Mass violence and extreme problems have characterised the 20th Century. The ethnic cleansing in Rwanda and in Sudan only marks the most extreme recent cases. Unlike some types of warfare, genocide is always a state-organized crime. More precisely, ethnic cleansing has been defined as "the elimination of an unwanted group from society, as by genocide or forced migration." This definition is inherently broader than that of genocide alone, and thereby includes mass killings and forced civilians' removals in far greater number. The U.S. State Department, in a recent report on Kosovo, concluded that ethnic cleansing "generally entails the systematic and forced removal of members of an ethnic group from their communities to change the ethnic composition of a region." The latter definition is seemingly too narrow to be a useful descriptor of a majority of situations which are encompassed in the broader definition.
[...] First: international prevention and legitimisation of actions Secondly: risks inducted by those actions and challenges after the peace agreement That is true, as Roy Licklider says, that the "issues in civil wars tend to be about identity rather than ideology" and that "identity conflict may be hard to resolve", but, on the other hand, we can not affirm that "conversion is impossible" and justifies ethnic cleansing. Above any peace making intervention the role of the international community is to prevent large scale violence and ethnic cleansing. [...]
[...] Moreover, regional organisations could refuse any intervention especially when it deals with ethnic cleansing because they could dread the spill-over effects of this situation in their territories due to the presence of several members of ethnic groups involved in that conflict. And finally, NGOs still don't have so much financial capacity, and, because of their huge number, the coordination of actions appears hard when the situation imposes a swift action. Third, settlements negotiated with international actors seem an attractive way to prevent or to end violence but it is widely admitted that the agreements reached under international pressure tend to be more short-lived than others. [...]
[...] However this proposal needs a democratic commitment among parties strong enough so that the majority of the ethnic group are prepared to delegate power to the minorities. In other words the key of the problem is to create a consensus over a power sharing system because it is the only way of insuring group security in a multiethnic society, and this begins by a strong international pressure over the elite group. Coordinators can propose to the political power two variants of power sharing. [...]
[...] In that situation of imminent ethnic cleansing, the first and more important task for the international community is to identify the population or group concerned by the ethnic cleansing and the perpetrators of crimes in order to negotiate and start mediation with the latter. Then, different approaches are proposed for the negotiation but the most interesting seems to be the rational calculation perspective because it is the one that better associates efficiency and swiftness. However the main problem with this approach is that it excludes spoilers from the peace process and experiences showed that in the long run peace building can not be made without having such parties involved in the process. [...]
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