Protection of Civilians – POC

Comment on “The Unforgivable Silence on Sudan”

/ stefanfeller / Leave a comment

On the picture: Taken by the author in a refugee camp in Darfur, June 2005

Ambassador Linda Thomas-Greenfield is the United States Ambassador to the United Nations. Today, March 18, 2024, the New York Times published a Guest Essay by her, titled “The Unforgivable Silence on Sudan“.

I render the platform of my small blog for sharing her powerful message.

She starts her essay with her impressions on occasion of her visit to a makeshift hospital  in Adré, Chad. Chad is neighboring the Sudan. There she met young Sudanese refugees who were being treated for acute malnutrition. When she was in that hospital, all she heard was “an eerie silence”. The silence of human beings who are even too weak to utter sounds, who are too weak to cry.

In some recent blog entries on the situation of civilians in Ukraine’s war zone and of civilians suffering on both sides after the terror attack of Hamas’ against Israel and Israel’s military response fighting the terror organization Hamas in the Gaza Strip, I wondered how many news about terrible suffering of human beings can be taken in even by the most compassionate human beings. Reflecting on my perception of global news, I wondered about the underwhelming reporting on the re-occurrence of one of the most severe human tragedies of the past two decades, in Sudan’s Darfur Region.

Having been there on many occasions between 2005 and 2016, I remembered the public outrage and the humanitarian calls, including by celebrities who, from early on, helped broadcasting a message of compassion which supported a massive humanitarian intervention, and one of the largest peacekeeping operations of contemporary times to follow. Certainly, the human tragedy in Darfur left an imprint on public conscience in the West at that time. And of course, as is always the case, the public attention moved on, whilst the humanitarian and peacekeeping efforts were in for the long haul. AMIS, the African Union Mission, and UNAMID, the succeeding hybrid mission jointly led by African Union and United Nations, formed an intense part of my work both in the European Union and in the United Nations over almost fifteen years.

When the United Nations Security Council, pressed by some of it’s members, decided to wind down the peacekeeping efforts at the end of 2020, those news were not making big headlines. Outside of the community of humanitarians and practitioners in the field of international peace and security, not many people noted it.

Enter the situation just three years after, and with a brutal civil war re-ocurring in Sudan. To quote Ambassador Thomas-Greenfield reporting about her experience with the sound of silence:

“Twenty years earlier I had visited the same town and met with Sudanese refugees who fled violence in Darfur, where the janjaweed militia, with backing from Omar al-Bashir’s brutal authoritarian regime, carried out a genocidal campaign of mass killing, rape and pillage.

Today, civil war has once again turned Sudan into a living hell. But even after aid groups designated the country’s humanitarian crisis to be among the world’s worst, little attention or help has gone to the Sudanese people.”

On previous occasions I reflected on an impression that an increasing number of people appears to feel overwhelmed by the battlerhythm of horrific news. For about the last two hours, I tried to walk in the shoes of friends in Africa, or the Middle East, who very understandably perceive policymaking in the West as biased. Because, quite frankly, it is. Not only “others” are biased. We all are. But in this antagonistic struggle between systems there are real loosers. People in areas like Sudan’s Darfur Region are at the receiving end.

People like in Darfur certainly feel forgotten in their suffering. When some of them, together with others from poverty-stricken and terror-riddled areas of Africa manage to end up in human trafficking networks at the Mediterranean shores of North Africa, when they perish on their perilous journey to European shores, the reports about their fate have become a regular part in the battle-rhythm of incessant bad news to which many of us, perhaps, listen less and less. When people manage to reach European shores, whether they escape from famine, or have reasons of economic migration, they may arrive as unwelcome strangers, to put it mildly.

A former President of the United States is using an increasingly bellicose rethoric of de-humanization and labeling any migrant at the Southern U.S. border either as criminal, or being let loose from mental health institutions, or being a terrorist. Which, is, looking at some language and sentiments harbored in Europe, perhaps only some of the most extreme expression of hostility which seems to become the new normal. We have it everywhere. If we can’t prevent it from spreading, that is.

Ambassador Thomas-Greenfield’s Guest Essay is pointing towards the culmination of what she calls “Unforgivable Silence”:

“For almost a year, I have been pushing the United Nations Security Council to speak out. On March 8, the Council finally called for an immediate cessation of hostilities. This is a positive step, but it is not nearly enough — and it does not change the fact that the international community and media outlets have been largely quiet.

The world’s silence and inaction need to end, and end now.“

Empathy – And the sharp side of means protecting it

/ stefanfeller / Leave a comment

On the featured image: Taken by the author – The never ending emergence of new from the old

“Die Menschlichkeit ist da, wo Du und ich und jeder sonst sie leben. Daher ist sie da, auch wenn sie grad weint und sich geschlagen und getreten und geprügelt in einer Ecke verkriecht. Wir pflegen sie, wir lieben sie, wir stehen ihr bei und für sie ein.”

I wrote this to a dearest friend. She currently works in New York, as part of a national mechanism constituting the overarching work of the U.N. Security Council. The mandate of this national mechanism in this collective endeavor comes to an end by the end of this year, by natural rotation to another Member State. Over the past two years, this dearest friend of mine has invested her work into upholding, maintaining, extending, deepening the awareness for gender issues. For the promotion of female rights. For the promotion of protecting women against domestic and gender-specific violence. For the context between this work and the work on protecting the rights of children. Often enough, inextricably intertwined with the work on protecting minorities.

Two years of her life she invested into this high-power exercise. She wrote about her exhaustion at the end, taking the never-ending frustration into account which roots in the ability of some of the members of the Security Council to block everything by a Veto. These five permanent members of the Security Council, of course, established the possibility of vetoing each and any proposed decision of the Council both for reasons of national interests of the most powerful States post World War II, but also for other reasons, such as being able to maintain an orderly course of this highest body of the World with responsibility for Peace and Security, in light of the rotation of non-permanent Members in and out, which always includes great opportunities combined with some risks, and equally important in light of that those who constitute the P5 are not a uniform quintuplet. May be it was the combination of a will to trust with keeping a system of checks and balances running which motivated those founders, too.

Some of these risks we see these days: As the U.N. Charta promotes fundamental rights, including the universal requirement to adhere to respecting Human Rights, and also fundamental safeguards, including the prohibition of a War of Aggression, and the adherence to International Law such as the Law on Armed Conflicts protecting civilians, a violation of these laws and principles by the Council’s very own members becomes a stress test for the principles on which the U.N. is founded. It becomes an existential threat when some of the most powerful members of the Security Council, the “Permanent Five or P5” both violate the principles which they are upholding, and when they permanently exercise their right to veto for no other reasons than pure national selfishness.

This process is not new, it has a long history, and no member of the Security Council could safely say that they NEVER exercised their veto rights as a consequence of national deliberations. I also believe in that the world is not black and white, so in each of these cases vetoing parties will also often quote reasons which made them exercising their veto, reasons which somewhat can be understood on a more political level.

Anyhow, this history partly also is a shameful history. And beyond that, in each case where the Council failed, and fails, to address core interests of humanity and humankind, the constituting principles get eroded. I have personal exposure to that during my time in New York. In several prominent cases this incapacitated our joint desire to help, when help was most needed by people in the middle of a storm. I won’t shame and blame, therefore I’ll keep it with a general statement like this.

Next, I would point to that the use of vetoing for national and selfish reasons has proliferated over the last years to an extent one can only label as “endemic”, in ways which paralyse the work of the U.N. Security Council. As all self-fulfilling prophecies go, the inability to act collectively, as Security Council and as all depending bodies of the United Nations, being it the Secretariat, or it’s Agencies, the incapacitation leads to a progressive disregard of their very own raison d’etre. Which may be, I can not help but saying, part of the strategy of some which are represented in the Council: “Use it, don’t make it strong except when you can control it, otherwise weaken it.”

So my friend experiences this exhaustion, and it was against the background of what I wrote in “Shutting Down” that we had this conversation in which she asked the rhetorical question where “Menschlichkeit”, or “humanity” has lost, along that trajectory.

Here my answer again, translated into English:

“Humanity can be found where you and I and everyone else is living it. Humanity exists, therefore, even at times like right now, when she cries and feels beaten-up and bruised, cowering in a corner. We take care of her, we love her, and we stand in for her.”

Between my writing “Shutting down” and today I got news about some more people who I know who have shut down, have allowed to go astray, broken by the onslaught. I had conversations about it. We stay positive. We emphasize empathy.

And we exercise no-tolerance. Meaning we do not condone people in public functions, public officials or people exercising functions which are funded with public money, veering off course, embarking on bias and intolerance. We nurture messages of compassion and empathy. And we do not become complicit to messages of hate. It has consequences.

Which is reminding me that I still have not managed to continue my next instalment on “Integrity” within the “essays on policing”.

Shutting Down – On Disassociation, Feeling Overwhelmed and Powerless, Retreating, and Denial

/ stefanfeller / 1 Comment

On the featured picture: The Class of 76 of my High School. I’m in there, too. Almost invisible in the background.

I grew up with Peter Gabriel’s towering work, whether in “Genesis”, or with Gabriel’s later solo phases of artistic development. One of my all-time favourites songs is “Signal To Noise”. Here are the lyrics:

“You know the way that things go

When what you fight for starts to fall

And in that fuzzy picture

The writing stands out on the wall

So clearly on the wall

Send out the signals, deep and loud

And in this place can you reassure me

With a touch, a smile while the cradle’s burning

All the while the world is turning to noise

Oh, the more that it’s surrounding us

The more that it destroys

Turn up the signal

Wipe out the noise

Send out the signals, deep and loud

Man, I’m losing sound and sight

Of all those who can tell me wrong from right

When all things beautiful and bright sink in the night

Yet there’s still there’s something in my heart

That can find a way to make a start

To turn up the signal

Wipe out the noise

Wipe out the noise

Wipe out the noise

You know that’s it

You know that’s it

You know that’s it

Receive and transmit

Receive and transmit

Receive and transmit

No receive and transmit

No receive

Receive and transmit

Receive and transmit

Receive and transmit

Receive and transmit”

Let the lyrics sink in first and consider whether, and how, you relate. Then take in the soundscape of the song. Here is a reference to the epic musical performance in it’s original version: Peter Gabriel – Signal To Noise – 2003 Original via Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1zM7QaPiwqE. And here a live version featuring the combination of Gabriel’s rock band, combined with the great Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan surrounded by his fellow performers: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B5KcEy3y23w. Consider how you feel, against your own memories of the time growing up with his music. Or against the background of your memories of the early 2000’s. Or against your cultural positions or affinities. Or against your current mood, whether you are depressed and feeling hopeless, or feeling hopeful. Or not knowing how you are feeling at all.

 In all cases you will come to own specific contexts of how you relate to the lyrics, the soundscape, and the combination of a rock ballad with arabic tunes and sounds, and visuals.

As always on my blog, I am after something like common patterns. In this case, I am trying to wrap my mind around an impression which I have: That there is a rapidly increasing and all-pervasive desire of shutting down which I come across in many personal conversations, and which I suspect, with some personal heuristical indication, appears to be increasingly endemic at least in those societal contexts in which I live and move around.

Since a very long time, I am no stranger to feelings as they are expressed in these lines, the way I personally relate to them. This song is part of a playlist on my devices which I continue to listen to all over again, since many years. Like with any piece of art, my emotional relationship to it is based on the context of my personal memories, the way I grew up, the way I relate to the iconic music of my defining young years, the Rock music of the late Sixties and early Seventies which later made me select which performers I would follow, and what kind of new music I would let in, and where I simply wasn’t interested at all, and how I come back to my defining Classic Rock music as I grow older. Yes, of course, this is how nostalgic feelings develop, too. A friend for many years, who is considerably younger than I am, shares some favorite music with me every day during these weeks advancing the Christmas Holidays. That music is so different, and I relate so differently.

