[R-G] Intellectual Author: Michael Ignatieff's potent mix of imperialism and human rights

[Anthony Fenton]

http://www.dominionpaper.ca/articles/2518

March 11, 2009

Intellectual Author
Michael Ignatieff's potent mix of imperialism and human rights

by Dru Oja Jay

The Dominion - http://www.dominionpaper.ca

Michael Ignatieff at a policy conference in 2007. "Imperialism doesn't  
stop being necessary just because it becomes politically incorrect,"  
Ignatieff wrote in 2002. Photo: Canada 2020

HALIFAX–During his time as a professor of human rights at Harvard,  
Michael Ignatieff became something of a sensation in the US foreign  
policy establishment and elite circles. He wrote frequently for The  
New York Times Magazine, where his articles were featured on the cover  
no less than four times, with titles like "Could We Lose the War on  
Terror?," and "American Empire: The Burden."

Ignatieff's articles for the Times take the view that US military  
operations constitute an "Empire Lite," and "America's entire war on  
terror is an exercise in imperialism."

His written work strikes the tone of an unflinching observer,  
describing power relations in their stark reality. "The relationship  
between the locals and the internationals is inherently colonial," he  
writes of NGOs and troops in Afghanistan in "Nation Building Lite" in  
2002.

"The unpleasant underside of nation-building is that the  
internationals' first priority is [...] increasing their budgets and  
giving themselves good jobs. The last priority is financing the Afghan  
government."

Following his usual pattern, after identifying the problem, Ignatieff  
goes on to endorse this reality as the only apparent recourse for  
"failed states."

"Imperialism used to be the white man's burden. This gave it a bad  
reputation. But imperialism doesn't stop being necessary just because  
it becomes politically incorrect," Ignatieff writes in the same article.

"Nations sometimes fail, and when they do, only outside help –  
imperial power – can get them back on their feet."

It is, he concludes, the "kind of imperialism you get in a human  
rights era."

At that time, Ignatieff backed the US bombing and invasion of Iraq,  
and repeatedly made the case for it by invoking human rights as a  
motivating factor.

In 2007, after he began his political career in Canada, and after  
close to a million people were killed in Iraq, he nominally recanted  
his views – again in the Times Magazine.

Concluding his apologia, Ignatieff recasted his support for the  
invasion and occupation of Iraq as a pitch for his political  
leadership. "Democratic peoples," he writes, "should always be looking  
for something more than prudence in a leader: daring, vision and –  
what goes with both – a willingness to risk failure."

During the same period, Ignatieff was intimately involved in  
developing the "Responsibility to Protect" (R2P), a doctrine guiding  
the use of "humanitarian intervention" in "failed states." According  
to one insider, Ignatieff was one of three who drafted the initial R2P  
report. In a 2008 promotional video, Ignatieff explains that R2P is  
"the idea that if a country is unwilling or unable to protect its own  
people, if it's responsible for ethnic cleansing or massacres, or if  
it's denying relief aid to its own people, then another country should  
step in and help."

While R2P is theoretically intended to prevent genocidal massacres,  
critics maintain that giving powerful countries the go-ahead to invade  
"failed states" will inevitably be abused.

In a long exposé published by UpsideDownWorld.org, Researcher Anthony  
Fenton makes the case that the overthrow of Haiti's democratically  
elected government was actually the first "test case" of R2P. Fenton  
points to a history of activities aimed at destabilizing Haiti's  
government – which had resisted the excesses of externally imposed  
"reforms" – undertaken by US and Canadian governments. During the  
campaign of destabilization, Fenton notes, R2P was frequently invoked  
in discussions about Haiti.

In memos sent by the Canadian Embassy in Porte-Au-Prince in the weeks  
leading up to the coup acquired by Fenotn via an access to information  
request, Ambassador Kenneth Cook speculated that the international  
community "will have to consider the options including whether a case  
can be made for [R2P]."

The government of Canada has refused to release uncensored memos from  
the time of the coup itself.

In February 2004, Canadian troops invaded Haiti while President Jean- 
Bertrand Aristide was physically removed from the country by US  
Special Forces. Most elected officials were forced into hiding. The  
violence that followed dwarfed even the most puffed-up human rights  
concerns cited to justify the coup.

A study by The Lancet, a top international medical journal, estimated  
8,000 people were murdered and 35,000 were raped in the post-coup  
period. During the same time, Canada had been overseeing Haiti's  
police force, which was a principle source of post-coup violence.

Since the 2004 coup, Haiti is seldom mentioned by R2P advocates.  
Fenton writes, "Dozens of papers, panels, symposiums, and conferences  
seem to have studiously avoided Haiti when discussing R2P [since the  
coup]."

One exception to the silence about R2P in Haiti stands out.

"Stabilization efforts in Afghanistan, Haiti and Iraq are testing  
grounds," writes policy analyst and R2P advocate Stephen Baranyi, "for  
fourth generation peace operations and approaches in fragile states."

"One problem is that the strategic interests of major Western powers –  
and not R2P criteria like massive human rights violations – drove  
decisions to intervene in these cases."

The credibility of R2P is "damaged," writes Baranyi, by "de facto  
collaboration with paramilitary leaders" and a lack of "open debate."

In calling for an "open debate," Baranyi is alone.

Ignatieff has been applauded by some for his candor in examining the  
results of the Iraq invasion he once backed. In the case of Haiti,  
however, there has been none of the introspection or public self- 
questioning that have proven to be such an effective component of  
Ignatieff's rhetorical arsenal.

As Liberal leader, Ignatieff continues to advocate for R2P. He now  
mentions Burma, Zimbabwe and Sudan as possible candidates for R2P  
interventions. The "test case" of Haiti is no longer cited.

Former Prime Minister Paul Martin remarked of Ignatieff, with  
unwitting insight: "Michael has inherited both a very deep  
understanding of Canada's role in the world and of, in fact, the kinds  
of upheavals that the world is capable of thrusting upon unsuspecting  
populations."

Dru Oja Jay is an editor with The Dominion.