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Spoiler Problems in Peace Processes
Spoiler Problems in Peace Processes
Pages 178-224
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From page 178... ...
When Hutu extremists in Rwanda rejected the Arusha Peace Accords in 1994 and launched a genocide, over 800,000 Rwandans died in less than three months. If all spoilers succeeded, the quest for peace in civil wars would be dangerously counterproductive.
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From page 179... ...
Moreover, this study addresses only the strategies and actions of external actors who oversee peace processes; the topic of spoiler management from the perspective of domestic parties committed to peace is beyond the scope of this study. This paper argues that spoilers differ by the goals they seek and their commitment to achieving those goals.
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From page 180... ...
Spoilers exist only when there is a peace process to undermine, that is, after at least two warring parties have committed themselves publicly to a pact or have signed a comprehensive peace agreement.3 Peace creates spoilers because it is rare in civil wars for all leaders and factions to see peace as beneficial. Even if all parties come to value peace, they rarely do so simultaneously, and they often strongly disagree over the terms of an acceptable peace.
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From page 181... ...
Types of Spoilers Recent work on civil war termination suffers from a flawed attenuated portrayal of combatants and their aims. At one extreme are analyses that posit that parties are solely motivated by insecurity and only seek party survival.5 According to this view, the only reason for parties in civil wars to fight is their fear that, if they make peace and disarm, their adversary will take advantage and eliminate them.
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From page 182... ...
Successful management of spoiler problems requires the recognition that parties in civil wars differ in their intentions, motivations, and commitment dimensions that are crucial for understanding why some parties undermine peace agreements. Spoilers vary by type: limited, greedy, and total.
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From page 183... ...
STRATEGIES OF SPOILER MANAGEMENT Custodians of peace processes are defined here as international actors whose task is to oversee the implementation of peace agreements.
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From page 184... ...
Custodians can be tightly organized or loosely coordinated. With the exception of the implementation of the Dayton Peace Agreement on Bosnia and implementation of the South African peace settlement, the chief custodian of peace processes in the 1990s was the United Nations.
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From page 185... ...
The strategy of coercion has several variations. The use of coercive diplomacy, or the use of threat and demand, has been used infrequently against spoilers in peace processes, the notable exception being the use of NATO air strikes against Bosnian Serbs in 1995.~° Likewise, the use of force to defeat a spoiler has been attempted infrequently most notably, in Somalia, when the UN decided to hold Somali warlord Mohammed Farah Aideed responsible for an ambush by his forces against Pakistani peacekeepers, and in Sri Lanka, when an Indian peacekeeping force attempted to forcibly disarm Tamil rebels and capture their leader, Velupillai Prabakaran.~ Two more common variations of the coercion strategy are what I call the "departing-train" strategy and the "withdrawal" strategy.
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From page 186... ...
A total spoiler, because it defines the war in all-or-nothing terms and holds immutable preferences, cannot be appeased through inducements, nor can it be socialized; moreover, both strategies risk strengthening the spoiler by rewarding it. Two versions of the coercive strategy are also dangerously counterproductive for managing total spoilers.
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From page 187... ...
Special representatives must borrow leverage through coalition building; their ability to induce or punish, even their ability to rule credibly on the legitimacy or illegitimacy of demands, depends on the support of member states. In some cases, such as the Salvadoran and Cambodian peace processes, the UN relied on groups of friends formal associations of all member states that have an interest in the peace process and therefore bring their power, energy, and attention to implementing peace.
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From page 188... ...
the likely effects of custodial action on the spoiler's willingness to continue aggression, on the other parties to the peace process, and on interested external actors. Custodians must interpret why a particular party attacks a peace process or refuses to meet its obligations to implement a peace agreement.
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From page 189... ...
The initial framework discussed above posits a typology of spoilers based on their intentions limited, greedy, and total; it then describes a range of strategies available for managing spoilers inducement, socialization, and coercion, with several variations of the latter strategy. It is suggested that the general appropriateness of a strategy depends on the type of spoiler: inducement for limited spoilers, socialization for greedy spoilers, and departing train for total spoilers.
