The
International Crisis Group:
Who Pays the Piper?
PressInfo #
219
April
15, 2005
By
Jan
Oberg,
TFF director
2005 is the tenth anniversary of
the International Crisis Group, ICG. " The International
Crisis Group is an independent, non-profit, multinational
organisation, with over 100 staff members on five
continents, working through field-based analysis and
high-level advocacy to prevent and resolve deadly
conflict." - it states on its homepage.*
It works with about 50 conflicts.
In a media release of April 13,
2005, Crisis Group describes itself - with limited
humility - as "widely regarded as the world's leading
independent, non-government source of information,
analysis and advice to governments and international
organisations on conflict issues."
By whom, one might humbly ask, by
what circles? It is true that mainstream media often
describe the ICG as prestigious or well-respected. People
who are not too familiar with politics and conflicts may
go for the names and public relations of an organisation,
and in those terms, ICG is certain world-leading, in
spite of the fact that virtually all the top names are
"have-beens".
However, professionals in
conflict-analysis, -resolution and peacemaking may find
reasons to question the image ICG promotes of itself. In
what follows, the focus is on general status and
connections as well as on intellectual/research
pertaining to a couple of conflicts - thus not excluding
that Crisis Group may do better work elsewhere.
Non-governmental?
Independent?
A visit to Crisis Group's website
reveals that 40% of its funds come from
governments:
Agence Intergouvernementale de la
francophonie, Australia, Austria, Belgium, Canada, the
Czech Republic, Holland, Finland, France, Germany,
Ireland, Japan, Luxembourg, New Zealand, Taiwan, Denmark,
Norway, Sweden, Switzerland, Turkey, the UK and the US.
Isn't it a bit hard to believe that those who pay the
piper would continue to do so, if reports were critical
of government policies - Western governments and their
conflict "management" in particular?
ICG is also supported by various
foundations (covering 43%) - Rockefeller, Ford,
MacArthur, US Institute for Peace (established by Ronald
Reagan), Carnegie, Sarlo Jewish Community Endowment Fund,
Hewlett, etc. and private sector donors (16%).
In short, major mainstream American
policy-oriented foundations, none of which are known for
spending just a fraction of their millions of dollars on
grants that could result in building a knowledge base
about, say, peace by peaceful means, non-violence and
reconciliation. Neither have they promoted studies of why
violent conflict-management and so-called humanitarian
interventions - e.g. Kosovo - have failed so miserably
since the end of the Cold War - let alone promoted
criticism of the only superpower's reckless militarist,
unilateralist policies these years.
But let's imagine the ideal world
in which, year by year, more and more government funds
would come with no strings attached whatsoever. Are
non-governmental people leading ICG?
No, they are not. Among its board
members we find Gareth Evans President & CEO,
Former Foreign Minister of Australia and Lord Patten
of Barnes, former European Commissioner for External
Relations, Co-Chairman. Two pro-Kosovo-Albanian
Americans, Morton Abramowitz, former U.S.
Assistant Secretary of State and former U.S. Ambassador
to Turkey, Stephen Solarz, former U.S.
Congressman. And George Soros. Among other names
that catch the "independent, non-governmental" eye you
find: ambassador Kenneth Adelman (US), Wesley
Clark (former NATO-commander who lead the destruction
of Yugoslavia in 1999) (US), Zbigniew Brzezinski,
former U.S. National Security Advisor to the President,
Ruth Dreifuss, former President, Switzerland,
Leslie H. Gelb, former President of Council on
Foreign Relations, U.S.
Among other former-governmentals:
Bronislaw Geremek, former Minister of Foreign
Affairs, Poland, Lena Hjelm-Wallén, former
Deputy Prime Minister and Foreign Affairs Minister,
Sweden, James C.F. Huang, Deputy Secretary General
to the President, Taiwan, Fidel V. Ramos, former
President of the Philippines, Lord Robertson of
Port Ellen, former Secretary General of NATO; former
Defence Secretary, UK, Salim A. Salim, former
Prime Minister of Tanzania and former Secretary General
of the Organisation of African Unity, Pär
Stenback, former Minister of Foreign Affairs,
Finland, Thorvald Stoltenberg, former Minister of
Foreign Affairs, Norway, Ernesto Zedillo, former
President of Mexico; Martti Ahtisaari, former
President, Finland, George J. Mitchell, former
U.S. Senate Majority Leader, Uffe Ellemann-Jensen,
former Minister of Foreign Affairs, Denmark, and Mark
Eyskens, former Prime Minister of Belgium.