But I am also putting this masterpiece into my personal and professional context of history and experiences which include many severely traumatising events which I have had to process, and continue to do so. I do know a great many people who struggle with that they have gotten stuck in this trauma process, so I will offer an important word of optimism from the outset on. Because if you read the lyrics, they end with an impression that there is no way forward. Yet, there is one. It is a long and arduous process, but a promising one, always requiring outside help. I do strongly recommend professional help being part of it. I am not suffering from my trauma past. Not any longer. As far as I can tell. My processing work continues. But there is hope, and there is a way. I have integrated my past, welcome it, do not regret it, am not stuck in it. But I relate very much to the feeling of utter hopelessness which I listen to in conversations with an increasing amount of people who appear to have been on a different trajectory of lifetime developments than I have been and who seemed to have led lifes with much less trauma-induced self-harming behavior than I have. Until relatively recently that is.

And I feel much has begun with the Covid-19 pandemic.

In most simple terms, trauma is a consequence of harmful events. A trauma literally is a wound. Trauma is not the triggering event, but its consequence. Physical wounds, emotional wounds, cognitive wounds, spiritual wounds. That is why medical doctors describe wounds using the word “trauma”, like in the case of “concussion trauma”. In the very same way events create wounds in the brain.

The body-brain-relationship on cognitive level includes that physical wounds, trauma in the body, creates mirroring wounds in the neurophysiological setup of the brain. The brain reflects the sensoric input through constant neuronal change. Like every part of our body, for example, has a mirroring section in the neuronal setup of our brains, changes to this body, even temporary changes like through wounds will be reflected in the neuronal setup of our brains, and in a way that you can see on an MRI scanner or using other devices.

But it also goes the other way round. Not only that physical injuries create their mirror-representations in the brain, cognitive injuries will also become visible in the body. Traumatising events can leave the body seemingly unharmed, but not the mind, and then as a consequence of the complex reaction to trauma, the wound in the mind becomes visible on the “outside”, through behavior, or also through somatic consequences. We even name them “psychosomatic”. Think headaches, ulcer, strokes, cardiac arrests, and myriads of other forms of the mind-body-interrelationship which constitutes us. If I go any deeper, I will already have to be selective in describing the many interrelated consequences of trauma. If you think deeply, you will recognize that any border between “body” and “mind” is artificial. It literally is All One.

That is why it is so wrong, and so dangerous, to perhaps minimize, or belittle, psychosomatic illnesses. Like as if “just being stronger” would be a remedy. Using the same “logic”, less educated people will belittle traumatisation as a “desease of the weak”. Nothing could be more wrong.

Harmful events creating trauma can be “one-of-a-kind” but severe. Or cumulative by constant, but may be with less severe events forming a chain. Or in its most extreme forms, trauma can be the consequence of a repetition of severe events, each of which in itself would already constitute heavy traumatization but where the repetition creates devastating results. Like as if you would use a hammer and constantly bang on the concussion which you already got from the first time when the hammer hit your hand incidentially, and not the nail which your hand was holding against the wood. 

You would never do that, would you? Hammering on the same wound all over again which you received in the first place? Pretty unheard of? Not really. Think of cases of severe mental illness, where people can’t keep themselves from banging their head against a wall, for example. Or take self-abusive sexual behavior re-enacting severe trauma from earlier abuse. The Internet is chock-full with videos of it, simple Google-searches show. In addition, many browser histories will be filled with such searches.

The conduit especially visible in the last example which I use in the previous paragraph is: In cases of mental trauma the mind often goes into re-enactment-mode, meaning that people with an initial trauma for example in early childhood will develop a life pattern of seeking situations in which they unknowingly or knowingly expose themselves to trauma, over and over again. I only began to understand that at the age of 55 years. I was not aware of this pattern, and it took quite a while until I reached an initial position from which I began to appreciate the consequences of my patterns on a cognitive level. That includes, importantly, people whose depression is masked to the extent that they even don’t know they suffer from it.

So, the first half if my interpretation of that song is one in which Peter Gabriel expresses the feeling that hope is drowning, then he expresses a glimpse of hope: Man, I’m losing sound and sight Of all those who can tell me wrong from right When all things beautiful and bright sink in the night Yet there’s still there’s something in my heart That can find a way to make a start.

Was I too early offering a glimpse of hope for instances in which all things bright seem to disappear, when even pain relief doesn’t work any longer? Because Gabriel’s lyrics include that, towards the end, hope seems to disappear. “No receive“. The signal seems to be lost, drowned in the noise of things falling apart. People who do not have personal experience with depression will have a hard time to even relate on a cognitive level.

Without a deeper investigation, my feeling is that an increasing number of people is experiencing what Peter Gabriel is expressing. A word of academic caution: Even if I can give testimony that in the overwhelming number of conversations which I have, people confirm that they feel numb, angry, depressed, helpless, just wanting to shut off communication and retreating to a beautiful peaceful place, it still is nothing else than my selective subjective experience. 

But I travel a lot, I talk with friends, colleagues, and random people in societies all over the world. What I hear is often the same: It feels like a tendency to increased and enduring depressed feelings. Conversations communicate a struggle with hopelessness, feeling overhwelmed, feeling helpless, feeling exasperation and desperation. And there is anger, all over these conversations. Sometimes visible. Sometimes repressed and masked. Just listen long enough and deeply, you will see the repressed hidden anger.

It is not that I’m stuck in something myself and therefore selectively only talk to people who feel “like me”. My recovery from trauma and it’s life-long consequences, including systematic re-enactment of trauma by exposing myself to more of it, it is based on experiential wisdom which is confirmed by cutting edge science, whether psychology, psychotherapy, trauma-treatment, or the vast knowledge coming from neuroscience. It includes that I always remind myself to remember the codeword H.A.L.T.: Never get too Hungry, Angry, Lonely, or Tired. 

In this context, emphasis on “angry”, and on “lonely”.

Living my time- and science-tested recovery way-of-life I work very hard on practicing positive attitudes and principles of living. I deeply know what anger, resentment, fear, and the feeling of helplessness can do and to which dark places it can get lead. 

Do people who have never had to recognize severe trauma know how much they have been traumatized? The word “traumatised” may often be used in superficial conversations, without a deeper understanding. It mainstreamed into conversations, before, during, and after the Covid-19-pandemic. Does the intellectual knowledge of the fact that one received severe trauma help, on deeper levels? My personal experience is confirmed by science: No, intellectual knowledge does not necessarily help. A typical response is: “I can fix it myself. I just have to change the circumstances. I don’t have to change myself. I’ll just fix it”. Of course this will prove wrong with no exception. The path from intellectual acknowledgement of own traumatisation towards a deeper understanding creating the willingness to seek and to receive help, it usually is a long-winded path with many injuries to oneself and to loved ones until one is able to recognize this fact. Until then, even those who try to be helpful will stand in the way when they will not submit to the victim’s expectation to be helped in fixing the environment, instead of helping to address the real roots of what individuals have to change within themselves, in order to embark on a path of healing. Witnessing the path down to rock bottom, not being able to help someone to avoid it, especially in the case of people one loves dearly, it can be heartbreaking. Being pushed aside as a consequence of the paranoid level of self-protection which has arisen in a traumatised person using every survival strategy under the sun in order to find relief from a pain too big to be acknowledged by oneself, it is a tough experience. Giving in, meeting the expectations of a suffering trauma survivor to stay stuck, or to believe that it is the circumstances, and not oneself who has to change, it moves any supporting person from the side of solutions to the side of problems. It is called co-dependence.

How many of us have experienced radical trauma during the pandemic? Each of us has own memories which we have neatly put into a mental closet. How many of us remember the traumatic isolation? Sure, I also know people who will report that they enjoyed the solitude. But many suffered from a deprivation of social contacts on an unprecedented level. Others suffered from trauma through the stress which Covid-19 brought into their private lifes, locking them up in one place, amplifying the catastrophic way of interaction in unhealthy relationships and abusive situations with no means to escape. Domestic violence increased. Cases of suicide and attempted suicide increased. The impact on children during a period of their lifes requiring social contact to peers has been catastrophic, and there is ample scientific research on this, whilst long-term impact studies necessarily are only in their infancy. Our lifes only started to normalize less than two years ago. Few people remind us of these times by still wearing masks in public. It seems like we have muted our traumatic memories to the maximum. For now. Just think how societies would react if a new serious wave of a pandemic would lead to a medical recommendation to repeat the containment measures which we applied from 2020 onwards. Literally everyone whom I present with this hypothetical scenario responds with “Unthinkable”.

Now, the next conduit: Remember how we witnessed the escalative proliferation of conspiracy theories at the same time, and fueled by the pandemic, and with some politicians and a bunch of crazy people pouring gasoline on the wildfire?

Talking about the meaninglessness of “truth” has become the new normal. Who would have not said you’re crazy if one would have described today’s reality to you just, say, less than ten years ago? Since 2014, this blog alone carries many examples of developments which always “upped the ante”. Until now with no peak in sight. We live in societies in which the deterioration of mannered attitude and bi-partisan discussion culture progressed into something where people will roll their eyes and say “Again? Please give me a break!” Or where people have taken sides and can’t talk to the other side any longer. Or where they have a hard time even acknowledging that the other side has a point, or can at least sense the shoes the other side is wearing.

Which is a another pointer towards a human attitude which also is a typical consequence of trauma reflected in earlier paragraphs of this writing: Denial.

Another one is Anger. Anger in it’s repressed forms as a consequence of trauma. Anger as a strong emotion used for control and manipulation. Anger as one of the key emotions exploited in social media and through algorhythms on basis of Artificial Intelligence. Remember what I wrote about H.A.L.T.?

Cypher: You know, I know this steak doesn’t exist. I know that when I put it in my mouth, the Matrix is telling my brain that it is juicy and delicious. After nine years, you know what I realize?

[Takes a bite of steak]

Cypher: Ignorance is bliss.

Cypher in the iconic movie “The Matrix” about the Grace of Ignorance 

Can anyone relate to pure figures of suffering?

The scene with Cypher as quoted above is the most incredible way how to bite into a piece of juicy steak I have ever seen in any movie. Watch it.

Remember the statistics and figures with daily, sometimes hourly global development of how the Covid-19-virus rampaged through the World? The figures of infections, the figures of infection-related deaths, and then a year later on the figures of vaccinations, and how we struggled to see a relationship between vaccinations and a downward trend in infection-related deaths? Remember the denial, and how our societies were ripped into vaccination-supporters and vaccination-deniers, and how militant this discussion was, partly? How the fact whether someone was supporting or refusing vaccinations ripped through families? I remember a conversation where someone in my family spoke about a vaccination-denier who got severely sick, almost dying, from Covid-19. I could hear a subdued element of “Schadenfreude”. And remember how we needed to exemplify suffering through singling out individual stories of suffering in order to grasp the extent of what was happening, on a massive, global scale?

That was 2020 and 2021. Remember the numbers blowing your mind related to the suffering of people in Afghanistan after the implosion of all international activities there in 2021? An implosion and withdrawal which came, at least for many, without clear signs. And in any case, notwithstanding how premeditated it was, in its execution it happened fast, not in steps allowing to adjust policy of withdrawal. And then there was the highly unanticipated progress of the Taliban, taking over large swaths of Afghanistan, and then Kabul, much to their own surprise even. Do you remember the figures of casualties on the side of civilians? Or do you, more than that, remember the pictures from Kabul airport, and the individual stories of people. Do you remember the stories of Afghan women? How often do you read about the suffering of Afghan women, these days? Are you aware of the refusal of the Taleban, but not only them, related to the figures, and the facts of human rights violations? Have you been exposed to stories of denial, like it was the case with Covid-19? Stories of distortion and manipulation of facts, and conspiracy theories, and blaming the respective other side, singling out and protecting own decisions in a collaborative catastrophy with many factors needed to be taken into account, whilst people were looking for simple answers to yet another shocking and traumatising chain of events?