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From page 190... ...
In terms of spoiler type, the KR and CDR are examples of total spoilers, UNITA and the SOC are greedy spoilers, and RENAMO is a limited spoiler. My judgment of spoiler type is based on evidence of intentions at the time.
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From page 191... ...
Third, not all combinations of strategy and spoiler type are covered in the cases, given the relatively few cases of spoiler management in the l990s. For instance, neither coercive diplomacy nor use of force to defeat the spoiler is included.
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From page 192... ...
force commander, General Romeo Dallaire, believed necessary. Between the signing of the peace accords in August 1993 and the full deployment of UNAMIR in February 1994, tension and uncertainty grew in Rwanda.
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From page 193... ...
In the words of the definitive account of this period, UN headquarters was prepared to approve only "what the traffic would bear."~7 Habyarimana's role in the plot and his motivations for stalling on implementing the Arusha Accords were uncertain; analysts disagreed on whether Habyarimana was himself an extremist who was only tactically committed to the peace process or a pragmatic peace maker whom ethnic extremists had boxed in. The faction that was implicated in the lanuary warning to Dallaire included members of Habyarimana's own elite troops, the Presidential Guard, several close presidential advisers, and the president's wife.
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From page 194... ...
The failure of international actors to assert unified minimal standards of human rights "probably succeeded only in eroding the credibility of diplomatic suasion."20 In late March 1994 a strategy emerged for dealing with the stalled implementation that proved completely counterproductive. The UN threatened to withdraw its peacekeeping mission unless the warring parties fulfilled their obligations to the peace plan.
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From page 195... ...
Case 2. Cambodia 1: The Khmer Rouge and the Departing-Train Strategy The Paris Peace Accords, signed on October 23, 1991, brought to a close four years of negotiations aimed at ending Cambodia's civil war.
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From page 196... ...
Evidence of KR intentions, based on interviews of its top officials and lowly foot soldiers, suggests that the party was committed to the peace process insofar as it promised to return it to power.24 The KR interpreted the Paris Peace Accords as giving UNTAC the right to dismantle the SOC's administra
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From page 197... ...
When cantonment, demobilization, and disarmament of all of the warring parties began in tune, the KR insisted that it would not comply because Vietnamese forces were still present in Cambodia in violation of the Paris Peace Accords and because UNTAC had not established effective control over SOC. The KR insisted that it would demobilize only if UNTAC dismantled SOC administrative structures and vested the SNC with the power to run the country.
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From page 198... ...
He quickly realized that the KR interpreted two key components of the Paris Peace Accords in ways counter to their spirit. First, the KR believed that an injunction for the removal of all "foreign forces" meant all foreigners, regardless of their status as combatants.
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From page 199... ...
He expressed skepticism about the former because of the unwillingness of the Thai government to control several army generals who collaborated with the KR in illegal timber and gem trading across the Thai border. Akashi also argued that China's influence over the KR waned after the signing of the peace accords and its cessation of assistance to the KR.
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From page 200... ...
UNTAC faced an ongoing problem of SOC obstruction of its mandate. It never established control of SOC's administrative structures, given the lack of qualified personnel in the numbers that were needed, SOC's tendency to ignore and sabotage UNTAC directives, and UNTAC's unwillingness to assert its administrative prerogatives as outlined in the Paris Peace Accords.
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From page 201... ...
From the beginning of implementation of the Paris Peace Accords, Akashi, the UN, and the Core Group focused mostly on the KR as a threat to peace and ignored the potential for the SOC to be a spoiler. Moreover, KR spoiler behavior created incentives and excuses for the SOC to undermine the peace process.
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From page 202... ...
At the time Porcell lamented that as long as UNTAC did not "have the political will to apply the peace accords, its control cannot but be ineffective."42 UNTAC was also lax in holding the SOC accountable for human rights violations. Although UNTAC's mandate for creating an environment conducive to human rights was the most ambitious ever for a UN peacekeeping operation, its enforcement of violations was "dilatory, sporadic, and improvised."43 Akashi interpreted UNTAC's human rights mandate narrowly.
