Despite the end of the cold war, the global community continues to be confronted by devastating conflicts. Most of these conflicts do not erupt between warring countries but are internal hostilities in nations afflicted by such ills as the deterioration of the environment and poor governance.

The only real hope for many countries threatened by civil war, humanitarian tragedy or serious structural collapse lies in a comprehensive preventive approach that involves all international development and humanitarian organizations, regional organizations as well as national development agencies and NGOs.

We cannot continue to apply short-term, unsustainable fixes. In the west, the collapse of the Soviet Empire brought feelings of vindication mixed with strong hopes of a world more amenable to democracy and peace. But the forecasts of a new world order overestimated the strength of peace in many regions, made vulnerable by a variety of environmental and economic factors. This vulnerability is evident in various challenges to peace and democracy that surface through inflation, riots, nationalism, and ethnic cleansing in Eastern Europe or through famine, factionalism, and large-scale civil wars in the Third World. More often than not the common underlying basic factor is the issue of insecurity prompted by the perceived threat of poverty or the prospect of isolation and fragility through diminishing access to resources.

In Somalia, I was struck by the fact that nothing within Somali society contained obvious seeds of division. Somalis belong to the same ethnic group and share largely the same language and religion. Yet there has been a total cleavage of society along clan, subclan and sometimes even family lines. The instinct of survival, in a threatening political and economic environment, was the basic motivation in the behavioral pattern of the Somali people. This instinct becomes acute when repeated droughts worsen further a traditionally hostile environment. The rationale behind the Somali case exists in many other conflicts in more or less elaborate forms. A serious analysis of the preliminary stages of these conflicts leads to this largely common paradigm of insecurity, further emphasized by deep recession, environmental degradation, and governance deficit.

ORIGINS OF CONFLICT

Conflicts have their own specific causes, identities, and characteristics. Some broad categories of the origins of potential and current conflicts are as follows:

• A failed process of integration in the creation of a nation-state (Somalia, Chad, most Sahel countries, Uganda during its eight years of civil war, and several crises in Central Asia). The absence of a national unifying factor, such as a social class or an enlightened leadership, slow down the process, producing dangerous setbacks. We should remember that it took several centuries and numerous civil wars for Europe to reach the nation-state phase and the end of empires.
• A colonial legacy or a difficult decolonization process, linked mostly with the drawing of borders y colonial powers (Togo and Ghana, Nigeria and Cameroon, India and Pakistan, Israel and Palestine, the independence of Eritrea, and Azerbaijan, Armenia and Georgia).
• Liberation movements or social revolts later infected by the cold war virus to become protracted conflicts (Angola, Mozambique, Cambodia, El Salvador, Nicaragua, Vietnam, and Afghanistan).
• Conflicts based in ethnic tensions (Burundi and Rwanda, Sri Lanka, Liberia, and the former Yugoslavia). Strong differences and traditional enmity between ethnic groups are compounded by historical factors and bad management. Power has been monopolized by a specific ethnic group, sometimes even a minority, that refuses to relinquish power for various reasons, including fear of revenge.
• Conflicts of a religious character (Lebanon, Sudan, Cyprus, Bosnia, India, Philippines, and Northern Ireland).
• Conflicts based in socio-economic or political tensions (Peru, Central America, Suriname, the Congo, and the rise of fundamentalism in the Middle East and North Africa).
• The classic war of aggression prompted by the "esprit de grandeur" (the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait and the Iraq-Iran war). Although more rare today, the UN Charter emphasized these conflicts -- based on the experience of two world wars.

These categories can overlap, but by clarifying the different identities of crises, we may concentrate efforts for preventive action and conflict resolution. We may also isolate aggravating factors such as arms export, foreign interference, ambitious leaders, damaged administrative and other infrastructures, weakened traditional processes of conciliation, and an often inadequate response to a humanitarian tragedy.

THE RWANDAN CASE

Rwanda, whose tragedy is witnessed by a largely paralyzed international community, is a typical case of a crisis with various, convergent causes. These causes include large arms supplies to both the government and the opposition, a government unable to respond to its peoples' basic needs, and a colonial legacy partly responsible for exacerbating ethnic antagonism. One should add, however, that the worsening economic situation has been compounded by a substantial increase of the population and severe droughts.

Most of these conflicts are not necessarily endemic. However, separate ingredients of crisis can gather like stormclouds, given the opportunity. And the continuing deterioration of the resource base in many developing countries undermines the possibilities for resolving conflicts. Environmental degradation and deterioration of the socioeconomic situation force people to move, impinging on the limited resources of host populations both at home or in countries of asylum. Violent conflicts that ensue put serious strains on natural ecosystems and further threaten life-supporting properties. Not surprisingly, these conflicts occur mostly in Africa, Latin America, and Asia. UN statistics indicate that as a percentage of the GDP of developed countries, Africa's GDP per capita fell by about 50% between 1960 and 1990, a decline that is largely true for Latin America as well. The circumstances that can provoke conflict also relate to what I call the governance deficit. Governments that are unable to plan for food security and implement emergency measures to cope with natural catastrophes are often themselves a large factor in the conflict. The power elite seeks to protect its economic and political interests, even at the cost of deepening ethnic, religious, or social tensions.