That was 2020 and 2021. Remember the numbers blowing your mind, of the suffering of people in the Ukraine, following the ongoing onslaught and the suffering through displacement, deportation of children, forced adoption, the war crimes and the crimes against humanity in occupied territory of the Ukraine, in 2022, whilst people in late 2021 would still dispute the intentions of an autocratic leader, Vladimir Putin? Who was helped in his disinformation campaign not only by denial and wishful thinking on the side of the West, but also through people like Nr 45 in the U.S., who until today sings songs of praise related to him, and to the dictatorial killer in North Korea, and an autocratic leader in China? Do you remember the statistics, and how we needed to create empathy which can not be reflected in numbers, by flooding the news with individual stories of suffering, and heroism, of the Ukrainian people?

Were you, at that time in 2022, still able to pay attention to Afghanistan? Were you, by then, able to also take in the sheer numbers of suffering of people in other parts of the World, less relevant to your own local and regional neighourhood? Like in Africa, just as an example?

That was 2020 and 2021 and 2022. What does the figure “1.200” do to you, on a level of empathic relating to suffering, when Hamas unleashed unimaginable terror, atrocities, murder, maiming, raping, mutilating Isaeli citizens October 07, 2023? The international news were only able to create understanding through individual stories, bordering, sometimes overstepping the limits of what can be put into press and TV by responsible media. Very much unlike the video streaming and glorification undertaken by Hamas. Almost immediately, despite the fact that I am almost not present at all on social media, I received messages from friends who had friends in Israel who, in their outrage and unimaginable pain even justified thinking about retaliation, and corporate responsibility of the Palestinian people. Reasonable words of caution against such holding a people responsible on a collective level drowned in the anger, fury, despair, pain. And in a specific German context which is visible in previous articles on this blog, it also began to deeply affect the German society, both related to how we deal with our Holocaust past and our collective responsibility to protect the Israeli State and its citizens, and how we experienced the consequences within our own multi-cultural setup which includes citizens and residents and temporary residents and people granted asylum who live in Germany, constituting parts of the German society.

What does the figure “18.000” do to you, related to the rough and daily increasing estimation of death tolls of Palestinian civilians? Except, that the collective figure of “1.200” and “18.000” defies any reference model which you had from previous news, where the decrying of massive suffering was already stressing your tolerance. Again, you are confronted with unimaginable suffering as reported in individual stories which are needed in any reporting, in order to make you being able to relate on an empathy level. Do you belong to those who have already forgotten the Covid-19-casualties and the suffering in Afghanistan and who barely think about the numbers as we digested them from the Ukraine just a year earlier?

In this section of my long writing, I want to make the point how deeply this collective development, taken together, has been traumatising us on a societal level. Pandemic, Afghanistan, Ukraine, Israel and Palestine, I often hear “What will come next?”. Almost no capacity left for appreciating suffering in other parts of the World. We take this in within an onslaught of news which still includes more, including climate change and natural catastrophes, including worrying political developments. And each of these news stories scare the hell out of us.

And please remember what I wrote earlier: Brains are highly social organs, and in addition to what trauma on an individual level does to us on a neurophysiological level, the same is true when we mourn the loss of a relative, or a loved one, or experience heart-break. And the same is true with our societal connections.

Each of the developments above has led to individual and societal traumatisation on a level which I have not witnessed in my personal lifetime, in this life. Can’t remember what happened in my previous lifes. Maybe I am blessed.

Leading to my final part of dealing with typical reactions to trauma, beyond being wounded, becoming numb, becoming angry, entering into denial: Another important effect of trauma, because of the way the survival mechanisms in our brains work, is shutting down.

This, I believe, I personally witness more recently, and especially since October 07, 2023. Remember the following lines from Peter Gabriel’s song: ” Man, I’m losing sound and sight Of all those who can tell me wrong from right When all things beautiful and bright sink in the night“.

I feel we are ripped into pieces because we loose orientation. We can not compare 1.200 and 18.000, since every single life is invaluable. Where is the guidance on a question like “How many civilian casualties compose a violation of the responsibility of a Party to a War to protect the civilian population?” How do we stomach numbers according to which more than 70% of the Palestinian population are internally displaced, mostly having no shelter, no food, no water, at the brink of starvation, with almost no medical provisions?

In many discussions which I am part of, I can feel how this rips us into pieces. Not only in a specific German context. You can read about it in great detail and masterfully written in this essay in the “New Yorker“, which was sent to me by my nephew (the one who wrote a response to my blog article). Please, if you can, follow the link. But this rupture includes all of us, including the United Nations, for example. Please, also read the OpEd by Michelle Nunn, Tjada D’Oyen McKenna, Jan Egeland, Abby Maxman, Jeremy Konyndyk and Janti Soeripto, titled “Why the U.S. Must Change Course on Gaza Today“.

Ms. Nunn is president and chief executive of CARE USA. Ms. McKenna is chief executive of Mercy Corps. Mr. Egeland is secretary general of the Norwegian Refugee Council. Ms. Maxman is president and chief executive of Oxfam America. Mr. Konyndyk is president of Refugees International. Ms. Soeripto is president and chief executive of Save the Children U.S. – How much higher can you get in the international humanitarian community?

This OpEd is heartbreaking in it’s own right. Because it struggles with some of the questions which are part of this long essay of mine.

I need to conclude on “Shutting Down”, being part of my title for this blog entry, too: I am increasingly confronted with statements like “I can’t bear this any more”, or “I don’t want to hear about it any more”, or “I want to leave to an island where I can just live a simple life, leaving all this behind”.

I can understand this reaction.

I also note reactions like regressing into familiar local contexts. In these cases people shut their eyes and ears, because they can’t bear the emotional pain any longer, and regress into a combination of denial, and self-serving domestic points. Like, “See, I understand all this, but is anyone talking about what is happening in my neighborhood?”.

I also can understand this, though I am fiercely calling for remaining compassionate and understanding for a global interconnection of events. No domestic problem can be solved without taking the global interconnection into account.

Finally, I note denial, regression, fake news, conspiracy theories, and radicalisation as a pattern which emerges also from the desire to find simplified answers to seemingly intractable problems. This is mixed with pure selfishness, egotism, and malice.

Whilst I appreciate the mechanics behind it, I can not even begin to understand this, nor tolerate it. Also this extremism, on the left and the right, narrowing the focus of observing problems to the point of almost becoming deaf and blind for anything outside the own area of interest, it both is a consequence of the long story on trauma which I have written down here, and at the same time it acts like an escalating agent. It puts gasoline on the wildfire which has become a global storm.

That is why shutting down must be fought with all individual and collective means. Without empathy, compassion, and the attempt to lovingly understand and to support collective values, we are literally doomed.

The Attack on Humanity by Terrorism: Blinding and manipulating through inciting hatred and fear on an unimaginable scale – The monster hides in plain sight

/ stefanfeller / 4 Comments

The featured picture: Memorial Site Concentration Camp Dachau – Germany. Picture taken by the author on occasion of visiting the site May 2019, with two dearest American friends.

Every parent has seen this: A child in devious mood, quickly checking that it is not being watched, then hitting his or her sibling. The sibling being attacked yells for Mom or Dad. The parent rushing in, trying to find out what happened, and the attacker claiming “Mom, she started it, not me!” Bullies on schoolyards do the same: They immediately accuse the victim of having started the fight when caught.

As parents, we would join in the common experience that this is a typical phase within childhood development. If we are wise, we would undertake all efforts not to be manipulated into taking one child’s side. If we are able to clearly identify what happened, and who started it, we would work towards an understanding that action has consequences, that own behavior leads to accountabilty. We love them both. We would work hard helping our children to gain values of coexistence, rather than domination. We would learn how to explain the need for compromise, and that any compromise includes giving something away in order to share getting something. Myself being a parent, I remember this vividly. It can be absolutely unnerving being confronted with two children who are locked into a fight, not capable to give up, and becoming furious that Mom or Dad does not take their side. It takes a lot of patience and diplomatic skills to navigate through these situations until both children are ready for a compromise. In more than one case, I messed it up. The consequence was turmoil, protracted fights, and pain on all sides. But if successful, peace is reestablished quickly. And at some point during their development coming out of age, former children will look back at their fighting memories with smiles and jokes.

Childish behavior? What does it have to do with the title of this blog entry?

Let me try to paint a larger picture before locking in on what, in another context, representatives of the United Nations have named actions “verging on pure evil“. With this wording AFP is quoting UN officials talking about the unimaginable suffering of Darfuri people again, twenty years after a genocide. They are at the brink of another one. I have written about it, here. Most of us don’t even see these news. We are transfixed by what is happening in Israel and the Palestine Territories. I want to write about action which has crossed the border into the realm of pure evil: The Hamas terror attack against Israel and Israeli civilians, October 07, 2023.

In order to create the link from childish “tit for tat” and “he started it, not me” kindergarden behavior to what appears to have exploded into fiery emotional antagonization making it difficult offering an argument calling for reason, I want to recall how used we have become to the application of this utterly childish behavior as a most devious tool of manipulation by adults, namely by adults who hold or held highest office, and how a cohort of followers is using this method for manipulating and controlling massive portions of entire societies. The trick is: Blame the other side, trick them into anger and hatred, and capitalize on it. After pointing this out, I will take it to its most recent extreme application: This time in the corner of terrorism. Because we are running the risk of being successfully blindfolded by the mastery of a plan coming straight from hell, emerging through the underground tunnels in Gaza.

The 45th President of the United States brought this childish logic of always blaming others to perfection in each and every argument. When accused of bullying behavior, he would point to others having started it. When held accountable for own actions, he would point to others, faking stories, hammering out endless lies about these peoples’ own alleged evil. We have been through endless years where this person simply followed one rule: Escalation. On uncounted occasions we found and find ourselves in a reality where every day reveals another outrageous attack which was previously considered to be unthinkable. He is not alone in that, and I am not even talking about his followers, I am talking about other Heads of State, Presidents, Dictators, Autocrats. My argument is that this form of behavior has become mainstream, on a global level. Ruling people, manipulating people, controlling people, by inciting hate, anxiety, anger, and locking them into a fake narrative through lies which stop any bipartisan communication cold in its tracks. Once I am not willing to listen to people with other views, because I am told they are the enemies, I have successfully been locked into a world being solely controlled by these pied pipers.

However, like in the case of Nr 45 and others, we still underestimate them. We try to find reasons, we may ridicule, laugh, minimise, deny. I take a different approach: I assume that people like Nr 45 or others are not just deranged, or are stuck in childish behavior, or may suffer from mental conditions including narcissism and psychopathy making them incapable to act differently. They may be all that, but I do believe they act in cold blood. I believe that Nr 45 knows exactly what he is doing. Currently he is playing the story of facing prison “for the American people” to absolute perfection. It doesn’t matter that every Democrat is laughing at that silly argument. It does matter that this story locks up millions of other people in a scenario justifying to demolish democracy, and being intolerant to anyone different from their fascist, xenophobic and misogynistic thinking. I believe there is a good chance he may succeed again, and this is openly discussed in mainstream media. Which will open the doors of hell. Again. Never before in my view it has been more important to remember lessons of history. We are about to make horrible mistakes, once more.

This modus operandi is not new, at all. Sect leaders do it. Dogmatic ideology and ultra-orthodox religion does it, within any faith I know. Hostage takers do it. Hitler did it. Children in insane family situations face the same, as victims. Rocker gangs, street gangs, mafia-type organisations, they all deploy these principles, partly or in full. And these are just a few examples, small and large. At the core, it is about mercilessly controlling others for the own benefit.

