A rchive Date
[ 13-02-2003 ]
Category
[ International Relations ]
sub-Categoy
[ South Africa ]
|
[http://www.canoe.ca/Columnists/mansur_toronto.html
The (il)logic of the Mandela doctrine
By SALIM MANSUR - For the Toronto Sun
February 13, 2003
LONDON, Ont. - Greatness in politics, as in arts and sports, is performance on the edge. Every slip - and there is many a slip when performance is on the edge - is a reminder of human fallibility and human foible.
Nelson Mandela is the closest living representation of someone being a secular saint. His life is a proof of good prevailing over evil. He is the hope Africans may have within themselves of the capacity to defeat the web of authoritarianism, corruption, mendacity and tribalism continuing to despoil their continent after the ruinous history of slavery and apartheid ended.
Hence, Mandela's recent observation on the U.S. motivation for disarming Iraq - "All Bush wants is Iraqi oil" - and his explanation behind the alleged American-British connivance to undermine the UN - "Is it because the secretary-general of the United Nations is now a black man? They never did that when secretary-generals were white" - are illustrations of a great man going over the edge.
I will not comment on Mandela ignobly playing the race card. But let us consider the issue of oil.
Anyone familiar with world politics, since the internal combustion engine was invented and oil deposits in great abundance discovered in the Persian Gulf region, must know that oil is the axiom of politics when discussing the Middle East.
We may, for instance, stretch the history of World War II without unduly distorting it by observing that it was about oil. The drive of Hitler's Wehrmacht through the Caucasus, and across North Africa, was to seize the oil deposits of the Middle East that provide blood to the modern economy and war-fighting machines.
And yet it would be utterly absurd to reduce the war against Hitler and the Axis powers (Italy and Japan), to being only about oil, with little or nothing to do with preserving freedom, and defeating anti-Semitism, racism and militarism in Europe and elsewhere.
But this reductionism is what we get from Mandela, and those for whom he speaks: that the only issue when it comes to Saddam Hussein and Iraq is oil.
The complicity of the United States and the former Soviet Union, and their respective allies, in arming Iraq during the Cold War years does not make Saddam any less responsible for war crimes, crimes against humanity and genocide committed by his regime, or for refusing over the past 12 years to unconditionally abide by the demands of the UN Security Council.
For those of us, including Mandela, who have long argued for stricter compliance with the standards of international law by all UN member states - without exception - the issue of oil, its presence or absence, should be immaterial in this discussion.
But Mandela's view leads to the conclusion that oil gives a rogue regime, like that of Saddam, a licence to brazenly violate the norms of international law, however fragile these may be at the present time, and immunity from prosecution or demands for compliance with UN requirements.
The Mandela doctrine, if we may so characterize his views, amounts to placing a protective shield around regimes that sit on oil deposits and putting them beyond the reach of international law, while leaving their populations vulnerable and defenceless to the whims and caprices of local tyrants.
The UN's record in dealing with rogue regimes, such as Pol Pot's in Cambodia and the white minority regime in South Africa, is abominable.
The Cold War years forced an odious compromise with such regimes for fear of igniting an uncontrollable spiral of conflict with unimaginable consequences.
Are we to say now, the Cold War being over, that support for freedom and human rights, where these are denied, as in Iraq, must be selective and only be supported in those circumstances where there is no whiff of oil, as in the Balkans?
More appropriate would have been Mandela speaking about not bartering freedom for oil. Iraqis will note when they acquire their freedom how they were betrayed by those who should have known better.
Salim Mansur is a professor of political science at the University of Western Ontario. His column appears alternate Thursdays. He can be reached at smansurca@yahoo.ca Letters to the editor should be sent to editor@sunpub.com
 World Fact Book (CIA)]
|