Lepora and Goodin (2013) On Complicity and Compromise (7)

Chiara Lepora and Robert Goodin. On Complicity and Compromise (2013)

Organizational Complicity Rwandan Refugee Camps

In any complex case of grievous wrongdoing, the wrongdoers usually have some help. Other people instigate and encourage, aid and abet, facilitate, permit, or overlook the wrongdoing. By contributing in such ways, people can become complicit in that wrongdoing.

The first thing to say about such cases is that, as we have shown in previous chapters, complicity is not an all-or-nothing matter. Instead, it is a graded moral notion. Its badness comes in degrees. Sometimes being complicit with wrongdoing might even be morally the right thing to do on balance. How much blame attaches to an act of complicity is not settled decisively by the sheer determination that it was indeed a case of complicity.

The second thing to say is that ‘complicity’ itself is an unhelpfully imprecise descriptor. Better conceptual housekeeping can lead to clearer moral thinking on these matters, as has been shown in Chapter3. That is true not just in the abstract but especially in the real world.

7.1 In the Backwash of Genocide

Some of the biggest refugee camps ever seen were established in the Great Lakes region of Africa between April 1994 and October 1996, following the flight of over two million people from Rwanda. The exodus started during the genocide perpetrated against the Rwandan Tutsi minority and against Rwandan Hutu opposing that massacre. In 100 days of genocide, from early April to mid-July 1994, between 500,000 and one million people lost their lives. Hundreds of thousands more did so later on, during their flight from the country, in refugee camps outside the country or during retaliatory actions inside Rwanda.

Having first committed genocide against the Tutsi, the FAR (Rwandan Armed Forces) soon began using the refugee (mainly Hutu) population in various ways: as a source of income and power in their own right; as a lure for international assistance and legitimation; and as protection against those who might punish or retaliate against the FAR for the genocide.

Under the influence of FAR (and others), Hutu fled Rwanda and massed in unhealthy refugee camps. The FAR spread fears of retaliation by the RPF (Rwandan Patriotic Front, the pro-Tutsi rebel militia that seized power in Rwanda during the genocide) and myths that Hutu were hated internation ally. Through a combination of propaganda, fear, and direct threats, the FAR pressured that population to move around them during their flights and regroupings in neighbouring countries, creating refugee camps in Zaire, Tan zania, and Burundi. Those refugee camps constituted, not only at the outset but throughouttheir twoyears’ existence, a terrible and consistent example of a humanshieldforthemilitary and political perpetrators of the genocide. The use of human shields is, of course, prohibited explicitly as a war crime under international law

In July 1994, a cholera epidemic hit the 850,000 refugees of Goma camp in Zaire, causing more than 80,000 deaths in ten days and ravaging the camp for months. The proliferation of aid actors trying to respond to such an over whelmingemergencyfurther strengthened the political and military power of the FAR. Empowered by the recognition of UN camp management and humanitarian organizations, FAR groups took leadership of the newly created refugee camps. Having done so, they set about diverting aid, using camps as military recruitment and training centres, killing opponents, and further spreading genocidal propaganda

When providing aid, organizations were obliged to acknowledge, interact with and contribute to those perpetrators of genocide. Even non-governmen tal organizations that intervened on a purely humanitarian basis thus ended up contributing to FAR’s power, from a symbolic and sometimes material point of view. All international aid organizations faced the same dilemma: continue working in the camp, and thereby strengthen further the power of genocidal perpetrators over the refugees; or withdraw from the camps, abandoning a population that was in extreme distress. This dilemma—the bounds of acceptable complicity—forms the subject of this chapter.

7.2 The Complexities of Complicity

There is a clear wrong doing: the use of a civilian population as a human shield to protect the perpetrators of genocide. 

There is a clear group of agents—the FAR and associated militias engaged in committing that ‘principal wrong’.

7.2.1 Differentiating Forms of Principal and Secondary Action

① ‘principal’ ( ‘co-principals’）： we will apply the term ‘principal’ (or ‘co-principals’, where there are multiple agents acting together) to agents whose actions constituted the wrong (here, abuses of civilian populations for war purposes, especially to shield perpetrators of genocide).

② ‘contributory agents’ ： Other actors, such as neighbour ing or historically connected governments, did (or failed to do) things both during and after the genocide that were causally related to harming the Rwan dan civilian population. But while those acts contributed to the wrongdoing in a causal way, they did not themselves constitute the wrongdoing. For that reason we call such actors ‘contributory agents’ but not ‘co-principals’.