Terrorism and violent extremism is using the same approach. The list of contemporary examples is long and would stretch from Afghanistan to the Middle East, from East Africa to West Africa, I could name examples in the Carribean, in Middle, Central, and South America, in Europe, just from the list of country situations I have a personal experience with. Of course it would include Afghanistan, the Ukraine, and the history or even small contemporary pockets in the Balkans. Again, just examples. Do we pay attention to Africa?

But nothing leaves me more scared than what is happening since October 07, 2023, the day of a most horrific attack by Hamas against Israel and the Israeli people.

Why is that?

It was Hamas who launched a terror attack from hell. It were Hamas terrorists who equipped themselves with GoPro cameras, livestreaming their hunt for Israelis hiding in horror. Lifestreaming how they maimed and raped and killed them. Amplifying the lifestreaming done by ISIS a thousand times larger. It were Hamas terrorists who deliberately bragged and documented their murderous attack on innocent Israeli citizens, claiming unspeakable atrocities in messages sent back to their families on social media channels.

For me, one question sits front and center: Why have they done that? And my answer is: In order to maximise blind emotions by Israeli citizens, in order instill hatred in the Jewish community all over the world, in order to derange a beginning hopeful dialogue between Israel and Arabic States, and in order to outrage international friends and supporters of the Jewish community. Reminded of 9/11, I am. At the same time, Hamas did this in order to be seen in the world of their sympathisers and supporters, to instill raw emotions of lust for more cruelties. They simply calculated that, within weeks, nobody would remember these pictures, because the world would be flooded by picures of dead Palestinian children.

Why?

There is only one answer possible: The sheer size of this attack, it’s careful long-term planning in utmost secrecy, and its military-style execution serves one brutally calculated purpose: To incite blind fury in the Israeli society. Hamas has done this for no other purpose than to provoke the most massive attack against Palestinians in the Gaza strip possible. Hamas’ calculus includes not only hundreds of Israeli hostages. It includes 2 million hostages in the form of Palestinian citizens who have no chance other than to live with probably the most sophisticated network of tunnels that the world has ever seen. Those tunnels do not serve as protection for the Palestinian people. They don’t serve as food storage for the population, or as shelters for them. These tunnels serve the purpose of a terror organisation, allowing fighters to move in security, rest between combat, storing huge amounts of weapons and military equipment (and food for the fighters), and deliberately placing the entrances of these tunnels into buildings used by civilians.

Hamas wants the Israeli military to overreact. Hamas wants to see as many Palestinian civilians being killed as possible. Israel, struggling with the pain of a terror attack and death tolls paling much since the Holocaust, now struggles with how to exercise the right of self-defense and taking at the same time all reasonable precaution to avoid civilian casualties in a situation where the other party to this war is using an entire population not as a shield, but as victims in a strategy aiming to blame Israel for violations of international law on armed conflict. Hamas, not Israel, is fundamentally violating the responsibility of any government to protect their own citizens. Hamas is leaving Palestinian citizens no choice but to be in the cross-hairs of IDF military action. The newsrooms are filled with stories of Israeli intelligence operatives calling Palestinian people hours before a planned strike, guiding them by telling which buildings have to be evacuated, and how much time is left. The newsrooms are not filled with stories how Hamas fighters lay down their weapons during any temporary silence of the guns, helping their population to get out of the combat zone. They simply don’t do that, because they need, and want, the pictures of Palestinian dead people, the pictures of overcrowded hospitals. They don’t want to show the entrances into the tunnel network under those hospitals.

This does not mean that Israel somehow can gain a moral benefit. It does not take Israels’ responsibilities away at all, as many in highest functions and being friends of Israel have stated, including highest officials in my own government, with mindblowing clarity and standing at Israel’s side. Germany has a historic responsibility, until today.

But it does mean that under no circumstances Hamas shall be allowed to successfully victimise itself, executing a long-term strategy exactly aiming at that. In this, there is the connection to the childish bully, and autocrats and would-be autocrats.

It does mean that there is a direct consequence of Hamas’s strategic and operational decisions for those Palestinanian casualties, in addition to the havoc they caused on the side of Israeli citizens. Every Palestinian citizen killed is being killed because of deliberate and calculated decisions from Hamas political and military commanders who want to see exactly this happening, rather than taking precautionary measures in order to adhere with their own obligation to protect the citizens of Gaza.

Hamas and their supporters will do everything to keep this fact in hiding, though in plain sight. Whether Israel exercises caution during a strike and casualties have been unavoidable and in compliance with international law, or whether there will be operations gone out of control, in each and every case Hamas will use these pictures for deflecting from its own accountability, and outmaneuvering Israel, finding herself in the most awful “Catch 22” situation imaginable. Each action is aiming at raising fury of Israelis, and every ultra-orthodox jew taking the law into his or her own hands will be used to contribute to the narrative that the evil is Israel.

That is the evil. And it started with this devilish plan executed by Hamas. For that, Hames needs to be held accountable. Like everyone else who violates international law, including the law of armed conflict. There is no other way. But this was carefully planned and executed by Hamas, including killing their own population through this calculus.

Why am I so passionate about this?

In recent weeks I am confronted with a flood of passionate reactions. Many of which are entirely polarised. The list of reports of people demonstrating for the one cause or the other with peaceful means is endless, and global. The list of incidents of anti-semitic violence is horribly long in many countries. Anti-semitic sentiments are exploding. The list of demonstrations and actions in support of the Palestianian cause is including unacceptable violence, in places where this stokes yet another round of xenophobic reactions. Many countries experience this.

At the same time, I am witnessing an emotional energy in this affecting the day-to-day discussions of “ordinary” people exceeding by far anything I have witnessed in previous developments, like when the war in the Ukraine broke out. Most recently, it affected my own family. It feels like if one supports the Israeli case, only subdued mentioning of the suffering of innocent civilians on the Palestinian side minimises the risk of being suspected of supporting “their” cause. The same the other way round: Reminding of the fate of the Palestinian people seems not to be very compatible with, at the same time, expressing equal sympathies for Israeli victims.

Been there on so many other occasions of conflict. But this time it feels very explosive including in societies far away.

Sympathy and compassion for the suffering of innocent people is running the risk of becoming monopolised: Either one is on the Israeli side, or the Palestinian side. Very much the same way, demonstrations appear to focus on the one or the other narrative, or may be it’s the way how media is reporting about them. And the mantra of “Who started it?”, “Who is responsible for it?”, it often leads to fingerpointing towards the other side. A collective view appears to be difficult to argue.

I would dream of demonstrations in which Israeli and Palestianian victims, mourning their loved ones, stand in for the protection of their human rights together. And where Hamas is isolated. Punched out. By both sides. Accused of the sheer monstrosity of their decision how to set the world on fire. And where more than it already is happening, Israeli voices can be heard how they desperately try to exercise caution. And other voices making it clear that there is no space for human rights violations.

And above all, that there is no space for collective responsibility of both peoples for actions of individuals, or in the case of the Palestinian people, a terror organisation. That both people have a right and will to co-exist.

It was this discussion that Hamas wants to eradicate. Because Hamas wants to eradicate the State of Israel. To achieve this, they are ready to kill their own children.

I mourn every innocent victim of this endless cycle of putting the blame on others, including through a recent terror attack from hell’s underbelly. I wish we retain an ability to listen to each other, and to cultivate an attitude where I first and foremost look at my own accountability, before talking about the accountability of others.

That’s my yardstick.

essays on policing – Integrity – Why do I use this term?

/ stefanfeller / 1 Comment

How to navigate within these essays: Initially these essays were meant to form a book. I have decided to publish them, step by step, on this blog. By nature of blogging, the most recent article appears on top of all other articles, whether they are part of this anthology, or they address other issues. If you want to read these essays like a book, HEAD OVER HERE and navigate through the content of the entire set of essays on policing.

Integrity

“the quality of being honest and having strong moral principles that you refuse to change”

(Cambridge Dictionary)

                                                                                                    

“: firm adherence to a code of especially moral or artistic values : INCORRUPTIBILITY

: an unimpaired condition : SOUNDNESS: the quality or state of being complete or undivided : COMPLETENESS”

(Merriam Webster)

A close friend responded to my recent blog entry on integrity: “I love word etymology – think about this – integrity … integrated … mid 17th century: from Latin integrat- “made whole” :)”

On the featured picture: June 30, 2005, I visited a refugee camp with thousands of internally displaced persons (we call them IdP) close to Al Fashir, the regional capital of Darfur, in Sudan. I took many pictures, this one displays a young girl sheltering a baby in her arms. My visit was part of a European Union Factfinding Mission. We tried to find out how we could assist the African Union Mission AMIS in their gargantuan task of providing security to people in Darfur. Tormented by a civil war, Darfuri people fled a situation in which they found themselves attacked by militias burning their villages, killing and maiming villagers, trapping women who went to fetch water at local waterholes, subjecting them to most cruel violence, raping and killing them. The fate of children was equally horrible. Refugees had come to these camps where they hoped for protection. Places like these were abuzz with the presence of peacekeepers and non governmental organizations providing most basic humanitarian assistance. The Internet was chock-full with shocking stories and with outrage, the pictures of suffering went around the world. What would follow were many years of peacekeeping, first by the African Union, then by the hybrid Mission UNAMID, jointly conducted by United Nations and African Union. For many years, UNAMID included the largest uniformed policing component of any peacekeeping operation, by far exceeding the 4700 police officers from up to 54 nations which were deployed to Kosovo, under UNMIK. UNAMID police and military components focused heavily on protecting civilians. By comparison, capacity-building of Sudanese policing was very limited, which sets this Mission apart from, for example, how UNMIK operated a large capacity-building component. There are many reasons for this due to the nature of this very specific environment. However, this difference is noteworthy.

UNAMID completed it’s mandate December 31, 2020. April 2023, severe clashes began between Sudanese government military forces and forces under the RSF. Conflict and it’s horrible consequences quickly reached Darfur again. Twenty years after the beginning of an international effort to protect civilians in Darfur, Darfuri people find themselves in the same horrible situation of being attacked by militias, their villages ransacked and burned, the population facing the very same threats which they suffered from two decades earlier.

Four days after I published the first “essay on policing”, a friend called me. She came from lunch with another friend of ours. Both are Romanian police officers. Both served in UNMIK in Kosovo at the same time when I was there. Both had, and have, distinguished careers with intense ties to policing in international peace operations. “He is writing his memoirs!“, the other friend exclaimed to my friend. Yes, to some extent there are elements of a memoir in this series of essays on policing. But not because I want to put my story out there on the Internet the same way like vloggers put their lifes on Youtube. I feel like it would be boring if I would take an impersonal academic view on the topic of policing. Textbooks on policing may be found in libraries of police academies. You can go there on your own. You also will find many publications on international aspects of policing. To some I have contributed. My objective here is a little different: I would like to draw your interest on some aspects of policing which I find deeply relevant in a contemporary discussion of a fragmented, increasingly violent world. And I believe I can do that best if I make it interesting by establishing a personal context. That then, somehow, is also like writing a memoir. I was in my street cafe this morning and had a conversation with the waiter, who speaks five different languages. We spoke about how people can easily misunderstand others if they just believe they are talking about the same issue. Everyone has a personal story, a personal and cultural, and a language context. In order to find commonalities, one has to tell one’s own story, and to listen to the story of others.

As I mentioned in the introductory essay, my time in Kosovo exposed me to the question “What have police officers from 54 different nations in common?“. And secondly, to the equally important question “Which are the principles and values which we want to promote for an entirely new Kosovo Police?“. It was the starting point for all work reflected within these “essays on policing”.

What you see above is an early attempt to structure my thoughts on policing using a mindmap. Behind some of these branches there are deeper levels which I have hidden here. By no means this early mindmap is complete, I am using it here as a conduit for a conclusion which came up when I attempted to cluster topical areas which could possibly be of relevance for these essays. At the end of this thought process I was left with one organising principle around which I could arrange a number of aspects showing up in this mindmap: What is integrity?

