[Peace-discuss] Humanitarian intervention

[C. G. Estabrook]

[The semi-official US government television channel, PBS, devoted much 
of its evening newscast tonight to announcing (with the help of Senators 
Brownback and Obama) that "the international community [sic] and some 
U.S. senators have called for increased involvement in the Darfur region 
of Sudan to stop the violence that began three years ago and has since 
claimed more than 200,000 lives." Some have argued that there's no 
parallel between the media campaign against what is called genocide in 
Sudan and a similar campaign against Serbia during the Clinton 
administration.  Others find it odd that there is today so much talk 
about the undoubted horrors in Darfur and none about the Congo, where 
four million people have died in the same period; or that children in 
southern Africa now die every day at the same rate as at the height of 
the killing in Rwanda, because Western drug companies withhold the 
medicines for easily treatable diseases.  Can it be that the US 
government (as represented by those bipartisan senators) chooses the 
Darfur atrocity rather than other ones because it has useful propaganda 
effects -- it can be portrayed (with considerable distortion, but not 
pure lies) as chargeable to Arabs, a useful hate object?  Furthermore, 
here in what Gore Vidal calls the "United States of Amnesia," why do so 
few recall the events of just seven years ago, when Japan felt called 
upon to exercise its rights of humanitarian intervention?  The Prime 
Minister of Japan set out his reasons in a speech of 24 March 1999: it's 
translated from the Japanese, below. (Some have noted that it's similar 
to the speech President Clinton gave in the same month, announcing the 
US-NATO attack on Kosovo, which Clinton presented as a clear instance of 
humanitarian intervention; the Japanese PM obviously saw his actions in 
the same light.) --CGE]

    Thu, 25 Mar 1999
    Japan bombs New Mexico

The following is a translation of last night's speech by the Prime 
Minister of Japan, explaining why the Japanese air force bombed military 
bases and command-and-control installations in the American Southwest:

"My fellow citizens: Today our armed forces joined our allies in the 
Pacific Rim Organization for National Treaty Observance in air strikes 
against American forces responsible for the brutality in New Mexico. We 
have acted with resolve for several reasons. We act to protect thousands 
of innocent people in New Mexico from a mounting military offensive by 
the `border patrol.' We act to defuse a powder keg at the heart of North 
America that has exploded twice before in the last century and a half 
with catastrophic results, when the US invaded Mexico in 1846 and 1916. 
We act to stand united with our allies for peace. By acting now, we are 
upholding our values, protecting our interests, and advancing the cause 
of peace. Tonight I want to speak with you about the tragedy in New 
Mexico and why it matters to Japan that we work with our allies to end it.

"First, let me explain what it is we are responding to. New Mexico is a 
state of the United States, in the middle of southwestern North America, 
about 1500 miles west of Cuba -- that's less than the distance from 
Hokkaido to Okinawa -- and only about 1000 miles north of Mexico City. 
Its people are mostly ethnic Latino and mostly Catholic.

"In recent years America's leader, Bill Clinton, the same leader who 
started the wars in Iraq and Colombia and attacked Sudan and Afghanistan 
in the last decade, increased the authority of the federal secret 
police, the `INS'; Mexicans are denied their right to speak their 
language, run their schools, shape their daily lives. For years, Latinos 
struggled peacefully to get their rights back. When President Clinton 
sent his troops and police to crush them, the struggle grew violent.

"The American leaders refuse even to discuss key elements of the 
Japanese peace proposal. America has stationed Marines along the border 
in preparation for a major offensive. We've seen innocent people taken 
from their homes, forced to kneel in the dirt and sprayed with bullets; 
Mexican men dragged from their families, fathers and sons together lined 
up and shot in cold blood. This is not war in the traditional sense. It 
is an attack by armored vehicles and high-tech weapons on a largely 
defenseless people whose leaders speak only of peace.

"Ending this tragedy is a moral imperative. It is also important to 
Japan's national interests. Take a look at the map. New Mexico is a 
small place, but it sits on a major fault line between North America, 
Latin America, and the Pacific, at the meeting place of Catholicism and 
both the liberal and evangelical branches of Protestantism. To the South 
are our allies, Peru (whose president is of Japanese descent) and 
Venezuela (which produces oil); to the north our increasingly important 
trading partner, Canada. And all around New Mexico there are other 
states struggling with their own economic and political challenges, 
states that could be overwhelmed by a large new wave of refugees from 
New Mexico -- California, Texas, Arizona. All the ingredients for a 
major war are there: Ancient grievances, struggling democracies, and in 
the center of it all, a president in America of highly questionable 
personal character who has done nothing since the Cold War ended but 
start new wars and pour gasoline on the flames of ethnic and religious 
division.

"In neighboring Guatemala President Clinton recently acknowledged that 
American support for torture and murder cost 200,000 lives. Earlier, 
World War II engulfed the Pacific. In both wars, the world was slow to 
recognize the dangers, and Japan held back from entering these 
conflicts. Just imagine if leaders back then had acted wisely and early 
enough. How many lives could have been saved? How many Japanese would 
not have had to die?

