Updated: June 2001
Recent trends in the foreign policy of the nations of the South Asian region vis-a-vis UN interventions
Editorial Note: This article was first published on our web-site in June 2000. Since then, we note with satisfaction that the Indian government has taken into account public concerns about the role Indian troops were playing in Sierra Leone, and decided to withdraw Indian troops from the UN's dubious efforts in the beleagured African nation. Traditionally, India has been extremely careful in getting involved in peace-keeping missions where the role of the UN was poorly designated, or subverted by super-power manipulation. It has also been reluctant to offer peace-keeping troops in situations where Indian troops have been perceived as unwelcome by either party in th conflict.
India's involvement in Sierra Leone was an unusual exception to this customary reticence and adherence to India's stated position of being non-aligned and being in solidarity with anti-colonial movements in the developing world.
Unfortunately, the same cannot be said for India's neighbours. Since India's departure, the British and the US governments have been assiduosly trying to get more nations to send additional troops. The troop strength of the UN mission has been raised to 10,000 and the majority of these troops hail from Bangladesh, Nigeria, Pakistan and other developing nations.
Meanwhile, the US is also negotiating with Pakistan to send additional troops so as to raise the troop strength of the UN mission to as much as 18,000 in exchange for the supply of new weapons for the military government of Pakistan. Of course, British military "advisors" play a pivotal role in training troops and "guiding" the UN mission in Sierra Leone.
Although this article is now somewhat dated - it serves as an important lesson in how not to get involved in unpopular UN missions that are in fact, nothing but a cover for armed intervention in poor and hapless nations around the globe.
Peace-loving people in Bangladesh and Pakistan might take note of this situation and try to get their governments to withdraw from this attempt to re-colonize Sierra Leone.
South Asian troops in Sierra Leone - A "peace-keeping" misadventure
Sierra Leone is a small nation in West Africa with a population of roughly 5 million people. A former British colony, it is a mineral rich country with reserves of diamonds, titanium ore, bauxite, iron ore, gold and chromite. Yet, it is also one of Africa's poorest nations. Life expectancy is barely 50 years, while infant mortality is a high 126 deaths/1,000 live births. Literacy is roughly 32% and 68% of it's population is estimated as being desperately poor. Other than mining, there has been little industrial development, and a large proportion of the population must migrate out of the country to survive. Roughly 10% of the population controls almost 50% of the nation's wealth.
History of colonial degradation
Like India, and many other West
African nations, Sierra Leone has suffered bitterly from colonial conquest.
In the 18th century, the British dominated the Atlantic slave trade transporting
more slaves than all the other European powers combined. During that
period, Bunce Island owned by British firms, was the largest slave trade operation
in the Sierra Leone River (now, the Freetown harbour). From about 1750,
Bunce Island specialized in supplying slaves to South Carolina and
Georgia, where American rice planters were willing to pay high prices for
slaves coming from Sierra Leone with rice-growing experience. In 1808, Sierra
Leone was officially declared a British colony and remained so until 1961.
Since then, the people of Sierra Leone have struggled to build a nation that was physically and psychologically ravaged by colonial rule. But as the experience of Sierra Leone shows, it is very difficult for a deeply impoverished nation to rectify the grave inequities that resulted from colonial rule. As a very small country, it has been a constant victim of external manipulation and governments whether popularly elected, or military-based have acted more as agents of international mining companies than as benefactors of the local people.
Roots of Sierra Leone's
civil wars
Not only has the wealth from Sierra
Leone's been usurped by international trading companies, it has also been
squandered and unfairly distributed by a series of failed governments. Unsurprisingly,
Sierra Leone's high income disparities and chronic poverty have led to a series
of coup attempts and armed uprisings. International intervention rather than
helping the situation has only compounded the problems of the small nation.
At the behest of the US and Britain, the military governments of Nigeria,
Ghana and Guinea intervened by sending troops into Sierra Leone in 1992-93.
This intervention only aggravated the ongoing civil war, and led to a precipitous
decline in the national economy.
In the last few years, Sierra Leone has been embroiled in a civil war between the government of Ahmad Tejan Kabbah and the Revolutionary United Front (RUF). The RUF has accused the government forces of being agents of foreign powers who wish to loot the small nation's mineral wealth. The RUF has also charged the government with mining away Sierra Leone's non-renewable resource of diamonds. It has also requested that the US, Britain, Nigeria, Ghana and Guinea refrain from interfering in the affairs of the nation. They have also pleaded for other nations to allow the people of Sierra Leone to resolve their conflicts without external intervention.