I started from there and thus the next few chapters reflect on “integrity“. In order to not make this a highly abstract tractise, I will look at it from the vantage point of my own experiences. They can not be generalised, but they may be an incentive for thinking. They somewhat focus on what I call “my policing DNA”.

Throughout those two decades of my own involvement in any international operation including larger uniformed police components I have seen two interdependent objectives. Of course, these two objectives do not stand in isolation from other objectives of such missions. But they can be identified in efforts under the umbrella of the United Nations, the European Union, the African Union, and others. These functions can be seen in mandates for peacekeeping, they are reflected in some civilian crisis management operations’ mandates, as well as in some United Nations’ Special Political Missions. They can be found in peace support operations of the African Union or missions of sub-regional organisations in Africa. Whichever language is being used in the respective mandates, they relate to

  1. To protect civilians
  2. To build national capacity in the field of security and the rule of law.

Of course, peace operations have several other core functions, and also some specific mandates which are unique to a single mission. However, in those international operations with larger uniformed police components these two core objectives can be found.

In addition, there are missions and operations within the framework of international organisations and also multi-lateral and bilateral efforts which involve policing expertise only in the field of capacity building for institutions in the field of security and the rule of law.

These capacity building efforts can continue over long periods of time and are, so to speak, handed over from one international activity to the next, on the long-winded road from conflict engagement towards peacekeeping, then peacebuilding, ultimately hopefully leading to lasting peace. In specific geographic contexts, such as for example the Western Balkans, these capacity building activities continue long after and have become an increasing part of integration efforts into the European Union. This also will hold true for other parts of South-Eastern Europe, such as for example Moldova and the Ukraine.

For each and every of these different categories of international activities we have witnessed what happens when support activities within both objectives, or one of them, were terminated too early, not implemented under the right assumptions and circumstances, or under political constraints and pressure, or when the overarching framework of international ambitions, the necessary political unity of key actors, unrealistic mission mandates, understaffing with expertise and numbers, or fragmentation of international activities, led to the break-down of complex and costly activities. I spare a list of relevant examples, because, that list would be shamefully long. No type of international assistance would get away without having a share in this sad compilation.

But what I would like to stress: There would be an equally long list of examples of successful missions, both related to the interim task of protecting civilians, and the task of supporting an acceptable and capable array of institutions in the field of policing and the rule of law. Also here, these success stories do not single out one or another form of international mission setup being more capable than other forms. I leave the question “Why is this so?” to academic research. On many occasions I have been subjected to interviews by researchers. So I do know that this work is out there.

I use the following arguments for the interrelation between the Protection of Civilians and Capacity Building:

a) The protection of civilians is a core responsibility of the State.

b) Protection of civilians under the mandate of international organisations or coalitions of the willing is a temporary substitution of this function of the State. Reasons can sit with that a State (1) should not, (2) does not want to, or (3) can not sufficiently exercise this protection, or any combination of these three factors. For clarity: There are predominantly military engagements “out there”, often of bilateral nature, which brand themselves “peacekeeping” and which, at least, do not fall under the scope of what I write about here. Personally, I refuse to name, for example, military detachments of the Russian Federation in some States in South East Europe, “peacekeeping”. They are instruments of political and military control, such as in Moldova, or elsewere.

c) Any efforts of international protection of civilians must be accompanied by support of capacity building in the field of security and justice, as otherwise there is no exit strategy for this temporary substitution.

That is why capacity-building sits at the core of any successful international assistance in situations of conflict, war, and post-conflict support. It must be done right, otherwise the mission runs into critical failure.

It is from there that I witnessed so many mandates, reports, inquiries, or statements carrying buzzwords such as “sustainable“, “local ownership“, “lasting impact“, and so many more.

In all those scenarios in which I would be asked whether we were successful in assisting in setting up credible institutions in the field of security and the rule of law, I would examine to which extent it was possible to nurture “integrity” within the work of individuals, groups, organisations, legal frameworks, leadership, management, and corporate identities. Personally, I would believe that this is the case for example in the Western Balkans.

There is a final reason for why I am attempting to look at international policing within peace operations, and policing at large, through the lens of attributes such as “integrity”: Catch-phrases like “sustainable establishment” and so many else include a time-dimension. Here, any assessment can become tricky. If one focuses on short time-spans, an assessment on “sustainability” does not make sense. If one looks at time-spans which are stretching over decades, “sustainability” can lead to depressing assessments if, and once, new conflict is emerging. Twenty years ago we started to put immense efforts into protecting civilians in Darfur. Fifteen years ago we began to assess, on request of key U.N. Member States, whether we had succeeded and could disengage. Since recently, we find the situation of Darfuri people where it was twenty years ago. You can say the same for Haiti, for example. We currently witness so many situations beyond the ability of peace operations to influence them leading to constant repetitions of cycles of violence with immense civilian suffering. West Africa, Central Africa, East Africa, you name it. Including the Middle East. I was in Rafah on occasion of the opening of the border crossing in November 2005 under the auspices of a EU monitoring mission, dubbed EUBAM Rafah. After the terror organisation Hamas took over the Gaza strip, our efforts stalled. Around the same time, I was in the West Bank, in a line of support of capacity building for the Palestinan Police through an EU civilian crisis management mission dubbed EUPOL COPPS. If one widens the aperture of the time lens too wide, sustainability answers can become very blurry.

Any assessment of why this is so would be drowning this writing. In taking a view using a lense named “integrity” I hope to inject a different, perhaps fresh, perspective. It will also allow me to make some comments, in later essays, on why short-term goals in capacity building do NOT work. As my friend and predecessor as U.N. Police Adviser Mark Kroeker used to say: “You can’t stand up a police organisation”. Like I, he also avoided to speak of “Police Forces”.

“Integrity” relates to values. Values give meaning, purpose, and support long-term development. Wherever we assist in capacity-building, our success depends on how we can support the establishment of a “DNA” which allows the implementation of policing according to some universally accepted values. Whilst this is true from an agnostic perspective for any set of values, here comes the first hard choice: Which values do we want to put front and center? Of course, being a peacekeeper, my own response comes without a split-second of thinking: The values of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, and everything which followed throughout decades of development of a universal framework of the United Nations.

Next, I will try to examine this from a personal vantage point, my own socialisation into a German police organisation.

So, how did I find my own way into the police, and policing?

Stay tuned.

A Long Summer – Creativity Refill

/ stefanfeller / Leave a comment

I took a long break from writing. I don’t write when I have doubts whether I have someting meaningful to say. So I spent a summer with introspection. Just sitting with my unease. Yesterday I felt the creative energy coming back for the first time. At the end of two weeks with my children here in Toronto I enjoy a second cup of coffee, the house still silent, this part of the World experiencing the beginning of a Saturday morning, my friends in Europe already moving into the afternoon, and I am opening the WordPress editor for the first time since months.

What happened leading to the end of my incommunicado? At the surface of it, it were two articles I read.

One relates to August 19, 2003, when the United Nations office in Baghdad was targeted in a suicide attack. Today, August 19, 2023, marks this day for the twentieth time. Sergio Viera de Mello, the Special Representative of the United Nations’ Secretary General, and 21 other people died in that attack. I belong to those who can’t forget this day, like many dear friends, in the United Nations, and beyond. I won’t forget Luis da Costa, personally. Many of my colleagues who serve or served in th UN have somebody dear to them whom they lost that day. The BBC article “How a suicide bomb attack changed the lives of UN aid workers” by Imogen Foulkes memorizes this horrible attack and reflects on how the attack changed the way the United Nations system is working, until today.

At the time of the attack I was working for the United Nations in my office in Pristina, Kosovo. I was the Police Commissioner of the United Nations Interim Mission in Kosovo by then. When this mission, dubbed UNMIK, was established in 1999, Kosovo was a place of severe post-war violence for several years to come. Like thousands of other UN staffers, we police officers would rent apartments for living amongst the population, and going to work using soft-skin vehicles and working from regular offices. May be fenced, may be some very normal security around, but we would literally live and work within the population, for the population. We would take risks of being attacked, I still have many pictures in my archive. But countries like mine, Germany, would be willing to send their police officers into an environment where we could find ourselves waking up to the aftermath of a bomb explosion nearby. In one of those many cases, a German police officer literally woke up one morning to discover two new holes in his living room: A rocket propelled grenade had punched an entry hole and an exit hole into his rental apartment. At no point I heard any serious request from Police Contributing Countries to withdraw police officers from the deployment into this mission. We stayed, like we did the same in previous missions, in Bosnia & Hercegovina, or elsewhere.

Later, in my time with Headquarters of the European Union or the United Nations, I would travel to Iraq, to Afghanistan, to Sudan/Darfur, to South Sudan, to Mali, the Central African Republic, to Somalia. In those places, I would meet police officers in so-called “Super Camps” or other protected compounds. I would move around with them in armored vehicles. My memories of travels outside of Baghdad’s Green Zone or outside the protected areas of Kabul include heaviest military protection. Yes, there still were the established Missions in which UN staff would live under more normal circumstances, such as in the Democratic Republic of Congo, or in Haiti, or Timor Leste, or Liberia, or Ivory Coast. But the world of the United Nations changed way more than only in relation to security. The BBC article says “In 2022 there were 235 attacks on aid workers, according to the Aid Worker Security Database, and 116 were killed.” Add the casualties amongst United Nations peacekeepers, I believe they are not even accounted for in this. Places like Mali and others have caused a human toll on United Nations staff that would have been unimaginable twenty years ago.

Like community policing, peacekeeping of the United Nations is about communication. It is about being temporarily rooted in a host population, in order to promote peace, to contribute to peace, and to develop the means of a host State in order to guarantee peace and security again. How do you do that through the thick protective glass shields of a heavy armored vehicle? I saw a convoy of armed UN vehicles moving slowly through a refugee camp in Darfur, stopping at the center, UN police officers getting out, protected by other officers with guns, sitting down with camp elders, then moving back into that convoy of armored turtles. Every day, once or twice. Walk in the shoes of those elders, think about how they may feel.

And like in the microcosm of daily operations, the inability to communicate achieving joint goals is also reflected within the United Nations Security Council. The erosion of jointness, whatever there was before, on the side of the five permament members of the Security Council has reached unprecedented levels. Those inside the system saw this storm coming for many years, if not decades. A toothless political instrument designed to be ultimatly the arbiter of peace and security on a global level is the product of countless defeats within that round chamber to achieve common positions which meaningfully legitimate the field work of the UN. As a consequence, not only behemoths like the UN Mission in the Democratic Republic of Congo suffer. Recently, the drawdown of one of the biggest UN Missions, in Mali, has begun. It just is the most recent case in a long line of withdrawals, some successful, some not. The most recent developments in Sudan’s Darfur area remind me of exactly what happened twenty years ago and led to the establishment of the African Union’s AMIS, and then UNAMID as it’s UN-successor. History moving in cycles? No progress, because a temporary halt of violence and decay is not exactly what we would name “sustainable” peace? One of the reasons why I fell silent, for some months. Watching the ever growing influence and presence of Wagner mercenaries, left and right of UN peacekeeping in the Sahel, and filling the void even more after Russian propaganda has successfully contributed to hollowing out democracies in Africa, to the advantage of autocratic leaders, power-hungry Generals and corrupt local elites. As a side-note, I see the defensive posture taken by Baltic States bordering Belarus, since parts of Wagner were stationed there in the aftermath of this most notable One-Day-Putsch attempt of Yevgeny Prigozhin.

Like terrorism aims at disrupting communication and sowing fear, establishing own versons of a so-called “truth”, the same is true for political processes of antagonisation, being the product of nationalism, being the product of reckless selfishness playing with the natural fear of human beings, establishing falsehoods, repeating lies as long as necessary so to become the “truth” for many. All of the above falls in line with a longer and larger development leading us to where we are, today. How do I explain this to my youngest children? By not stopping to tell stories, in order to establish memory, and context. It is not about attempting to revive the past, but to have meaningful informed context for how to operate in the Here and Now. I did this over the past two weeks here in Canada with my kids. Obviously, it gives me the energy for telling stories in my blog, again. It is not about getting my memories “out there”, again and again. It is about contributing to establishing context for those who will be at the helm of decision making nowadays, or soon. People like my children. Every parent shares that responsibility.