③  ‘non-contributory agents’： Furher actors, such as a part of the civilian population or some non-governmen tal organizations, will be mentioned because of their role in the context, although their actions were not causally related to the wrongs in cause, and will hence be called ‘non-contributory agents’.

‘Plan-makers’ are those who participated in formulating the plan for the principal wrongdoings. ‘Plan-takers’ did not; they simply follow the plans laid out by other.

① PM: The leadership of the FAR militias, certainly within and to some extent across different camps, acted as plan-making co-principals, devising and implementing schemes for maintaining and strengthening their power over the population through the diversion of aid andpublic attention.

Not every FAR leader did exactly the same thing as every other, in every respect. Nonetheless, they were very robust co-operators, sharing both in the making of the plan and the actions necessary to put it into practice.

② PT

2-1) collaborator:  The Zairian government has been accused of contributing substantially to the legitimacy, protection, and material support of the FAR/Hutu leadership. The Zairian government allowed perpetrators of the genocide to cross its borders; it allowed them to enter the country with heavy artillery and other weapons; and it facilitated the FAR’s economic transactions with countries providing them with additional weapons.

None of its actions, however, constitute the wrong in question—use of human shields. Those were the acts of the FAR, not the Zairian government, which is therefore better described as a collaborator in the FAR groups’ misuse of refugee camps as military and humanitarian sanctuaries.

2-2)  co-operators: The use of media was a powerful means of diffusing and reinforcing Hutu propaganda. Journalists working for radio stations (such as Radio Milles Col lines) could be said to have been co-operating with the FAR leadership’s use of civilian population for military purposes, inasmuch as they approved of the plan and aligned their actions in such a way as to help it function, both during and after the genocide.

2-3) colluders:  Political leaders of the self-proclaimed ‘government in exile’ may better be seen as colluders with the FAR leadership and their policy of using civilians to protect themselves and legitimize their power, despite the exile. They are colluders insofar as they participated, if only implicitly, both in making and in executing the FAR’s plan of wrongdoing while profiting from it.

③ NGO Cases: Connivance

Clearly, humanitarian NGOs were not at any point plan-makers of the abuse of civilian populations. Nor could they, at any time, be said to have been co-principals in that abuse. Providing food, shelter, and medical care could not be considered ‘constitutive’ of the abuse of civilians. This precludes many of the contributory concepts mentioned above from being applied to NGOs in refugee camps. They were not conspirators or co-operators or colluders in the abuse of civilians, since all those require one to be a co-principal (one’s actions being partially constitutive of the principal wrongdoing) and in some cases also a plan-maker.

How about collaboration, though, or connivance? Did international humanitarian organizations contribute to the FAR’s abuses in either of these ways? Collaboration requires the collaborator to conform his actions to the wrongful plan laid down by the principals. The activities of the Zairian governmentd escribed above do arguably meet that description. But the actions of the NGOs do not.

Certainly NGOs framed their interventions in the context of the sphere of influence determined by the FAR militias’ camp leadership. But it is difficult to imagine that any of them did anything remotely resembling ‘knowingly adopting’ or even ‘willingly complying’ with the plan of abusing the civilian population.

‘Connivance’ might seem to be a more fitting description of the behaviour of humanitarian NGOs—or anyway of the behaviour of their function aries on the ground, if not the organizations themselves. Consider these statements from NGO workers:

(1) ‘Christine Pliche, a nurse evacuated from Rwanda, is uneasy. “But I work in medicine and I have my professional code of ethics” she says. “I close my eyes and I treat people”’.

(2) ‘Water specialist Joel Boulanger operates on a purely professional basis, “I bring the equipment, I show them how to use it and I’m done”’.

Shutting eyes and tacitly allowing are precisely the types of contribution described by the term ‘conniving’.

 

That, however, seems to be inadequate as a way of describing the actions of NGOs from a larger organizational perspective. After all, humanitarian organizations were well aware of the ongoing political and military manipulation in the camps, and they could recognize the misuse of civilians and the diversion of aid for these purposes. Governmental and non-governmental humanitarian actors were not merely occasional visitors or passive bystanders.

Far from shutting their eyes, humanitarian organizations could well see that they were providing material support (health care and sanitation equipment, etc.) that was vital both for refugees and for the maintenance of the refugee camps.

Humanitarian organizations knew, given the way those camps were established and allowed to operate, that provision of both health care and sanitation would have to operate through the FAR groups’ camp leadership.

Humanitarian organizations knew (or certainly could and should have known) that that would allow the FAR to divert resources and strengthen its position vis-à-vis civilians in the camps. Humanitarian organizations mostly omitted even to express disapproval of the FAR’s abuses. However reluctantly, they provided FAR groups with direct or indirect material support that they knew would facilitate those abuses.