British troops - bane of the
people
But the Kabbah government has been
calling for international intervention and even accepted the presence of British
troops on Sierra Leone. This has naturally infuriated the patriotic-minded
people of Sierra Leone who could have hardly forgotten the British role in
the nation's slave trade and subsequent colonization. Although the government
has made an attempt to present the British troops as merely "technical advisors",
and the Western media have pretended that the British troops were there simply
to protect British civilians, the British troops have been involved in heavy
combat inflicting casualties on both civilians and the RUF forces. The British
have been the most aggressive champions of hunting down the forces of the
RUF in clear violation of previously signed peace-accords.
When the Lome Cease-fire Agreement was signed on 18 May 1999, it called for the setting up of a joint government that would include both the RUF and the Kabbah government, and the UN was entrusted with monitoring the cease fire. However, there was no mention of any involvement of the British.
Since the signing of the Lome peace accords, the cease-fire agreement has been followed more in the breach. The presence of 6000 (or more) British troops has led to a complete breakdown of trust and an unraveling of the peace accords. British troops have been a law unto themselves and have refused to place themselves under UN authority and supervision. The impartiality of the UN has naturally been gravely undermined, and it is little wonder that the RUF wants the UN to leave. UN troops are being viewed as a front for British colonial interests and are consequently treated with disdain by supporters of the RUF and by other sections of Sierra Leone's people.
That a UN "peace-keeping" effort has been hijacked by Sierra Leone's former colonial lords is hardly surprising. Since the demise of the Soviet Union, the US, Britain and it's allies have dominated the agenda of the UN and treated UN missions as extensions of their own imperial interests.
Indian involvement in Sierra
Leone
In this context it is hard to see
anything positive emanating from India's involvement in Sierra Leone.
Having fought an exhausting battle in Kargil only last year, it is difficult
to imagine that Indian troops relish their Sierra Leone assignment. Reports
have suggested that Indian troops are confused and disoriented. To be hated
by a section of the people and to be captured by the RUF can hardly be helpful
to the morale of the Indian troops. Since independence, India's governments
have been exceedingly cautious in send peace-keeping troops. They have tried
to ensure that peace-keeping missions elicit broad approval and are
not a cover for armed intervention in the internal affairs of the nations
involved.
It's consistent opposition to imperialist maneuvers and war-making has won India plaudits and respect in the Non-Aligned-Movement (NAM). But India's role in Sierra Leone is winning India few friends. The British and Kabbah government have publicly criticized the Indian troops as being too "soft" on the RUF, while the RUF rejects the presence of all UN troops as unwanted occupiers.
George Fernandez has defended the embarrassing situation India finds itself in, by trumpeting the fact that UN troops are led by an Indian General. The fact that British troops have refused to accept his leadership and refused to accept the UN umbrella does not seem to upset the Indian Defence Minister. It is irrelevant if the UN troops are led by an Indian or an African if they are unwelcome guests in the war-torn nation. Having refused to be drawn into Sri Lanka's civil war - it is bizarre that the NDA government should find any merit in Indian participation in what appears to be a highly dubious UN intervention.
In Iraq, the decade-long UN imposed sanctions have been blamed for over 2 million civilian deaths. One after the other, UN officials have resigned, not wishing to be part of a program that is causing untold human misery on the beleaguered people of Iraq. The oil embargo against Iraq has helped push oil prices to over 30$ a barrel hurting India's economy, and creating pressures that have led to a sudden devaluation of India's currency. Before the Gulf War, Iraq was India's chief oil-supplier and much of the oil was obtained through barter deals. Indian engineering companies received lucrative business contracts in Iraq. Not only is the UN-imposed trade embargo a genocide of the Iraqi people, it is also against India's national interests.
It should also be pointed out that since the UN's Sierra Leone intervention, military coups have deposed popularly elected governments in Pakistan and Fiji. In both cases, Indians have a serious stake in the outcome. But the UN has shown no signs of intervening.
The UN's interventions have rarely been based on issues of principle or any genuine concern for democratic rights. If anything, UN troops are becoming pawns in the games of re-colonization and global plunder by the world's former colonial powers.
It is a great pity that South Asian troops are assisting their former colonial masters in recolonizing another poor nation. We can only hope that public pressure causes the governments that have sent troops to reconsider their policy of neo-colonial servitude to US and British interests.
For more details on the civil war in Sierra Leone, also see Lalkar's article on British intervention in Sierra Leone.
To get RUF's perspective on the UN intervention in Sierra Leone, visit their website.
Also see IMF, Market Reforms and Economic Crisis
To get a perspective on Africa prior to colonization, see: African Indigenous Science and Knowledge Systems
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