Not having contextual knowledge is one thing. Denial is the other. Which brings me to the other article, the second one.

“How European Officials View a Possible Second Trump Term” is the second article. I read it in the New York Times this morning, August 19.

When I arrived in Toronto two weeks ago, catching up with my ex-wife casually, I was about to ask her how Canadians are looking at the series of ever expanding criminal indictments of Nr 45. I was stopped with a smile, but cold in my tracks: “If it is about Trump, I don’t want to hear it.”

When I travel in Europe, whether in South-East Europe, or in my country, Germany, discussions of the current state of affairs in the United States appear to be very detached from what I can see when focusing on U.S. domestic press and media. Sometimes it feels like the 45th U.S. Presidency has become an afterthought in Europe. Media reporting in European outlets which I follow are way different to the hype on CNN, MSNBC, and other media. Yes, I read liberal news, more or less sympathetic to the Democrat’s cause. I don’t make myself suffering from watching Fox News, or hate-mongering media outlets. My daily list of suggested videos on Youtube is reflecting that preference, too. I don’t want to have my list of suggestions become convoluted with hate, fear, anger, and lies.

Yes, there is a point in not to over indulge. Much of the American hype also leads to stoking emotions which keep me coming back to yet another piece of sensational news. But this is only one part of the story. The other part is, that as a concerned person informing myself through reading more of this stuff than, say, the average person, I get genuinely scared.

The NYT article talks about the subdued expression of grave concern amongst politicians and policymakers in Europe. Grave concern about the real possibility of a second term of office for Donald Trump. What it would mean, for the U.S., Europe, the support for the Ukraine in their fighting a war against a Russian aggressor, for relations between Super Powers including China and (still?) the U.S., for the European Union, other regional organisations such as the African Union, for the United Nations, and for principles based on the Charta of the United Nations, including the Rule of Law, first and foremost.

The article reports about an understandably subdued expression of fear by European leaders and diplomats. In politics, facing reality means being careful about closing doors, in the interest of the own constituency. It also means not to contribute to creating self-fulfilling prophecies. Lastly, it means not to play into the hands of adversaries by giving them the platform of antagonisation and hate which is their only objective.

Yet, there always is a cost attached to everything. The necessity to remain cautious and mindful, it also plays into the overwhelming wish of human psychology to deny reality. In European discussions with everyday people, there are those who do not know about the sheer monstrosity of hate and the open announcement of retribution and retaliation which comes from every sentence uttered by Nr. 45. And of course, I prefer to listen to people who are not right-wing extremists. It would take me a lot of energy to talk to somebody who openly supports the German right-wing extremists within the political party called “AfD”. Whilst I do not listen to those, I am under no illusion that their hate-mongering thinking and sometimes covert, sometimes more and more open action will literally explode in a scenario where Nr 45 would become Nr 47. Our challenge is to find ways of naming the reality as it is without invoking the same which sits at the heart of those extremist’s agenda: Ruling by fear, overruling the rule of law, establishing regime change, overcoming a system from within. Once more, I recall Germany’s history of how the Weimar Republic was defeated from within. By the way, it included the victimisation of own punishment and incarceration, after the so-called “Beer Hall Putsch“.

I am quoting Wikipedia here for ease of reference, though a bit longish: “The Beer Hall Putsch, also known as the Munich Putsch,[1][note 1] was a failed coup d’état by Nazi Party(Nationalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeiterpartei or NSDAP) leader Adolf Hitler, Generalquartiermeister Erich Ludendorffand other Kampfbund leaders in Munich, Bavaria, on 8–9 November 1923, during the Weimar Republic. Approximately two thousand Nazis marched on the Feldherrnhalle, in the city centre, but were confronted by a police cordon, which resulted in the deaths of 16 Nazi Party members and four police officers.[2]

Hitler escaped immediate arrest and was spirited off to safety in the countryside. After two days, he was arrested and charged with treason.[3]

The putsch brought Hitler to the attention of the German nation for the first time and generated front-page headlines in newspapers around the world. His arrest was followed by a 24-day trial, which was widely publicised and gave him a platform to express his nationalist sentiments to the nation. Hitler was found guilty of treason and sentenced to five years in Landsberg Prison,[note 2] where he dictated Mein Kampf to fellow prisoners Emil Maurice and Rudolf Hess.“

Of course, I would NEVER EVER compare Nr. 45 with Adolf Hitler. NEVER EVER. But it is also fair to link you up with one for many references which may make you think yourself: “Donald Trump’s ex-wife once said Trump kept a book of Hitler’s speeches by his bed” is a reference to an article in “Business Insider” of September 1, 2015. It is just one of many results of a simple Google search, and references can be found in many reputable news outlets. What I do seriously believe is that Trump is actively using the indictments for his narrative, rather than trying to avoid them.

But back to denial: It is a common experience in which I have an in-depth personal share from many operational situations throughout my time with the United Nations and the European Union: Aside of those who are careful with their words so not to add to fear-mongering, there are those who elegantly snuff at worst-case scenarios, giving an impression as if they would have serious insider-knowledge, assuring you that your worst-case scenarios are but a paranoid dream not based on what they pretend to know. I witnessed too many situations where we woke up to a different reality. After that, those smart people quickly switch sides, pretend grave concern, joining those who say, exhaling moral authority: “How could that happen?”

I don’t say we will wake up in a different world next year. But I will say that chances are close to 50:50. If one only follows American polls, the sheer amount of those who simply stick to Nr 45 is overwhelming. The timidity of all Republican potential contenders of Trump for the Republican choice as Presidential candidate is deafening. The polled support of U.S. citizens supporting violent regime change counts a bit less than 20 Million. The shattered few remains of a healthy Republican core DNA will diminish with an almost unhearable “poof” once Nr 45 would win the race for the Republican candidacy. Retribution and cleansing the G.O.P. will follow as a first step. This scenario is already very much an emerging serious threat. From there, an election campaign would leave the great American people ever more divided and prepared for extremist action. Finally, just in case Nr 45 would become Nr 47, the immediate agenda would be nothing else than cleansing the Administration, everything would be about retribution, retaliation, and riddling the system with spineless brainless hateful self-serving cronies.

The Rule of Law would cease to exist, because I simply can not see the depth of resilience much longer which has brought amazing, brave, and highly skilled representatives of the justice system to where the U.S. is today. Just think about it: Donald J. Trump is defendant in four criminal cases with 91 charges (of which 44 are federal, 47 are state charges), alongside a huge number of co-conspirators. The four cases include the Jan. 6 election case, the classified documents case, the N.Y falsifying business records case, and the Georgia 2020 election case. In the Georgia case, Nr 45 and 18 others stand accused of violations of a powerful anti-racketeering law (RICO), which was solely created for enabling justice to arrest powerful Mafiosi. One of those who prided themselves for using the RICO provisions against the Mafia is now defendant under the same provisions: Rudy Giuliani.

I don’t think it is an over-statement to qualify the threat as being existential for the Rule of Law. The evidence fills whole Internet archives, and is now pouring into the courtrooms, through brave prosecutors, and brave judges. Unsurprisingly, the media is also abuzz with the judgement by doomsayers who assess the risk of indicting a former President as a threat to politics, and democratic governance. I disagree. This can not be tampered down by attempting to subdue the course of justice. Chances are that this would not change the battle for democracy at minimum, it may well be that it would be a serious blow in itself. There is no grey zone in here. It is about black and white, truth must stand up against lies, and the only chief principle is that we shall not fall into resentment, anger, and fear. Because this is what the other side wants.

Can I somewhat end my blog revival entry on a happy note, in case you’re still reading this?

Here is my current list of books I am reading. I bought myself a Kindle Scribe, and it has entirely changed the way I am reading. No books in my travel luggage. An amazing book-size screen. A battery-life for many weeks without even needing a charge.

I read “On The Origin Of Time” from Thomas Hertog. An amazing and equally mind-boggling book about Stephen Hawking’s final theory.

I read Zoe Kors’ “Radical Intimacy”, which is a great read within both the extended and the more narrow meaning of the word “intimacy”.

I read the classic text “The Prophet” by Khalil Gibran, (available in The Guttenberg Project open library).

In parallel I re-read “Psychoanalysis and Zen Buddhism” by Erich Fromm.

I am reading Pema Choedron’s amazing book “How We Live Is How We Die” for the fourth time.

I am reading “Polishing the Mirror” by Ram Dass, and I will continue with Daisetz Deitaro Suzukis’ book “Mysticism – Christian and Buddhist”.

Finally, and with great pleasure, I am re-reading a book which I read last time probably four decades ago: Frank Herbert’s “Dune”.

All of those justify an own decription of my impressions. May be I’ll do some, at a later stage. Not here. But reading healthy wholesome literature covering a spiritual connection with the World, from various angles of mystical tradition, and combining that with a well-written book like “On The Origin Of Time”, which ends with surprising statements about what we can not know by means of science, it is one of those things over the summer which allowed me to re-position myself, to re-center myself, and to find new creative energy here, again.

Finally, since I started with a 20-year memory, I am ending with another one, a personal anniversary: Tomorrow it will be the tenth time I am honouring a decision I took August 20, 2013. It marked the beginning of a path which ultimately allowed me to reconcile with my own complex PTSD. It allows me to explain personal experiences and context to my now teenager-children, without being overwhelmed by own emotions. Not that you got an impression that my writing got less intense, if you read the above. Yet, there is a difference between passion and strong emotions.

Grateful that I can detach better. Like taking several months of break from writing here, or on my book projects. Now, back to work. Like, in my job, finding convincing arguments why reducing the threat from small arms and light weapons is important, even when we face the opposite discussion in light of a war in Europe.

There always is a time post-conflict. Better prepare for it now.

essays on policing – status update – initiation of work

/ stefanfeller / Leave a comment

In a few days I will celebrate my 65th birthday. I became a German police officer in the detective branch at the age of 18. Almost 44 years later, in January 2020, I was up for mandatory retirement. About half of these four decades I rose through the ranks of a national Police in Germany. The other half I spent abroad, in senior headquarter and field positions of the United Nations and the European Union. In these functions of UN peacekeeping and peacebuilding, and EU crisis management, policing always was a cornerstone of my work. In my current work as an adviser contracted by the German Federal Foreign Office, policing is an important element within a larger and holistic framework of support action, too.

So, 45 years of policing experience. Related to work in Germany, South-East and East Europe, the Middle East, Asia, Africa, the Carribean. Living in many places in Germany, and in Belgrade, Brussels, New York, Pristina, Sarajevo.

In my article “Seeing Deeper” I reflected on my personal experience with the fundamental shifts, including within the international peace&security architecture, over those two decades of my contribution to it. Of course, the historical timelines which are preceding the colossal changes of these days, they go way back. Some of those I witnessed in a national capacity, some during my international time. Events like, for example, the fall of the Berlin wall, or 9/11, they are examples for moments that we associate with being triggers for fundamental shifts. Sometimes they are. Sometimes they are just the coordinates in space-time where the underlying energies pop up with explosive momentum. Much later, through an analysis of United Nations peacekeeping, I would revisit the bigger picture in which some of these key events played a role, where they had an impact on what I was involved in at that time, the role of policing in peace operations. I have written about some specific aspects related to what we call “international policing” here.

Over those more than 23 years within an international context of peace&security, I witnessed times when there was a lot of enthusiasm about what policing could contribute to supporting peace processes. Policing, done right, is a key component for supporting processes towards lasting peace, and reconciliation. Therefore, support to the establishment of capable policing, deeply anchored in values and international principles and standards, can be a key enabler for lasting peace, and so much more. Think, for example, gender equality, protection of the vulnerable, protection of minorities, ensuring democratic forms of governance, contributing to justice, and in its very core, promoting human rights.