In all fairness, there are also
some business people, a novelist and a professor. But one
can't help being struck by a) the overwhelming presence
of (former) politicians and diplomats, b) the virtual
absence of people from academia with professional
training in field conflict and peace work, and c) the
degree of overlap between the governments that support
the ICG and the governments these board member once
served.
The Washington office of the Crisis
Group consists of only Americans who - no exception -
have a background in the US government - Peace Corps,
State Department, the National Security Council,
USAID. In a couple of cases Bachelor and Master
degrees are stated.
If Crisis Group was really
non-governmental - rather than so clearly
near-governmental - it would work with civil
society and promote early warning, conflict-prevention
and policy-proposals from below, in partnership with
local groups in conflict regions. It doesn't even try, it
has an exclusivist, elite-policy of change, expressed in
this manner in its Annual Report:
"Much of Crisis Group's most
successful advocacy is done behind closed doors. Our
major advocacy offices, in Brussels, Washington DC and
New York [notice the choice among 191 UN members,
JO] continued to ensure Crisis Group had the access
and influence at the highest levels of the U.S. and
European governments, the UN, EU and NATO; our Moscow
office improved our access to Russian decision-makers;
and our London office continued to strengthen Crisis
Group's high profile and influence in the UK. All Crisis
Group offices, both advocacy and field, receive a regular
flow of senior political and official
visitors."
Elsewhere it is stated in these
self-flattering terms, "Crisis Group today - with its 110
full-time staff spread across some 25 locations on five
continents, working simultaneously on around 50 areas of
actual and potential conflict, and with an annual
operating budget of nearly $12 million - is universally
regarded not only as a serious player in the policy
debate on just about every major conflict prevention and
resolution issue, but as probably now the world's
leading independent, non-government source of
information, analysis and advice to governments and
international organisations on conflict
issues."
Closed doors, close interaction
with elites who have all the formal and informal
connections to power! What power? Most often the
power of governments, such as the US, the UK - but
also Australia, Japan and Denmark - that have repeatedly
chosen to not do something about conflicts when they
could but later chose to aggravate the conflicts by
exporting their arms and simplifying images of "good"
versus "evil" by bombing and occupying - power who
does not even bother to learn the history, philosophy,
vocabulary, methods or potentials of non-violence but,
instead, increasingly promote violence as an integral
part of their worldwide conflict "prevention" -
power that is pretty isomorphic with the structure
of ICG and its worldwide operation.
Research
or commentarism?
"Crisis Group's staff administer
the organisation, develop policy proposals for
consideration by the Board and promulgate Crisis Group
analysis. They are professionals with extensive
experience in advocacy, law, politics, the private
sector, humanitarian assistance, peacekeeping and human
rights," one reads on the homepage.
So, what about the reality of
another statement, namely that "Crisis Group's approach
is grounded in field research"?
The President was a university
lecturer in law and practising barrister 1970-78, but
since then a politician and prolific writer. What about
the advisory board? One would believe that an advisory
board had some professionals. But supporters who
contribute more that U.S.$25,000 p.a. are offered
International Advisory Board membership, so the advisory
board, it seems, consists mainly of people who have
donated money but are not necessarily experts in, say,
conflict analysis or -resolution, peacemaking, dialogue
and negotiation, or early warning.
The CVs of the staff list what
Crisis Group members have done before joining, but
conspicuously leaves untold educational background in
quite a few cases. About Nicholas Whyte, PhD and director
of Europe Program, it is written that he is Trifun
Kostovski Research Fellow. You wonder who Trifun
Kostovski is? He is an MP in Macedonia, founder of
Kometal Trade Gmbh, supported as Mayor of Skopje by the
opposition and - you guessed it - member of Crisis
Group's board. One looks forward with excitement to
Whyte's forthcoming independent research reports on
Macedonia's future.
The HQ in Brussels has four staff
members with titles indicating research. You're informed
that one is director of advocacy and research (sequence
hopefully accidental), he has a BA and MA and has worked
as a commercial lawyer. One has worked at an embassy and
holds both a BA and MA. One is completing his PhD after
internship at the EU Commission. And one has been an
intern with the EU Commission and holds an MA in
international studies.
It appears that, contrary to the
research image, none of those doing research at the HQ
have reached the level of PhD yet.
