ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Friday, November 15, 1996 TAG: 9611150044
SECTION: EDITORIAL PAGE: A-12 EDITION: METRO
SO NOW comes another eruption in Africa - another debate over whether and how to respond to another crisis that everyone saw (or should have seen) coming, another show of scrambling to limit the scope of another humanitarian disaster.
The White House has announced its willingness, in logistical support of a limited rescue mission led by Canada, to send 1,000 troops to Zaire and another 4,000 to neighboring countries. Among administration officials, there's a distinct hint of making up policy as they go.
There's also more than a hint that we have yet to learn the lessons of past outbreaks of chaos -in Ethiopia, for example, Somalia and Liberia. We still lack the means of preventive diplomacy.
The current crisis in East Africa, in which a million Hutu refugees are caught between the armies of Tutsis and a crumbling Zaire government, did not spring up overnight. Two years ago, genocide and war claimed the lives of more than a million Rwandans. Since then, Hutu refugees have crammed into camps in neighboring Zaire. Zaire, headed by the corrupt, repressive and U.S.-backed dictator, Mobutu Sese Seko, has reached the brink of collapse. The entire region remains unstable.
Now the Hutu refugees face both starvation and possible retaliation at the hands of Tutsis - against whom Hutu leaders committed genocide two years ago with hardly an international response besides hand-wringing.
It's a great mercy that Canada, finally, has stepped forward to lead a multinational intervention force. But why does it take absolute disaster to provoke a response? And why is it so predictable that, while intervention may limit the damage this time, nothing will have changed by the time the next crisis erupts?
U.S. officials properly are concerned with clarifying objectives in Zaire. For the time being, the mission should be only to protect international relief workers and facilitate legimate refugees' safe return to Rwanda. The international community also could help by imposing sanctions on countries sending arms into Zaire, by stepping up an international tribunal's efforts to prosecute the Hutus who perpetrated the massacres, and by pressuring all parties to negotiate a settlement.
For the future, though, America needs to show leadership in encouraging the development of anticipatory mechanisms - including a standing, United Nations rapid-reaction force - capable of putting out fires before they rage out of control. Surely we will have learned enough, soon, to get busy with prevention.
LENGTH: Short : 50 linesby CNB