It is a vicious circle that we need to break. The international community should locate all existing and potential crises, examine both the immediate and remote causes, and draw lessons about the role of aggravating factors and the environment in igniting conflicts. But the required leadership has not yet come forward. The UN has, so far, responded to crises in a routine fashion, sometimes with dangerous improvisations. A golden opportunity for action was missed at the UN Conference on Environment and Development at Rio de Janeiro in 1992. UNCED underlined the necessary interdependence of global ecosystems and, therefore, the vital importance of international cooperation. But in terms of both institutional measures and funding, UNCED fell short of expectations.

INTERVENTION: GREY AREAS

The massive interventions in Iraq, Somalia, Cambodia, and now Bosnia have produced problematic grey areas between peacekeeping and peace enforcement that can have tragic consequences and create terrible predicaments for field officers. The UN management was ill prepared for such vast operations, yet it helped push through a new peacekeeping agenda.

There is little doubt that armed intervention is justified in special circumstances. In the case of blatant aggression, for instance, the international community is entitled by Chapter VII of the UN charter to act. Nonetheless, suspicions can persist that powerful members of the Security Council may apply double standards. Therefore, solid criteria for action by the Security Council need to be established and the broad membership of the General Assembly must somehow participate in decision making. With a view to providing safeguards, some of the middle powers should assume moral responsibility for monitoring decisions to intervene and their implementation.

There is also international consensus that the traditional peacekeeping operations initiated by Canada's Lester B. Pearson should continue. Peacekeeping should continue to focus on conflict containment with the consent of the parties concerned. These operations have new dimensions with the task given to the UN of monitoring a comprehensive settlement between all parties to a conflict. The record here has been mixed, with success in Namibia and perhaps in El Salvador, but mostly failure in Angola, to cite but three examples.

The most recent manifestation of UN armed intervention is what many call humanitarian intervention. It was undertaken partly in Iraq, although Somalia and Bosnia are the most striking examples. In such cases, the goal is to protect emergency relief supplies and the people involved in humanitarian assistance. These operations raise serious questions about the circumstances in which they have been initiated, their management, the logistics, and the political strategy. The operation in Somalia alone will have cost around $2 billion to protect less than $50 million worth of effective emergency relief. As of late 1993, an estimated 6,000 Somalis and 83 UN peacekeepers may have died in clashes between UN forces and Somali armed groups since the UN took over from the American-led Operation Restore Hope in April 1993. This tragedy deserves full investigation.

Although armed intervention in a humanitarian tragedy should never be ruled out, caution demands that we exhaust all possibilities short of military force. All aggravating factors must be dealt with firmly. Interference from outside, such as Serbia's role in the Croatian and Bosnian conflicts or supplying arms to parties in conflict (e.g. Somalia), must be stopped first, in the same way that external aggression would be treated. The UN and regional organizations must develop guidelines specifying when and how they would become engaged and what action to take separately or in concert, choosing among political, diplomatic, economic, humanitarian and military options.

At present, UN capabilities fall tragically short of needs. In 1981, Secretary General de Cuellar set up an office for research and information with primary responsibility for early warning. His successor decided in early 1992 to abolish it. A proposal to set up observation posts in explosive areas of the world was never implemented. Yet the international community needs these new structures.

PREVENTIVE MEASURES

Since the world is gradually moving toward multiple centres of power, middle powers such as Canada, the Nordic states and others could provide the necessary moral leadership. It requires a comprehensive strategy focusing on researching, developing, and applying preventive measures for specific potential crises. In a sense it would mean initiating a type of smaller-scale Marshall Plan in different regions. I call them Marshall Plans because they will have to develop and rely largely on the local, national, and regional indigenous capacity. What is needed from outside is a boost to contribute to a positive environment, recognizing that the fundamental changes have to be made from within nations, especially in governance. We have to target those countries that are strongly affected and whose recovery can be an example for others to follow. Canada, has, in IDRC, a remarkable instrument that by fostering research in developing countries is able to open many possibilities to address efficiently some of these preventive measures.

I was truly encouraged by the recent report Canada and Common Security in the Twenty-First Century from the Canada 21 Council, a group of Canadian scholars and public servants. In concluding, I would like to quote from this report. "In a world where frontiers are ever more transparent, we are subject not only to a dynamic global economy and a fragile planetary environment, but also to the consequences of the disparity between North and South in human, social, financial, and technological capital. Lack of attention to these disparities can only lead to broad threats to common security that will challenge our way of life. The Canada 21 Council believes that preventive action is essential. Action now can help to sustain communities and avoid conflict that could require far more expensive peacekeeping and peace enforcement activities later. When given a choice, people in the South, as in the North, prefer to live and work in their own communities. Poverty, unemployment and underemployment, environmental deterioration, homelessness, and mass migration are problems best dealt with at their source."

Author: Mohamed M. Sahnoun is Pearson Scholar at IDRC and former Special Representative of the UN Secretary General in Somalia.

IDRC Reports is published weekly on-line by the International Development Research Centre.
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