By Thalif Deen
UNITED NATIONS, Jan 26 2000 (IPS)

Emma Bonino, the former head of the European Community Humanitarian Office (ECHO), has urged the international community to move towards “a more humanitarian foreign policy” to save the lives of hundreds and thousands of people dying in conflicts throughout the world.

Bonino, who received a “Special Humanitarian Award” from Inter Press Service (IPS) news agency on Tuesday, castigated both the United States and the 15-member European Union (EU) for neglecting the crisis in the breakaway former Soviet republic of Chechnya.

“By continuing to keep quiet about what is happening in Chechnya now, the US and the EU, for their part, will inevitably lose in the future the right to condemn the excesses of belligerent aggressors in other parts of the world,” she warned.

Speaking at the award ceremony held at UN headquarters Tuesday, Bonino said that uninterrupted access to humanitarian aid must be granted to victims of all conflicts, as provided by the Geneva Conventions, which has also been signed by Russia.

The ceremony was co-sponsored by the Permanent Mission of Italy to the United Nations. The keynote speaker was Ambassador Francesco Paolo Fulci, president of the UN Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC).

Announcing Bonino’s selection last year, outgoing IPS Director-General Roberto Savio said the award was in recognition of her “valiant efforts and decisive actions in the defence of human rights and humanitarian causes worldwide.”

An Italian member of the European Parliament, Bonino has also held the posts of president and secretary of the Transnational Radical Party in Italy.

Immediately after the expulsion of hundreds of thousands of Kosovar Albanians last year, Bonino alerted governments to the pressing needs of the refugees and urged immediate action on their behalf.

The response to the Kosovo crisis was just one of many initiatives taken by Bonino in her capacity as Europe’s humanitarian commissioner last year.

Last month, Amnesty International, a leading human rights group, criticised the UN Security Council for its inaction in Chechnya and renewed its call for a UN investigation into violations of international humanitarian law – even as Russia has intensified its war against the breakaway republic.

Iain Levine of Amnesty International told IPS he was sceptical that the Security Council would take the initiative on Chechnya because two of the big five – the United States and Russia – may have struck a deal.

Although Iraq applied pressure on Russia to veto the US-UK sponsored resolution, the Russians only abstained on the vote.

The resolution established a new UN arms inspection team to probe Iraq’s weapons of mass destruction, but it didn’t meet the Iraqi demand for lifting of the nine-year old sanctions against Baghdad.

According to diplomatic sources, Russia is said to have held back its veto against the resolution last month in return for “no action” by the US on the fighting in Chechnya.

A Third World diplomat told IPS that “the Russians have sold out the Iraqis and the Americans have dumped the Chechens.”

In a report released last month, Amnesty International said it was not only concerned about the way in which the Russian forces are waging war in Chechnya – in apparent disregard of international humanitarian law – but also the discriminatory manner in which Chechens have been targeted by authorities in Moscow.

“Fighting crime and terrorism is no justification for violating human rights,” Amnesty said.

Bonino said the tight-lipped silence on Chechnya is apparently “a choice dictated by pragmatism.”

In effect, Bonino said, these countries are saying: “What interest can our governments have destabilising Russia and in antagonising the ruling class of a member of the Group of Eight (industrial nations), whose democracy is still young and fragile?”

She criticised both the US and the EU for adopting what has been called a policy of “realpolitik.”

“I cannot accept (the argument) that foreign policy has to be rife with secret deals and/or moral abstractions. I cannot accept that there are goals that justify any means,” she added.

“In my opinion, both goals and means should be in the public domain, openly debated in order to ensure their legitimacy among citizens in whose name a foreign policy is drawn up,” she argued.

“Let us make foreign policy more open,” she said. “Let us also explain to our citizens at large the interests at stake in international crises. Let us initiate, sponsor and support negotiations and initiatives in foreign policy that have the interests of human security at heart.”

In short, Bonino noted, “let us move towards a more humanitarian foreign policy, towards more idealpolitik.”

This may come too late for those who died amid past massacres, but cannot come too soon for the victims of present and future crises.

She cited UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan’s recent speech in which he “courageously recommended” that the international community re-examine the concept of state sovereignty vis-a-vis the sovereignty of the individual.

In his speech, Annan acknowledged the difficulties encountered in defending human rights in the context of state sovereignty.

“Without respect for human rights,” he said, “no nation, no community, no society can be completely free.”

Bonino also quoted Pope John Paul II, who said in his New Year message that “crimes against humanity cannot, in any instance, be considered the internal affairs of a nation.”

“When unarmed civilians succumb to the blows of an aggressor and political efforts do not bring results,” the Pontiff said, “it is legitimate and necessary to engage in concrete initiatives to disarm the aggressor.”

“Well, I am as realistic as Kofi Annan and John Paul II,” Bonino said. “And above all, I hope that Europe will embrace this kind of realism that respects both ideals and principles.”

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