loves Willy” theme, you might have come across this item:  wartime propaganda took a 21st Century turn when Susan Rice told a room full of UN diplomats that Colonel Gadaffi was supplying his troops with wonderdrug Viagra in order to encourage rape.  In what appears to be an example of the truth catching a break, most of the reporting includes opinions of doubt by experts.  And aside from the well-publicized charges by Iman al-Obaidi, I haven’t seen analysis suggesting that rape by government soldiers is prevalent in the Libyan conflict.

I suppose one could dismiss Rice’s claim as only the most recent example of such fanciful propaganda.  Remember those stories of Iraqi soldiers tossing Kuwaiti babies out of their incubators?  Or the bizarre detail that Uday Houssein’s briefcase contained stacks of money, underwear, a single condom and a vial full of Viagra (not, to my knowledge, a hoax, but still curious for the details released).  The difference is that those stories possessed little potential to cause much harm in and of themselves (even if they indirectly fuelled the war effort). 

Mass rape as a strategy of war is neither fanciful nor joke-worthy, so I apologize for the catchy title of this post.  The Sudanese government’s reaction to MSF’s 2005 report of rapes in Darfur highlights the power of the charge of rape to humiliate and to polarize, even where charges of mass killings do not.  Governments have little trouble explaining major war crimes to their friends – “we bombed base camps of rebels, not villages of people” or “we are fighting a war, so it is inevitable that civilians will be killed accidentally” or “it’s not torture”.  But rape in war is impervious to justification.  It is never accidental and always a violation at the level of religious, community and personal mores.  In short, better to be accused of other war crimes than of rape.

We can only hope that Rice’s comments prove baseless and, almost as importantly, find as little traction among the men and women of Libya as they did among UN diplomats.  As any humanitarian worker in the midst of victims of conflict can explain, the weight of constant, pervasive fear can be as damaging as bombs and bullets.  This then is the true nature of terrorism – to propagate dread and fright far outstripping actual threat of harm. 

Rape is a crime, singular and unparalleled.  Falsely instilling fear of rape is not.  The deliberate manufacture of terror, though, should be.  What is both strange and sad is that this form of terror usually comes from the likes of thug militia groups such as the RUF or the LRA, using fear as a weapon against a population and against their enemies.  In Susan Rice’s accusation we have an example of a politician causing terror on her own side as a sort of collateral damage in the effort to win the battle for public support.   Thankfully, it has caused little stir on the worldwide stage.  I can only hope it has had as little effect in the minds of the people of Libya.

Our Western Identity

The Great, Good and Invisible

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History is being written in the streets of the Middle East and where are the globalt is good and great? Where are these global political actors who hang out at DAVOS and in the corridors of the UN? I see Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International in the headlines. Where are the humanitarians? Checking websites:
• Oxfam issued a press release yesterday, three bland paragraphs re Libya
• Save wants to end child poverty.
• CARE calls our attention to its activities re International Women’s Day
• World Vision shows concern about the draught in the Horn of Africa.
• MSF was running a Malawi HIV story, replaced yesterday afternoon by a press release on the Middle East situation.
• IRC. Crisis Watch list includes Haiti, Ivory Coast, South Sudan and Pakistan.

Talk about irrelevance! And we seem to be going out of our way to advertise the fact. Our operational irrelevance is an interesting discussion, but I’d like to look at potential consequences of our silence. The reason for this silence is, of course, the fact that we aren’t on the ground running programmes. There are very understandable reasons for that as well, ranging from the quality of healthcare available in places like Bahrain, to visa issues, to the relative wealth of urban Tunisia, etc. The reasons for our invisibility, though, aren’t necessarily that obvious to anybody outside of our humanitarian bubble. At best, I think we’ve missed an opportunity to explain humanitarian action to communities who don’t get it (or see it as part of a broader Western agenda) and who need to get it because our access is met with hostility. At worst, it leaves our invisibility open to the unfriendly misinterpretation of others, with repercussions on the Arab Street or in the mountainous caves.

Do people understand why Amnesty and HRW are so loudly denouncing the violence but not other humanitarian organization? Do they read our lack of denunciation against the backdrop of our well-advertized policies of protecting people through advocacy and speaking out? Don’t we have a consistent track record of vocal denunciations of violence in places like Darfur, DRC, etc etc? Don’t most people out there believe that humanitarianism includes the defense of democracy, free speech, family values and fluffy pets? Why wouldn’t some quadrants in the anti-Western world conclude or exploit the misperception that we don’t care about Arab lives? Why wouldn’t they conclude that we, mirroring the western governments of our homelands, are torn between principles and interests, hence noticeably turning a blind eye towards the violence of friendly despots, and then rather predictably finding voice when Gaddafi starts his tumble? Why wouldn’t they suspect the Jewish lobby has us by the balls?

Security theory is pretty clear. The concept and practice of passive acceptance is dead. It doesn’t work. Just doing our work isn’t good enough. There are hostile discourses circulating, and we must actively build acceptance through negotiated access, meaningful programming, and communication to explain who we are and what we do. This implies also talking about who we are not and what we don’t do. We must create distinction. The point is the perception of others in a world where we are required to position ourselves proactively and strategically, lest we find that others do not accept our presence.

If you don’t believe me, check out the ICRC’s website. Two early news releases on Egypt, Libya (yesterday), and one on Tunisia. They say very little. It isn’t about news, it’s about strategy.