Humanitarian organizations knew (or certainly could and should have known, however much they regretted it) that FAR groups would beem powered and protected in its abuse of civilians in the camps by resources that the FAR would inevitably siphon off from the assistance that they provided.

That may nonetheless have been the right thing to do, if there was no other way to get urgently needed assistance to the refugees and doing that was of greater moral importance than avoiding collaborating with FAR’s abuse of the civilians. For now the point we wish to emphasize is merely that the acts of the humanitarian organizations themselves counted as something more than connivance with the abuse of the civilians.

④ Refugees: ‘consorting’

Might ‘consorting’ be attributed to some of the refugees themselves? Nevertheless, there is no denying the fact that the refugee population in these circumstances had a substantial role in their abuse, both in going into exile following incitements of the genocide perpetrators in the first place, and in the exactions happening within the camps.

7.2.2 Assessing Degrees of Complicity

Many of the activities of both UN agencies and non-governmental organiza tions contributing in various ways to the consolidation of refugees as human shields count as complicit in somewhat undifferentiated—but not necessarily any less morally problematic—ways. They are cases of what in Chapter3 we call ‘complicity simpliciter’.

They did not themselves commit (or participate in the committing of) the principal wrongdoing; they were not complicit in the genocide itself; nor were they using the refugees as human shields to protect perpetra tors of genocide.

But neither were the NGOs and UN agencies completely inconsequential with respect to those wrongs, merely overlooking the FAR militias’ abuses.

Instead, their contributions, both material and symbolic, causally enabled the FAR militias’ abuse of the refugees. They contributed knowingly to maintaining control of FAR militias over refugee populations in the camps, and thus contributed causally to civilians being abused as human shields. It is thus in terms of ‘complicity simpliciter’ that humanitarian organizations should truly be judged.

If all were complicit, then none were doing anything especially wrong—or so it might seem.21 But not all were equally complicit, and not all acts of complicity are equally bad. What factors should weigh in our moral judgments in these complex situations? We can draw one set of morally important distinctions among the various actors involved in providing humanitarian relief while supporting the abuse of refugee popula tions for war purposes bydifferentiating ‘definitely essential’ from ‘potentially essential’ from ‘necessarily inessential’ actions. As we will also show, complicit actors in this case varied enormously in terms of their centrality, proximity, andreversibility in relation to the wrongdoing. These distinctions can then be applied as in the ‘blameworthiness function’ proposed in Chapter6.

① ‘definitely essential’: That is the initial setting up of refugee camps in a waythat did not differentiate between militias and civilians. Had the camps been set up otherwise—had militias been excluded from refugee camps, as international law requires—it would have been impossible for the FAR groups to use their positions of authority within the camps to divert humani tarian aid to military purposes or shield behind civilians in the camps.

1-1) The practical one concerns the impossibility of separating militias from civilians after they settled in the camp, and the almost inevitable empowerment of a military leadership by aid actors looking for efficient and willing local agents of coordination.

1-2) The legal one concerns the status of ‘refugee’ that was conferred automatically upon anyone entering the camps. Once a person is declared a refugee, he benefits from legal protection; he cannot be sent back to his country of origin; and his status (and thus the protection he benefits from) cannot be revoked. Legally, someone who committed war crimes or crimes against humanity is not supposed to be able to benefit from refugee status. However, this distinction was not implemented by UNHCR in this case.

② UNHCR hired 300 people to counteract the worsening security situation, and provided them with police authority to arrest suspects. The 300 staff were left to be selected by the camp leader, thus further strengthening the leadership’s control over the refugees.

③ In all camps, food distribution was organized by means of a list of benefi ciaries compiled at the request of UNHCR. Once more, the leaders of the FAR militias were put in charge of compiling such lists, giving them an easy means of diverting and misappropriating food.

‘potentially essential’: Humanitarianorganiza tions providing food and water in the refugee campsduring cholera epidemics should be deemed ‘potentially essential’ in the abuse of civilian populations only if: (a) FAR militia diverted that aid and profited from it with the aim of misusing it for war purposes; and (b) on some scenario or another, those diverted resources were strictly necessary for the success of those war purposes.

