Michael Costello: Sometimes all you can do is wait

Sometimes there is nothing that can be done to stop the horror unless outsiders are prepared to use force
29,dec.06

AS the carnage in Somalia continues, matched by horrors in Sudan and elsewhere in the world, common humanity cries out for somebody, anybody, to do something to stop the starvation, the rape, the torture, murder and war and, especially, to spare the innocent, who seem to suffer the most, whatever side they're on.These calls reflect a natural human feeling that if we could just get people around the table, good conflict-resolution skills would work these things out to the reasonable satisfaction of all parties.

Unfortunately, human history shows that this is simply not so. Often for strategic reasons, but just as frequently because parties to a dispute would rather fight, kill and die than compromise, many conflicts will not be resolved in the short or medium term. Only when those strategic relationships change, or when one of those parties is prepared to surrender dearly held positions, can there be a solution.

An example in Australia's recent experience is the effort in the 1980s and '90s to solve the Cambodian issue.

Bob Hawke, soon after his election as prime minister in 1983, asked Bill Hayden, then the foreign minister, to take the lead in seeking a solution to the Cambodian dispute.
Hayden worked hard on this for several years, culminating in a meeting in Ho Chi Minh City with Hun Sen, then foreign minister of the Soviet and Vietnamese-backed regime in Phnom Penh. That meeting so incensed the countries of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations that it seriously jeopardised Australia's relationship with them, and Australia had no choice but to back off.

Gareth Evans, who succeeded Hayden as foreign minister, accepted a proposal in late 1989 to try again. By September 1990, the deal was effectively done.
What changed between 1987 and late 1989 that allowed the Australian initiative to succeed where it had earlier failed?

What happened was that in those two years, the whole global and regional strategic situation changed because of the collapse of the Soviet Union.
Remember what Hayden faced in 1983. The Soviet Union was Vietnam's close ally, supplying aid and weapons to it and to the regime in Phnom Penh. It did this to pressure its neighbour and antagonist, China.

China, in turn, pressured the Soviet Union and Vietnam by supporting the Khmer Rouge, which had undertaken armed incursions against Vietnam. Vietnam drove the Khmer Rouge out of Cambodia, into camps in Thailand on the Cambodian border. The Chinese also supported the deposed King Sihanouk and his forces.

The Americans, still burning with rage over Vietnam's victory over them and keen to support China as a balance to the Soviet Union, also recognised the Khmer Rouge as Cambodia's legitimate government and supported the Lon Nolists, who worked in a military alliance of convenience with their enemies, the Khmer Rouge and Sihanouk. In the region the issue was ASEAN solidarity with Thailand, which was terrified by the threat on its border from the fearsome Vietnamese army.

Australia supported ASEAN and the US. But with the Soviet Union's collapse and the withdrawal of its material support for Vietnam and the Cambodian regime, everything changed. China no longer feared the threat of Soviet encirclement, so the Khmer Rouge was no longer needed to pressure Vietnam.

The US no longer needed to support China against the Soviets and Vietnam, and without this the political stench of supporting the Khmer Rouge became too much. With the withdrawal of Vietnamese forces from Cambodia, the threat on Thailand's border was gone.
What had looked set in concrete suddenly became completely fluid. The timing was perfect for Australia, trusted by all sides, with good ideas and high energy.

The point, however, is that good ideas, high energy and high moral purpose will not solve a conflict if the strategic environment is hostile, or one or more of the parties to that conflict are not sufficiently exhausted by the fight.

As the foreign minister of Vietnam during that period, Nguyen Co Thach, used to say: "You do not win at the negotiating table what you have lost on the battlefield." So the next time you hear good people like George Clooney say "the world must do something" about Darfur, remember this. Often negotiation, mediation and goodwill won't work unless the facts on the ground are changed, as the US eventually did by its intervention in Bosnia and Kosovo.

Sometimes there is nothing that can be done by outsiders to stop the horror if antagonists would rather fight than settle, unless the outsiders are themselves prepared to use force.
China, usually supported by Russia, will prevent UN use of force. And the international mood - and the mood now in the US - is that it's better to allow all the horror in the world to go unchecked than to support intervention by an American-led coalition.

In the absence of this willingness to intervene by force, with all its attendant risks (including the risk of failure) and huge financial costs, we should recognise that in many, many situations, the most we can do is offer what humanitarian assistance we can, seek to prevent the contagion spreading, and wait until better times come.