No

by Walter Onubogu

Created on: June 24, 2008

I believe that the great powers,except for "humanitarian " reasons shouldn't interfere in the affairs of other countries or violate their national sovereignty. It is counter-productive to the intersts of the countries involved.

The reasons for that are as follows:

1. Nature of Regime Change:

Certain writers like Michael Ignatieff have strongly argued in favour of intervention against what they describe are "tyrannical - repressive" regimes in the developing world. They equate intervention to liberation of the oppressed people there. However one should maintain caution against this over generalisation, because it evokes questions about which country qualifies for "regime change" and which criteria are applicable, if these can be tweaked and under which circumstances.

If we look at Iraq we can clearly see how regime change has gone wrong. On the false pretext of WMds (that never existed in Iraq under Saddam Hussein) America deliberately violated Iraq's sovereignty to pursue an agenda of regime change, so as to install a pro-Western pro American client regime in Iraq and exploit its oil resources and gain a strong strategic foothold in the Middle East.Considerable damage has already been done as a result of that. Not only Iraq has suffered greatly due to the ensuing power vaccum, turmoil and factionalism, but also America's reputation and prestige have rapidly shrunk thanks to war mongering George Bush.

So if Saddam's despotism qualified it for regime change, how come Zimbabwe isn't seen to be a candidate as well ? That is where in my view double standards come to play and undermine America, Britain's or France's claims to regime change. Zimbabwe's crises has been ongoing since 1998 ( and accelrated ever since autocratic President Mugabe forcibly seized white owned land and systemtically disenfranchised and repressed the democratic opposition) and all big players have been and are aware of it.

Now if they are so concerned about the freedom and democratic rights of Zimbabweans, why dont they either militarily intervene and or sponsor a coup d'etat to remove Mugabe from power? Well I will tell you why, Zimbabwe hasn't got oil and strategic value to Britain, US, France ect, thats why they opted for the cheap option of providing moral support without action.

Likewise it is apparent that UK, France, USA can only seek regime change with countries that are perceived to be weak - quite deficient and declining powerwise, obviously China is not one of them. So the West has no intentions that way toward China . Instead China is economically tied to the West and Western companies and government in reality couldn't care less about the plight of Tibetans or the Chinese under the repressive Communist regime in Beijing. As long the dollars keep rolling into their coffers, why rock the boat?

2.Democracy cannot be imposed overnight:

Again Iraq is a good reminder of what happens when democracy is imposed exernally without any recourse to local traditions or knowledge about the political culture and history. Countries with authoritarian tradtions of political control, need to transtion to democracy otherwise their system collapses and the next thing you have is prevailing civil war, factionalism or tribalism (one the tyrannt is gone).

America may also have designs for regime change in Iran, but even though most Iranians hate the ruling mullahs - theocracy and long for a secular democracy or a parliamentary monarchy, they still abhor the idea that America will re-install under the pretext of democracy a subservient regime in Theran that is remote controlled and not organic.

They want organic solutions to organic problems as many want in the developing world. It is important to bear in mind that democracy in the West was only establised after long struggles and social conflicts in the 20 century, it took in some cases more then 100 years. So why do Americans, French or the British assume it will happen overnight in countries where people are suffering under authoritarian regimes?

3. Humanitarian Intervention:

In certain cases I do believe that humanitarian intervention is valid, especially when the government butchers its people. This happened in Sierra Leone, where a barbaric regime and rebels chopped off the limbs of civilians. British intervention ended these autrocities, but such a case is not the norm but the exception.

Thinking back to 1984, when the Communist regime in Ethiopia witheld aid supplies to drought striken and often rebel controlled areas of the country, the US, USSR, France of Uk all failed to intervene while the Ethiopian people not only suffered brutal state repression but where dying for nothing.

Or looking at Rwanda, again because of its lack of strategic resources, America, France and Britain or Belgium and the UN refused or failed to intervene to put an end to ongoing genocide in 1994. Why is it ok to be hypocrytical when it comes to humanitarian intervention? See the plight of Kosovorians has changed favourably because US and Britain since 1999 have contained Serbia and intervened against it (taking out dictator Slobodan Milosovic). So double standards must end.

4. Credibility Issues of the Big Players:

Given what I said, I think most people in the developing world that are suffering under dictarorial regimes, remain cautious about the motives of regime change especially if sponsored by the West. Most often it serves the big players interests to install pro- Western regimes, and in some cases the more subservient a new client regime is, all the better for Western governments and powers.

So what this means is that in order to feel a sense of "ownership" of regime change, local and repressed populations must feel that they are in control of events and must be able to shape the destiny of their country without outside interference.

I think this one the most difficult if not controversial issues that proponents of regime change must face and ask themselves, otherwise the West will loose the moral highground for arguing in favour of regime change.

Consequently we need to understand what constitues "liberation" for the earmarked countries, rather then assuming that we know it all for them. Ask the Chinese about what constitutes human rights and you will get quite a different answer compared to what an American will tell you.

Western governments have a lot to learn in this respect if they want to avoid the mistakes of the past and really help those who are suffering.

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