Both the genocide and the later abuse of refugee populations, consolidated with the reluctant help of international aid, were perpetrated under the eyes of that same ‘international community’. Complicity-by-condoning, in addition to complicity-by-connivance, took place among some of the international humanitarian actors involved. For example, after the genocide had been f inally acknowledged by everyone, including a reluctant US government, the US ambassador nonetheless deemed it appropriate to advocate ‘power-sharing agreements’ between the new government in Kigali and the exiled FAR lead ership, despite their being perpetrators of genocide.

7.3 Assessing Blame for Contributory Wrongdoing

7.3.1 Exacerbating and Excusing Factors

① 'exacerbating’ factor: if an agent is under a special duty to do some particular thing in some particular circumstance, and she does not do what that duty requires, she is more to blame morally than someone not under that special duty.

In the case mentioned already of a drowning swimmer at a crowded beach, perhaps all competent swimmers are morally to blame for not rescuing her; but the lifeguard on duty is more to blame, by virtue of her special duty to do so.

② ‘excusing’ factors: acting not out of choice but rather out of necessity excuses wrongdoing in general.

So too in the case of contributory action, if the contributory agent had literally no other option, his action is wrong but not blameworthy: the agent is excused responsibility for the wrong. Or an agent who has various options but is coerced into contributing to the wrong might be excused responsibility or blame for her contribution, even if that was essential to the principal’s wrongdoing. In the refugee camp example, we would be reluctant to blame the refugees themselves for their complicity by connivance or contiguity in their being used as a human shield in cases where it was virtually certain they would have been killed had they risen up against the FAR militias. We would be much more inclined to blame them for complicity if they could easily have walked away from the camps at no cost or risk whatsoever.

A second factor that can excuse a wrongful action is unawareness of the wrong. An agent might have committed a wrong unknowingly, either because she did not know that the action would lead to that outcome (ignorance of fact) or because she did not know that that outcome would be wrong (ignorance of the moral standard).

Providing food to refugees is in itself praiseworthy. If—contrary to what happened in the case described above—aid organizations doing so had no way of knowing that that aid would strengthen the FAR militias and contribute to the wrong of those refugees being used as a human shield, then they would have done no wrong in providing food. [???]

7.3.2 Moral Assessment of Contributory Acts

Inevitably a concern with consequences looms large in our assessment here, if only because in situations like those of the refugee camps anything you do (including leaving altogether) would be wrong in one way or another; and when every possible action is wrong, the best basis for choice among them is, in our view, in terms of their consequences. So, the first consideration to be taken into account is the consequences of the contributory act, both directly (in itself) and indir ectly (via the principal’s wrongdoing to which it contributes).

That broadly consequentialist framework further allows two separate interacting sets of considerations to bear on the moral assessment of contributory actions. One relates to the degree of contribution the contributory act makes to the principal wrongdoing. The other relates to the degree of wrongness of the principal wrongdoing.

Other things being equal, contributory acts that are more central, or more proximate, or more irreversible, or in themselves make more of a difference, are stronger contributions. But in thinking about those factors one at a time, wemustremember that in the real world all else rarely is equal, and several of those factors may well interact.35

Finally, we must consider the ultimate wrongness of the principal wrong doing to which one contributes. Once again, other things being equal, a contributory action will be worse the worse the principal wrongdoing to which it contributes. Imagine a scientist who constructs an essential compon ent for the atomic bomb and sells it to two different governments, one of which uses it for an atomic test in the middle of the ocean, and the second of which uses it against thousands of civilians in a neighbouring country. Other things being equal, selling the bomb component to the bombing government is worse than selling it to the testing government. The contribution provided by media to the FAR leadership, in terms of propaganda and spreading of tendentious information, was comparable duringthe genocide andduringthe creation of the refugee camps. Other things being equal, the journalists’ actions are morally to blame for contributing to something less bad when co-operating in the abuse of the civilian population as human shields than when co-operating in genocide. [???]

7.3.3 Moral Assessment of Contributors’ Purposes

good intentions certainly do not insulate you from blame for the conse quences that you actually produce.

We would re-emphasize, once again, three main points. First, deeming someone complicit with wrongdoing does not automatically imply that their actions were necessarily wrong, all things considered. It was not neces sarily wrong for humanitarian organizations to provide assistance to the Rwandan refugees. Certainly we do not think that they should necessarily have refused that complicity for the sake of their moral integrity. Some levels of complicity should sometimes be deemed morally acceptable, because the benefit of anintervention outweighs the wrongness of contributing to wrong doing. That was true, for example, in the case of the medical and logistical support at the height of the cholera epidemic. In other cases, humanitarian organizations should refuse to intervene where the bad done by their compli city with wrongdoing would overwhelm the benefit of their direct aid inter vention. Careful evaluation is required to tell which is which