The New Killing Fields: Massacre and the Politics of Intervention (review)

This collection of extremely well-written and provocative essays by a distinguished group of journalists and academics examines the international response to mass violence against civilians. It aims to represent a call for humanitarian intervention, yet it also provides a retrospective and prospective assessment of humanitarian intervention alongside the many sobering, often highly personal accounts of mass killings in Bosnia, Rwanda, and East Timor. The volume's contents make depressingly clear that while much needs to be done, little is likely to happen.

The essays on Bosnia provide fiery indictments of Western idleness in the face of mass killings. David Rieff reflects on Western journalists' role in Bosnia, their political commitments, and the relevance of journalistic standards of professionalism and objectivity in a time of atrocities. Western reporters, he argues, gravitated toward the war in Bosnia because it took place at "home," and this emotional intimacy cultivated a special urgency and commitment. "I believed then, and I believe now, that Bosnia was worth dying for.... For many of us, Bosnia was our generation's Spanish Civil War.... We thought our obligations went far beyond telling stories or reporting the news" (p.65). He contrasts this commitment with the "impartiality" of the UN toward genocide (for which Rieff labels Kofi Annan the "Pontius Pilate of our age"). Peter Maas explores how American leaders used military doctrine, unfounded myths regarding Serbian military prowess, and the UN to avoid involvement. The "Powell Doctrine," articulated at the outset of the crisis, claimed that intervention would require tens of thousands of American troops to vanquish a well-oiled Serbian machine. This machine, Maas recalls from firsthand experience, consisted of little more than a motley and pathetic collection of individuals who were hardly ready to fight to the death. Not only did the Americans allow themselves easily to be cowed; they compounded their ethical error by supporting an arms embargo that gave a decided advantage to the Serbian aggressors. The United States did not merely fail to stop the killings; it constructed a Rube Goldberg-like policy that projected a pretense of concern while prolonging the suffering.

The essays on Rwanda approach the genocide from a range of perspectives, from that of the perpetrators to that of the victims, and from a range of issues including responsibility and justice. Bill Berkeley focuses on the events leading up to the genocide and argues that those who unintentionally contributed to the killings must also bear responsibility for it. He aims his pen at the Rwandan Patriotic Front and at Ugandan president Yoweri Museveni on the grounds that the latter supported the former's military campaign, which helped to trigger the genocide. However, his concept of responsibility casts too wide a net and fails to differentiate between degree and kind. After all, by his definition the negotiators from the Organization of African Unity and the United Nations who helped broker the Arusha Accords, which the genocidaires believed represented their political deaths, are also culpable. Darryl Li provides an excellent overview of the role of the media, specifically the notorious hate broadcasts of Radio-Television Libre des Mille Collines. George Packer offers a fascinating account of the difficulties of finding justice in Rwanda, and of the promise and problems presented by gacaca, the traditional village-level mechanism used to prosecute those accused of lesser crimes.

Geoffrey Robinson, who served in the UN Mission in East Timor, offers an autobiographical account with a clear-eyed view of the violence that took place on the island. In 1999, the Indonesian prime minister's surprise announcement that he would allow a referendum on East Timor gave a grateful UN an unexpected opportunity. The desire to act quickly before that opportunity disappeared helps explain why the UN did not object to Indonesia providing security. Yet given the violent history...