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From page 203... ...
In the two weeks after the election the CPP resorted to violence "to blackmail both FUNCINPEC and UNTAC in an attempt to reverse the election results."49 As Shawcross writes, the CPP attempt at blackmail was largely successful.50 Fearing a return to open civil war, the UN acceded to a power-sharing arrangement mediated by Sihanouk that provided the SOC with more power and cabinet positions than its electoral performance deserved. Akashi acknowledged that the deal was "unorthodox by universal democratic principles," but he defended it on the basis of the "practical wisdom" of combining FUNCINPEC's political appeal with the administrative experience and power of the CPP.5~ Akashi believed that compliance on most of the dimensions of the peace process, including demobilization and disarmament, and human rights protection, was secondary to compliance with holding an election.
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From page 204... ...
Case 4. Angola: UNITA and the Failure of Inducement In May 1991 the two main antagonists in the Angolan civil war, the government of Angola and UNITA, signed a peace agreement in Bicesse, Portugal.
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From page 205... ...
Then-Assistant Secretary of State for Africa Herman Cohen and his Portuguese counterpart traveled to Angola at the beginning of September to persuade Savimbi and President Eduardo dos Santos to share power after the elections. While Savimbi responded enthusiastically to the plan, dos Santos privately expressed interest but felt he could not publicly commit to such a deal.
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From page 206... ...
As the UN attempted to press Savimbi to honor the election results and participate in a presidential runoff election, South Africa's foreign minister, Pik Botha, visited Savimbi and unilaterally put forward a plan to shelve new elections and to provide for a government of national unity. Policy makers in Washington quickly chose a similar option: to press the MPLA into a power-sharing agreement to appease Savimbi.
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From page 207... ...
policy makers erroneously believed that limited incentives would satisfy Savimbi. Furthermore, they were not prepared when inducement emboldened Savimbi to continue his spoiler behavior.
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From page 208... ...
Although RENAMO was unable to defeat the Mozambican government, it had rendered most of the country ungovernable. RENAMO's use of terror, indiscriminate killing of civilians, press-ganging of child soldiers, and destructive capacity had earned it the appellation the "Khmer Rouge of Africa." Upon assuming the task of implementing the peace accords, the UN, having witnessed Savimbi's return to war in Angola and being concerned about the character of RENAMO and its leader, Afonso Dhlakama, doubted the sincerity of RENAMO's commitment to the negotiated settlement.58 The tardy deployment of UN peacekeepers and establishment of an administrative capacity to oversee cantonment and demobilization of troops provided RENAMO and the government with an excuse to stall on their obligations under the peace treaty.59 But as the necessary UN units and personnel arrived in Mozambique and eliminated the excuse, UN Special Representative Aldo Ajello found himself stymied by the warring parties' continuing noncooperation especially RENAMO, which embarked on a three-month boycott of the implementation process.60 To bring RENAMO back into the fold, Ajello pursued two policies.
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From page 209... ...
Ajello resolved several incidents involving cantonment and demobilization by acceding to RENAMO demands that were not contained in the peace accords. Eventually, Ajello grew frustrated with RENAMO's tactics and threatened withdrawal.
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From page 210... ...
Third, the cases show that quite often the very rules, beliefs, and frames that custodians use to cope with the complexity of peace processes defeat them. Fourth, the cases of successful spoiler management demonstrate that spoilers need not destroy peace if custodians create robust strategies, seek international consensus behind the strategy, and recognize the much maligned force of normative power.
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From page 211... ...
Indeed, the strategy can backfire if it signals to the total spoiler that the custodian lacks a commitment to peace. The withdrawal strategy is a blunt instrument of spoiler management.
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From page 212... ...