Because of the many years of my own involvement, I witnessed success and failure. The reasons for it are highly complex. Some sit with grappling to understand and to properly implement policing assistance. Some reasons sit way beyond and made it challenging for all actors with military, police, or civilian tasks, to deliver on what they were expected to. On the policing side, where some of my core experience sits, it includes that we, the so-called international community, struggled with making these policing contributions relevant. Sometimes our collective proverbial mouth was not where our money was. Sometimes the political design of international assistance in or after a conflict or war struggled with applying coherence to expectations, objectives and their implementation, either narrowly speaking for what policing could bring to the table, or related to the respective peace operation at large. When we were successful, we had to see that good news stories rarely stick, they are unfortunately not as visible as their bad-news-siblings. At the same time we saw the political development leading to the erosion of the peace&security architecture into its current deplorable state of affairs. This made it more and more difficult for any form of collective international assistance to prove its positive impact.

We now live in a period where a discussion about policing may feel very counter-intuitive compared to the huge focus on military engagement. Just recently, I argued that in my personal opinion it is time to make a decision to provide the Ukraine with heavy battle tanks. That’s not policing. What I am concerned with is to contribute to a discussion in which we do not loose sight about which ingredients are vital for a peaceful society, and that we include lessons from the past into how we want to move forward in a world in which previous rules of engagement may increasingly become outdated.

“essays on policing” is offering a thematically focused window into my work. My writing about my experiences with policing is not motivated by “setting a record straight about a past long gone”. It is not about a sad look back into the “good old times”. It is not about giving advice with an attitude.

It is about incentivizing a quest in order to find contributions to contemporary challenges, and there is no other way than also to make reference to how we did, and failed, or succeeded, during previous challenges. We can learn only by looking into the past, without getting stuck in it.

I feel the best format for doing this is to choose the writing format of essays. This format allows me to find a balance between solid research and truthful facts, and the inevitable personal and subjective element which forms an essential for my contribution. To some extent it will be a walk on the memoir side of things, but thematically grouped. It won’t be a linear historical account of my work experiences. I will jump back and forth, weaving a narrative for how I came to look at specific things from a vantage point of own experiences, good and bad. It hopefully allows me to stay humble. As I said, it is less about advice and more about storytelling within an ongoing discourse in which we all struggle to find meaningful ways forward, keeping us all together.

“essays on policing” is part of a larger set of writing projects. I have ideas for “essays on peace&security”, for “essays on trauma&reconciliation”. In all of them, there is a deep professional and a deep personal element of experience. Looking at the statistics of this blog, some of the articles which create the most, and the most longstanding interest, are about policing. It feels natural, therefore, to start here.

My plan is that this set of essays is forming a book. As a book, I do not plan to publish it here. I do not even know whether I go for self-publishing, or whether I find a publisher. I am not motivated by profit, but I won’t do it for free either. This is going to be intense work, and a lot of time and effort will go into it.

I plan to regularly update you on the project, here on this blog. Once the structure and the outline of planned content is presented here, my thoughts about how I want to publish, and how you could purchase the book, in case you’re interested, will become clear.

I am inviting you to participate. Please do so by sending me a mail: stefanfeller@mac.com.

Proceeds will go into the future of my youngest children. It will be a tiny part of my efforts to make up for time lost, because of my work, and to make good on where I failed to be sufficiently available for them, for reasons which only include my work, but go far beyond. But that will deserve a closer look within “essays on trauma&reconciliation”.

I am working on a dedicated page on this site where you track progress, and where I will describe the content of essays. Meanwhile, my writing here will continue to go all over the place.

Some Thoughts on “Never Forget”

/ stefanfeller / Leave a comment

The idea to this post goes back to late summer 2021. Since then, the text sat in my “drafts folder”. Now, one year later, with unprecedented developments happening in East Europe, it is time to pick it up again, to rewrite it according to what has happened since the Russian war of aggression began to rage through the Ukraine, and to finalise it.

September 09, 2021, I came across an article in Balkan Insight, titled “In the Balkans, Let Us Remember to Forget“. The somewhat contradicting title caught my attention. I was enjoying a late summer espresso in a Belgrade street cafe, looking back at living and traveling for more than a decade in the Western Balkans. I love being here, the Western Balkans are somewhat home to me, and I have made it a habit to always connect to the local neighborhoods and to listen to local friends. Like that day in September 2021, in Belgrade’s Innercity, when I had a conversation with a youth activist. Of course, the conversation touched on the question as to which extent people identifying with different nationalities do co-exist. Do they feel like belonging to something they share in common, other than an ever more distant past of an entity called Yugoslavia? How do they establish a joint identity, based on commonly shared memories? The assessment of my friend was somewhat sober: Young generations carry the same feeling of belonging to entities based on “ethnic” narratives. We spoke about how to learn to effectively talk to each other by listening. But the memories of those who talk to each other, including in young generations, they are very different from one place to another.

I spend a lot of time as a digital nomad. The great thing is that I happen to listen to new people everyday, meeting people from all walks of life. Academic discussions are rare, and when I explain what I do, I always struggle with making it as simple as possible.

When I travel to Kopacki Rit, a stunning nature reserve in East Croatia, I sometimes pass through the city of Vucovar, which has a wartime past of unspeakable atrocities. During 87 days of siege in 1991, the city was shelled into rubble by the Yugoslav People’s Army JNA. To quote Wikipedia: “The damage to Vukovar during the siege has been called the worst in Europe since World War II, drawing comparisons with Stalingrad.”

Today, you will see mostly new and non-descript buildings not telling anything about that time long gone. Believe me, under the surface the memories and tensions are still there. Also, I am not so sure any longer that the damage to Vukovar stands out the way it did when the Wikipedia article was written: The damage to cities, towns and villages in the Ukraine is increasing day by day.

If you happen to come to Mostar in Bosnia&Hercegovina as a tourist, you will marvel at the beauty of a historic town with the famously destroyed bridge nicely rebuilt. Not much will give away tension, and segregation. But people on one side of the bridge are identifying as Croats, on the other side as Bosniaks. Live there, and you will soon become aware of the segregation running underneath.

More visible is this segregation, of course, in Mitrovica in Kosovo, the northern part inhabited by Kosovo-Serbs, the southern parts by Kosovo-Albanians. I can not count how often I have been on the West Bridge between 2000 and 2004, with tensions and, at times, violence, flying high.

When, in 2008, I asked a friend in Bosnia&Hercegovina, whether we were still driving in East-Sarajevo or would already be close to central Sarajevo, he responded “No, we are still on our side”. My friend identifies as a Croat, and he was referring to a specific area through which the front-line of Bosnian defence moved forward and backward throughout Sarajevo’s siege by the JNA. He said this more than twenty years later, realized what he had just said, looked surprised, and apologised for his Freudian error. At the same time, our Nanny, who identifies as a Bosniak, would be scared when we were taking our children and her for a walk up at Trebevic, an area from where Serb snipers were killing Sarajevan citizens during the siege.

When, early after the beginning of Russia’s war against the Ukraine, in February and March 2022, I would talk to friends in Serbia, notably here in Belgrade, I would always hear them also talking about their memories of the NATO bombing campaign in 1999. Like with everyone else, including related to those examples I have used above, on Croatia, Bosnia&Hercegovina, and Kosovo, collective memories of the wartime past are still very present here in Serbia. The historical connotation in which those memories happen, they are different from place to place, and so is the narrative related to what happened, or whether it happened at all, why it happened, whether some of these events constitute acts of genocide, or whether things which happened were justified, and just.

But here is the thing which I note these days: There is a collective memory of the trauma which happens when civilian populations suffer, whether through a siege, of through a bombing campaign, or anything else. The memory of trauma and fear, the memory of injury and death, it persists, notwithstanding historical reasons, established narratives, or narratives attempting to falsify history. Whilst the article in Balkan Insight in 2021 is arguing the necessity also to forget, in order to support reconciliation, this is not yet the situation here: These memories are very present.

Over the last days, when I am having coffees with Serbian friends and when I bring up the situation in the Ukraine, their voices go very low. I will hear great sympathy for the suffering of the Ukrainian people, and I see expressions of pain on my friend’s faces. I will hear very clear voices telling me that indiscriminate shelling of the civilian population, that rape, murder, torture of Ukrainian’s by the Russian Army are upsetting my Serbian friends very much, that there is no justification for it, at all. There is a clear distancing from those acts of war crimes, crimes against humanity, other severe crimes. And it appears those feelings go deep. I always will hear references to the fear which my friends remember from their own trauma. Whether the bombing campaign here in Belgrade, whether the siege of Sarajevo. And I guess it is similar elsewhere.

This is where I close the loop between finishing this blog article which I have sitting in my draft folder since one year, and what is in my draft folder since a few days:

First, a select collection of links which I have been compiling:

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-62922674

https://www.tagesschau.de/ausland/europa/isjum-ukraine-graeber-leichen-folter-101.html

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-62931224

https://www.tagesschau.de/ausland/europa/selenskyj-ukraine-massengrab-103.html

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-62945155

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-63181475

I could go on an on, but I guess it is enough. From Bucha to Izium, one atrocity is piling on another war crime. To this, the indiscriminate bombing, rocketing, shelling over the past days, justified by the Russian President as revenge for the attack on the Crimean Bridge, it adds. I don’t want to throw even more links into the hodgepodge above, but it is especially this revenge action of the past days which clearly increases the feeling of people here of being upset.

When this war is over, Russia will be remembered for this. The long-term image of how we look at the Russian people will be severely damaged for a generation, or more. What this murderous Russian regime and the atrocities committed by the Russian army is doing pales anything we have seen on the European continent since the Yugoslav wars. The impact on the World order is so huge because one of the constituting powers defining the post WW2 order, dealing with the unimaginable atrocities committed by Germany, and others (notably including Russia), now tramples down the very foundations of what we collectively hoped to set up in the name of humanity.

Though genocide is genocide, and holding every nation accountable for systematic violations of the laws regulating armed conflict is a necessity of applying justice to violations of international laws, it has always been psychologically different to see these crimes being committed by nations far away, or so-called minor powers.

Yet, here we have a former superpower committing atrocities, whether in Chechnya, or in Syria, or through delegation to mercenaries in places like Africa or the Middle East. But the fact that this now is also happening in the very heart of Europe, with systemic occurrence and being part of a brutal plan of intimidation and oppression, it will haunt the individual Russian and the Russian society for decades to come. I was a child in post-war Germany and I have many individual memories about people from other nations neighbouring Germany hissing at me. As a little child, I wouldn’t understand. As a little child from Russia, they will not understand. Any process of reconciliation will last decades. And the responsibility for this, including criminal liability, lies with Russian leadership, including the person holding the office of President of the Russian Federation.

Yes, it is, in some ways, important to be able to forget, in order to forgive. But some things shall never be forgotten, otherwise the term “Never Again” becomes not only violated in so many cases, but becomes simply irrelevant. Whether it is the Holocaust, or the genocides of Srebrenica, Rwanda, or so many other places, or the crimes against humanity committed by Russia in the Ukraine, they shall never be forgotten.

On a request to establish a Peace Operation in the Ukraine

/ stefanfeller / 2 Comments

16 March 2022, the international news is reporting about a visit of the heads of the governments of the Czech Republic, Poland, and Slovenia to the Ukrainian government. Three weeks into a war of aggression against the Ukraine, prepared in a way meeting the immense security challenges, the highest officials of these governments traveled to Kyiv by train, meeting President Selenskyj of Ukraine. Amongst other, the delegation included Vice President Jaroslaw Kaczynski of Poland. Vice President Kaczynski went public following the meeting by demanding an armed “NATO Peace Operation”, acting with approval by the Ukrainian President, on Ukrainian territory. That request is generating a flurry of public comments, covering the full spectrum of why this would be very complicated, or unlikely, or way too early.

