Hatreds, Human Rights, and the News: What We Ignore

HATREDS, HUMAN RIGHTS, AND. THE NEWS: WHAT WE IGNORE by Barbara Crossette If analysts are certain of only one characteristic of the post-Cold War era, it is that deadly conflicts ofethnicity, religion and culture are destined to grow. Rapid population growth in critical areas of the globe strains resources and inflames tensions. Long-recognized but often artificial borders are being challenged. Warlord rule is on the rise, rendering impotent central governments from Afghanistan to Somalia to Eastern Europe. Social contracts, either imposed or entered into freely, are collapsing. We have seen the future in Bosnia and it is not a very encouraging vision. Not only has the catastrophe added "ethnic cleansing" to our daily vocabulary of human intolerance, it has also taught us that virtually all the security systems that the West devised were not up to their greatest, albeit unexpected , challenge. In a world turned upside down, in which the demands ofself-determination movements may wreak more havoc than the machinations of great powers, it seems inevitable that all of us; diplomats, policymakers, Congress , the press, and the voting public, will be called on with increasing frequency to make very difficult judgments. In a welter of claims and counterclaims, right and wrong are not easy to identify. In Washington Barbara Crossette is a Senior Editor at The New York Times. She was a Times correspondent in Asia from 1984 to 1991, based in Bangkok and New Delhi. She won the George Polk Award for foreign reporting in 1991 for her coverage of the assassination ofRajiv Gandhi. A research associate ofthe Southern Asian Institute at Columbia University, Ms. Crossette is the author of India: Facing the 21st Century, to be published this year by Indiana University Press. 1 2 SAIS REVIEW and the capitals ofWestern Europe a tendencyhas already arisento relegate flashpoints, from the small kingdom ofBhutan to areas as diverse as Latin America and Africa, to the margins of our attention. Consequently, the side with the more effective pressure group assumes center stage. In this new environment, the power and influence of human rights organizations and lobbyists for causes—it is important not to blur the line between the two—are bound to grow. No one can possibly be an expert in all these areas, neither a busy member ofCongress considering at once the issues of foreign aid, trade, sanctions or military action, nor most editorial writers and columnists in influential newspapers. Since the potential for self-serving mischief is greatest when only one point of view is seen or heard, responsibility should rest heavily on regional scholars, foreign correspondents and international human rights organizations to inject objectivity and considerable quantities of unbiased information into upcoming debates. John G. Healy, the executive director ofAmnesty International in the United States, recently reflected on this enhanced responsibility. "We've got to learn to anticipate events better than we have," he said. "It's going to involve a whole new way of acting." As a human rights activist, Healy saw the need to match his organization's operations with the fragmentation of the new world. He would like his volunteers to get to know all the factions in South Africa, or to flood the splintered Yugoslavia. He suggested that Amnesty's 300,000 European members should vacation there the first season after the guns fall silent, to talk to people and contribute in any way possible to a better understanding of democracy. He longed to open exchanges with bishops and mullahs, clan leaders and warlords. "The old handles on power are no longer in government," Healy said. "This is a new game, and none of us is very skilled at it." Meanwhile, governments and the United Nations struggle to begin thejob offinding new ways to cope institutionally with fragmentary foreign policy crises. But will those in power have the time or dedication to listen to the experts with abstruse information to impart? After all, people involved in ethnic disputes tend to start sentences with references to the sixteenth or seventeenth century, ifnot earlier. Will editors and television producers pay more attention to the work ofthose unassuming professionals in conflict resolution and democracy-building, both booming new American exports? The prospects seem...