"We learned some of the same lessons in Nicaragua and El Salvador a 
decade ago. The world did not act early enough to stop those wars, 
either. And let's not forget what happened: Innocent people herded into 
concentration camps; children gunned down by snipers on their way to 
school; soccer fields and parks turned into cemeteries; a quarter of a 
million people killed not because of anything they had done but because 
of who they were. Two million Central Americans became refugees.

"This was genocide in the heart of the Americas, not in 1945 but in 
1985, not in some grainy newsreel from our parents' and grandparents' 
time, but in our own time, testing our humanity and our resolve.

"At the time, many people believed nothing could be done to end the 
bloodshed in Central America, They said, `Well, that's just the way 
those people in the Americas are.' But when we and our allies in the UN 
joined with courageous Central Americans to stand up to the aggressors, 
we helped end the wars. We learned that in the Americas inaction in the 
face of brutality simply invites more brutality, but firmness can stop 
armies and save lives. We must apply that lesson in New Mexico, before 
what happened in Central America happens there too.

"Today we and our PRONTO allies agreed to do what we must do to restore 
the peace. Our mission is clear: to demonstrate the seriousness of 
PRONTO's purpose so that the American leaders understand the imperative 
of reversing course; to deter an even bloodier offensive against 
innocent civilians in New Mexico; and if necessary, to seriously damage 
the American military's capacity to harm the people of New Mexico. In 
short, if President Clinton will not make peace, we will limit his 
ability to make war.

"Now, I want to be clear with you, there are risks in this military 
action -- risk to our pilots and the people on the ground. America's air 
defenses are strong. It could decide to intensify its assault on New 
Mexico or to seek to harm us or our allies elsewhere. If it does, we 
will deliver a forceful response. Hopefully Mr. Clinton will realize his 
present course is self-destructive and unsustainable.

"If he decides to accept our peace proposal and demilitarize New Mexico, 
PRONTO has agreed to help to implement it with a peacekeeping force. If 
PRONTO is invited to do so, our troops should take part in that mission 
to keep the peace. But I do not intend to put our troops in New Mexico 
to fight a war.

"Do our interests in New Mexico justify the dangers to our armed forces? 
I thought long and hard about that question. I am convinced that the 
dangers of acting are far outweighed by the dangers of not acting -- 
dangers to defenseless people and to our national interests. If we and 
our allies were to allow this war to continue with no response, 
President Clinton would read our hesitation as a license to kill. There 
would be many more massacres -- tens of thousands more refugees, more 
victims crying out for revenge. Right now our firmness is the only hope 
the people of New Mexico have to be able to live in their own country 
without having to fear for their own lives.

"Imagine what would happen if we and our allies decided just to look the 
other way as these people were massacred on PRONTO's doorstep. That 
would discredit PRONTO, the cornerstone on which our Pacific security rests.

"We must also remember that this is a conflict with no natural national 
boundaries. Let me ask you to look again at a map. The arrows show the 
movement of refugees -- north, east, and west. Already this movement is 
threatening the unstable democracy in Texas, which has its own Mexican 
minority and an Indian minority. Already American forces have made 
forays into Mexico, from which New Mexicans have drawn support. Mexico 
has a Mayan minority. Let a fire burn here in this area, and the flames 
will spread. Eventually key Japanese allies could be drawn into a wider 
conflict, which we would be forced to confront later only at far greater 
risk and greater cost.

"I have a responsibility as Prime Minister to deal with problems such as 
this before they do permanent harm to out national interests. Japan has 
a responsibility to stand with our allies when they are trying to save 
innocent lives and preserve peace, freedom, and stability in North 
America. That is what we are doing in New Mexico. If we have learned 
anything from the century drawing to a close, it is that if Japan is 
going to be prosperous and secure we need a North America that is 
prosperous, secure, united, and free. We need a North America that is 
coming together, not falling apart, a North America that shares our 
values and shares the burdens of leadership. That is the foundation on 
which the security or our children will depend. That is why I have 
supported NAFTA and the economic unification of North America.

"Now, what are the challenges to that vision of a peaceful, secure, 
united, stable North America? The challenge of strengthening a three-way 
partnership with the EU, that despite our disagreements is a 
constructive partner in the work of building peace. The challenge of 
resolving the tension between Latin and indigenous peoples, and building 
bridges with the Christian world. And finally the challenge of ending 
instability in the United States so that these bitter ethnic problems 
are resolved by the force of argument, not the force of arms, so that 
future generations of Japanese do not have to cross the Pacific to fight 
another terrible war. It is this challenge that we and our allies are 
facing in New Mexico. That is why we have acted now, because we care 
about saving innocent lives, because we have an interest in avoiding an 
even crueler and costlier war, and because our children need and deserve 
a peaceful, stable, free North America.

"Our thoughts and prayers tonight must be with the men and women of our 
armed forces who are undertaking this mission for the sake of our values 
and our children's future. May God bless them, and may God bless Japan."

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