What about ICG staff around the
world? A "senior analyst" on Central Africa is a former
officer in the Australian Army and "slowly progressing a
PhD". About some of the regional project directors and
analysts, it is stated that they have PhDs. Not so with
everyone. For the main/only analyst listed under
Macedonia, no CV is provided on the website. Having
checked a few CVs, but admittedly not all, we found one
with a PhD in conflict studies. Hopefully there are more,
or will be more soon.
The general ICG report does not
seem to be based on any consistent theoretical or
conceptual framework pertaining to conflict analysis,
early warning or world system/international relations
schools. While ICG reports are certainly not without
information and knowledge, much remain on the level of
commentarism and piecing together data from interviews
with representatives of formal power, such as
politicians, and readings of newspapers.
CrisisWatch is a 12-page
monthly bulletin "designed to provide busy readers ...
with a succinct regular update on the state of play in
all the most significant situations of conflict or
potential conflict around the world." It is based on a
Crisis Watch database and a Conflict Histories
database, country by country. However, for the former
Yugoslavia for example, there is no history database for
the whole entity and thus no understanding possible of
the interrelatedness of the region. Those for Serbia and
Kosovo leave much to be desired as they are merely
journalistic and contain both some factual mistakes and
simplified interpretations as well as lack every
systematic conflict- theoretical approach, thus making
impossible cross-country comparison. By the way, there
does not exist any conflict history database for
Bosnia-Hercegovina and Croatia.
In these databases - in reality
very short descriptions - as well as that for Iraq, one
notices a conspicuous absence of any information that
could place Western interests, historic and contemporary
co-responsibility for conflicts, counterproductive
conflict-management or failed peace-keeping in a
problematic light.
Anyone who has worked a few
years/decades with just a few complex conflicts can only
wonder how it would be possible to say something deeper
or analytically original about 50 conflicts - early
warning, conflict management and peacemaking in a broad
sense - in so many different cultures, even with 100
highly qualified and experienced professionals.
It is worth discussing whether the
above-mentioned deficiencies are compatible with
characterisations such as "the world's leading
conflict-prevention organisation." Let's hope that there
is actually much more professional substance behind the
real ICG than meets the eye, and that it is only the
virtual ICG, i.e. the homepage, that doesn't do justice
to such de facto excellence.
Conflict
prevention: No!
Part of the ICG's logo is the text:
Working to prevent conflict worldwide. This, in a
nutshell, gives you the level of intellectualism and
vision. For - can there be any life, any family, any work
place or any country in which there is no conflict, i.e.
no differences, different views, disagreements, disputes,
no differing world views, norms and visions of the
future? Can there be any individual or civilisational
development without conflict? Of course not! Preventing
conflict literally means making life poorer. Without
conflicts, there would be no need for democracy, no
possibility of freedom. It would be an Orwellian world.
Conflicts happen. Conflicts exist. "Conflict prevention"
is intellectual nonsense.
What we all need to work with
instead is, how to prevent, reduce and, admittedly
long-term, abolish violence and war as legitimate means
to deal with unavoidable differences and conflicts.
The day the ICG could work for
that as successfully - in terms of public
relations, funds, civil-society based and for
non-violence - as it does today its near-governmental
conflict "management" work, the world and the times would
indeed have changed.
Finally, Lord Patten of Barnes,
Chair of Crisis Group's Board of Trustees writes in the
Anniversary media release that "What Crisis Group does is
to fill the need that policy-makers in national
governments have for smart, honest analysis and practical
proposals for preventing disaster, or at least mitigating
its consequences. We often find ourselves saying the
things that governments would like to say but find too
difficult".
The last sentence is probably
slightly more revealing than the Lord himself intended.
But in spite of the intellectual crisis in his Group,
it's getting well paid for saying exactly that. Media
that gladly quote neon signs on shiny facades would
perhaps be surprised at what is sometimes found, or not
found, behind them.
Political correctness is rewarded
in our increasingly authoritarian times. Crisis Group is
not the only near-governmental organisation posing
as non-governmental in the field of conflict
"prevention" and peacemaking.
It's time to separate the sheep
from the goats.
*
To mark the occasion, Crisis Group has published a
concise history of the organisation, 1995-2005:
A Decade on the Front Lines.
More about Crisis Group
here
The
Accumulating Crisis in Kosovo
TFF PressInfo 197 - April 29,
2004
Peace-Making
coming to an End in Kosovo - for predictable reasons
With a critique of the International Crisis
Group
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