The departing-train strategy was developed by UNTAC in Cambodia to deal with the KR. Evidence suggests that the KR was a total spoiler and that a coercive strategy was necessary, but UNTAC judged that it was constrained from using either force to defeat the KR or coercive diplomacy to threaten it.
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From page 213... ...
Toward the SOC, a greedy spoiler, the inducement strategy backfired by strengthening the SOC and weakening FUNCINPEC. The only strategy that might have managed the SOC would have been a strong socialization effort that would have established strong norms of human rights, democracy, and good governance, as well as systematic use of carrots and sticks to gain compliance.
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From page 214... ...
If a limited spoiler continues to undermine peace, it will run the risk of prompting its opponent to view it as a total spoiler for whom no concession will gain its commitment. Organizational Blinders In addition to pointing to the crucial role of good diagnosis and choice of appropriate treatment, the case studies provide a vivid reminder of the uncertainties, complexity, and ambiguity of peace processes what I refer to earlier as the "fog of peace making." But the case studies also provide evidence that several organizational rules, beliefs, and frames that custodians use to cope with uncertainty can contribute to poor diagnosis
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From page 215... ...
First, its representatives assume that the parties are acting in good faith when they sign a peace agreement. This leads UN personnel to downplay violations by signatories to agreements.
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From page 216... ...
In Cambodia, UNTAC rejected KR grievances as illegitimate. UNTAC's success stemmed from its ability to garner international consensus against KR interpretations of the Paris Peace Accords.
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From page 217... ...
Organizational Roles The conceptions that mediators and UN special representatives have of their roles can lead them to misinterpret evidence of spoiler intention. Both mediators and special representatives invest enormous time and energy into negotiating and implementing peace; therefore, when faced with spoiler behavior, they assume spoiler motivation and behavior to be negotiable a judgment that confirms the continuing relevance of their role as peace maker.
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From page 218... ...
In Mozambique external actors agreed to legitimate RENAMO as a nationalist party, socialize it into an agreed set of rules of behavior, and establish limits on how far it would be appeased. By contrast, in the failed cases of spoiler management, no international consensus formed about legitimate and illegitimate solutions to the civil wars.
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From page 219... ...
International actors who seek to bring deadly civil wars to a close must anticipate violent challenges to peace processes. Instead of thinking generally about the possible threats to peace, they must ask, "Who are the threats to peace?
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From page 220... ...
Similarly, a proliferation of nongovernmental organizations involved in the implementation of peace accords in civil wars increases the difficulty of establishing and coordinating strategies toward spoilers. ACKNOWLEDGMENTS I thank the following people for their comments, criticisms, and suggestions: Howard Adelman, Nichole Argo, Michael Brown, Cynthia Chataway, Juergen Dedring, Michael Doyle, Daniel Druckman, William Durch, Page Fortna, Alexander L
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From page 221... ...
Only after the release of Nelson Mandela in 1990 and the reaching of several public agreements that committed the African National Congress and South African government to a process of negotiation can one speak of a South African peace process. Similarly, in the case of Cambodia, even though negotiations dragged on for several years, only after the parties formally committed themselves to the Paris Peace Accords can one speak of a Cambodian peace process.
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From page 222... ...
On February 28 the Security Council approved the mission, and on March 15 the secretary-general's special representative to Cambodia, Yasushi Akashi, arrived in Phnom Penh. A small UN holding operation was deployed as a bridge between the signing of the Paris Peace Accords and the arrival of UNTAC.
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From page 223... ...
38Ibid. 39General John Sanderson, as quoted in Jianwei Wang, Managing Arms in Peace Processes: Cambodia (Geneva: UN Institute for Disarmament Research, 1996)
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From page 224... ...
66Donald Rothchild's recent work on mediation emphasizes that the granting of legitimacy can be an effective tool in resolving internal conflicts but that there are often high domestic and international costs for actors to declare previously rogue leaders or factions legitimate [Donald Rothchild, Managing Ethnic Conflict in Africa: Pressures and Incentives for Cooperation (Washington, D.C.: Brookings Institution, 1997) , chap.
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