Time to have a select look on the state of peace operations, why current operations struggle, leading to some thoughts on basic preconditions for peace operations, ensuring the unfolding of civilian aid and assistance.

To start with a term the United Nations got used to: “Robust Peacekeeping” was coined some years ago within the United Nations. It was used even by highest officials to describe the environment in which Peacekeeping Operations (PKO) of the UN increasingly found themselves: Being tasked with peacekeeping where there is little or no peace to keep. There is a notion of exasperation and despair in this term which I so vividly remember from many speeches. In the doctrinal framework of the UN, “peacekeeping” sets in after a peace settlement has been achieved, or, after at least some ceasefire agreement has begun to take shape. PKO such as MINUSMA in Mali, or MINUSCA in the Central African Republic provide the painful experiences which forced peacekeepers to adapt to situations where their real raison d’etre was a lofty dream. Never before the UN lost so many lifes, and the UN tried to adapt by making PKO more robust. So, that’s how the term “Robust Peacekeeping” was born. Member States of the UN and the UN Secretariat even accepted a path of providing the PKO MONUSCO in the Democratic Republic of Congo with a specially equipped and trained military intervention brigade authorised to “neutralize” elements. A term used for describing offensive lethal operations, not limited to the objective of defending the PKO and its mandate. Much has been written about this extraordinary step going beyond the concept of armed military or police mission elements for self-defence and defense of the mandate in a UN PKO.

There always were some blurry lines between how the UN uses the term “peacekeeping”, NATO is using the term “peace support operation” (PSO), or, in a similar way, how the African Union (AU) describes their own engagement in Somalia through AMISOM. Yet, in broad strokes, there is a distinction between “peacekeeping”, “peace support”, and “peace enforcement”. The UN limits itself to “peacekeeping”, current missions of the European Union in the field of civilian and military crisis management follow that line, NATO has experience in “peace support” and certainly in “peace enforcement”, the AU in “peacekeeping” and “peace support”. All these missions broadly are “peace operations”.

Of course and by contrast, any use of the term “peacekeeping” by the Russian Federation in relation to the horrible invasion of, and war in, the Ukraine by Russia is not only misleading propaganda, but a blatant abuse of the term “peacekeeping”. Taken together with the use of the term “special military operation” it is trying to evade the accusation of a violation of the Charta of the UN: That Russia is waging war against another sovereign State, a Member State of the United Nations. In order to get a common position allowing 141 Member States to condemn, only 35 Member States to abstent, and just Belarus, North Korea, Eritrea, Russia and Syria to vote against, the Resolution had to speak of “military operations”. We often hear the phrase “being on the right side” today. On that right side, this military operation is a war. It is ongoing, and it is escalating, and there is no current publicly visible sign hinting towards a path of peace negotiations. Even talks about humanitarian corridors for evacuation of civilian populations utterly fail.

The fact that Russia appears, in addition to violating Art. 2 of the UN Charter, to commit war crimes against the civilian population in the Ukraine, stands separate. 16 March 2022, U.S. President Biden took the unprecendented step calling President Putin of Russia a “war criminal”. Taken the violation of the UN Charter and the alleged committment of acts constituting war crimes together, this is making the use of the term “peacekeeping” by the Russian Federation an insult to anyone who has worn a light blue UN beret, a dark blue EU beret, or the green beret of the African Union.

Vice President Kaczynski’s suggestion to establish a NATO peace operation needs to be specified in terms of what this would mean, and it never is too early to think about what comes ahead. In whichever way the catastrophe strangling the Ukrainians will unfold further, we shall never give up efforts and hope that this can be stopped. From what I understand from the public comments of Vice President Kaczynski, a “peace operation” would require a peace agreement, or a ceasefire declaration, meaning it is not “peace enforcement”. More likely, it would be understood as something resembling “robust peacekeeping”. Then, Russia, and [the Ukraine] would have to agree how to move forward on the incredibly winded road restoring peace & security. Note the square brackets: The Russian President decided to recognize the Donetsk and Luhansk People’s Republics declarations of independence just hours before starting his military operations, or, in my view, war. Which led to widespread international condemnation, in return. How a Peace Agreement, or the rationale for a ceasefire declaration would play out will be incredibly difficult, and any international mediation will be a nightmare. But nothing is more important in order to define a difference between a peace operation having a chance of supporting return to peace, and a peace operation where there is no peace to keep. It is the single defining difference for the immense suffering of human beings in the Ukraine.

Many also push against the idea of a NATO peace operation, for the obvious reasons which brought Vladimir Putin to the point of attacking the Ukraine, and demanding its demilitarisation. On top of it, he wants to decapitate the Ukrainian government, claiming a “denazification”. But that is another horrible story, another lie. Here the question would be, in case of any chance for a peace agreement or ceasefire declaration whatsoever, who the implementing organisation or entity would be that could be tasked with a peace operation. From what I have read, Vice President Kaczynski is rather pragmatic: It can be NATO, it can be others. So it can be the UN, the EU, OSCE, NATO, or any combination of those. All of those have done peace operations, in the form of peacekeeping operations of the UN, crisis management operations of the EU, peace support operations of NATO, peace enforcement operations of NATO, or OSCE missions.

As mentioned, it never is too early to begin thinking about what comes after. Too often the results from planning are less than optimal otherwise. Mistakes haunting the international community for years have been made right in the beginning, during the conceptualisation and design phase, and reasons do not only include unalterable facts of the political environment for these planners, but also severe shortcuts because of time constraints. The earlier the thought process and the better the results, the less suffering for people after this war is stopped.

It is suggested that this operation is including at least armed elements, provided with a possible mandate of armed self-defense. Nothing more specific, so far. Also not about which civilian tasks would require armed protection. The request for armed means especially makes a case for a mandate by the UN Security Council (UNSC), since obviously a sole request from the Ukraine would not suffice in the given dispute, and also specifically in light of a historical dispute on interventions, where there was no such mandate by the UNSC. Assuming no veto by any of the five permanent members, the implementation by any suitable international organisation would be possible.

Without a UNSC Resolution, any operation would not survive the first day of our coining it a “peace operation”. It would be treated as a military aggression, escalating the existing conflict, perhaps in dramatic ways. However, it is important to be clear that nothing like that could hope to fly under the brand name of “peace operation”.

Final thoughts on mandate elements of a “peace operation”: Little to nothing has been thought about in the public which elements such an operation would have (military, police, civilian). Nothing is clear in relation to that armed capability, how robust, for which purpose, and whether it will entail military elements only, or also police elements, and whether they would be robustly equipped too, and for which purpose.

On earlier occasions, this blog contains many articles which point towards the vast experience available in the field of international policing and its cooperation with military elements, both in the UN and the EU (including the External Action Service itself, but also specific initiatives started by groupings of EU Member States, such as the European Gendarmerie Force EGF and the Center of Excellence for Stability Police CoESPU). There also is institutional knowledge about these topics within the NATO Center of Excellence for Stability Police.

A Call for the Protection of Civilians in the Ukraine

/ stefanfeller / Leave a comment

One week into the war ravaging in the Ukraine, we see unimaginable suffering of civilians in Europe again. We see pictures of people seeking shelter in subway-stations, we see bravery and courage of citizens putting themselves at grave risk by stepping into the way of military vehicles and soldiers, we see an overwhelming readiness for self-defense in light of imminent harm and potential death, we see mothers and children arriving at borders of the European Union, we see them being separated from their husbands, fathers, male friends and loved ones, as they have to stay behind in the Ukraine, for territorial defense. We see and hear gunfire, bomb explosions, rocket attacks, and we see both the deliberate and the collateral impact on civilian infrastructure, buildings, houses. Civilians including women and children are being killed, or injured in ever rising numbers. Children loose their mothers and fathers.

I want to make it clear from the outset on that I belong to those who strongly condemn a war against the Ukraine, violating the principles of the Charter of the United Nations, and bringing all of us, collectively and globally, close to the brink of a catastrophic escalation, whether as a terrifying new Cold War, or even worse, as a war spiraling out of control like a wildfire.

But no matter what some of us may believe in relation to justification of this military action, or many others considering this being an illegitimate war violating all principles of the international security architecture which has kept many of us safe for generations, we have to take note of the terrible impact of this war on civilians.

As a member of a post-war generation in Germany I grew up both in peace and with the conscience of a historic burden through Germany’s role in atrocities of the Second World War, and the Holocaust. As a young person, I grew up in a divided Germany and during decades of a Cold War. As a German police officer I witnessed the end of the Cold War, I witnessed peaceful events including the German reunification and the often peaceful dissolution of the former Soviet Union, but also the violent wars on occasion of the break-up of the former Yugoslavia. As a police peacekeeper of the United Nations, as a member of the European Union External Action Service, or being part of the German Federal Foreign Office, until today I am witnessing the memories of people in the Western Balkans, whether in Belgrade, Podgorica, Pristina, Sarajevo, Skopje, or Tirana. I am writing this from Belgrade, and everyone here is scared and has own memories of war and conflict and fear, as is the case for all other parts of the Western Balkans. To whoever I talk on the streets or in the grocery store at the corner, everyone is scared, on the grounds of own memories.

All of these memories are different. Explanations are different. Historical narratives are different. Some justify, others condemn. Acts of genocide are subject to dispute. And most recently, an allegation of genocide without any facts is being used as a cynical argument in a narrative cloaking the real intentions behind a war.

Yet, there should be one common denominator which we can all agree on: The civilian population of the Ukraine suffers terribly, and needs to be protected by all means.

However, at the end of the first week of the war in the Ukraine, all signs do tell us that there is a strong risk for ever more military violence targeting civilians, either as part of a strategy, or as a cold and even malicious calculation of collateral damage, and the psychological impact stemming from it. As I write this, these news are coming in, from cities throughout the Ukraine, whether Kyiv, or Mariupol, Kherson, Kharkiv, or others. We have news of systematic shelling of civilian neighborhoods.

As a former United Nations police peacekeeper I have had the privilege, honor and duty to contribute to the protection of civilians in situations of conflict and war. As a former United Nations Police Adviser, I was blessed with assisting in developing the role of United Nations Police in the field of Protection of Civilians, through doctrinal development, training, and overseeing the deployment of thousands and thousands of police peacekeepers, working alongside their military and civilian colleagues in peace operations, often at gravest personal risk. We say “We go places others don’t”. I have personal fond memories of doing this jointly with Ukrainian and Russian police officers, working in the interest of peace alongside colleagues from all over the world. As police peacekeepers we work together with international colleagues in other organisations, such as the European Union, the African Union, the Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe, and many others, in our tireless work protecting civilians at risk. Most importantly, we work in partnership with our countless colleagues in law enforcement in countries which we assist.

Thus, we form a network of innumerable individuals in a global community who have formed a unique partnership in what Police does, and shall do, worldwide: The Protection of Civilians in conflict and war is one expression of the fundamental principle of policing as we in the United Nations understand it: To Protect And To Serve.

I call for protection of the civilian population in the Ukraine.

I call for abstaining from any military action targeting civilians, by intent, malfeasance, or negligence, in the Ukraine.

I call for an end of this war, and for returning to the negotiation table, and returning to diplomacy, in the interest of the people in the Ukraine.

I call for my fellow friends and colleagues in the field of international police peacekeeping to raise our voices and to join me in a public expression of our outrage over the suffering inflicted to civilians, especially women and children, over and over again.

If you decide to join such a call in public, by using social media or any other public means accessible to you, and if you decide to let me know about this, please send references to the email-address

censeo@icloud.com

Of course, you are authorized to distribute the link to this blog entry widely, and without prior approval or notification.

Stefan Feller – Former United Nations Police Adviser – March 02, 2022