Description

Objectives

Expected outcome or impact

Relationship to conflict prevention and mitigation

Implementation

Organizers

Participants

· Collect information on areas and conflicts;

· Promote dialogue concerning situations with the potential to develop into a new or further conflict;

· Make reports of suggestions for preventive activities and recommendations on various aspects of issues.

Envoys have tackled a great variety of issues both between states and within states, including boundary issues, minority discrimination and rights, group representation and composition in governments, and secession claims. Envoy roles vary in terms of whether they are primarily fact-finders and observers or take a more active role in engaging parties to disputes in communications and negotiations. Envoy roles vary in terms of the breadth of the functional scope of their activities: some focus on issues such as human rights, refugees or national minorities, while others encompass all international activities in that area.

Activities

Cost considerations

Set-up time

Conflict context

Stage of conflict

Cause of conflict

Prerequisites

Past practice

Within the Greater Horn

In an effort to prevent rising ethnic tensions in Burundi following the October 1993 assassination of the country's first Hutu president, Ahmedou Ould Abdullah served as mediator and focal point for UN and other third party efforts in Burundi from 1993 to 1995.

The UN Secretary-General appointed this official in November 1993. Ahmedou Ould Abdullah's original appointment was for three months, but he stayed for almost two years, leaving his position in November 1995. His staff numbered five, along with a small UN team dispatched to determine the facts and facilitate government and OAU efforts to restore democratic processes and stability. Two further fact-finding teams visited from March to April 1994 and in August 1994.

Abdullah brokered acceptance by Hutu and Tutsi politicians of a Hutu president, Cyprien Ntarymira, and pressured them and Burundi's mainly Tutsi military leaders to issue calls for calm immediately after Ntarymira was killed in the April 1994 plane crash that set off the ethnic genocide in Rwanda. Subsequently, he facilitated power-sharing arrangements for Burundi's interim government through which the Parliament appointed another Hutu president but guaranteed the Tutsi 45 percent of key government posts. To keep the situation calm, he reportedly restrained his criticism of the primarily Tutsi army and postponed an investigation of the assassination.While Burundi's relative calm in 1994 may be attributed in some measure to Abdullah's efforts, Hutus soon felt deprived of their overwhelming 1993 election victory and began guerrilla attacks against the Tutsi-dominated army, provoking countermeasures aimed at driving Hutus out of their government positions. Ethnic killings erupted in spring 1995 and have continued at an increasingly dangerous level ever since.

Outside the Greater Horn

The OSCE's Office of the High Commissioner on National Minorities (HCNM): The Roving Preventive Diplomat is perhaps the only example worldwide of a permanent official position in a government or international organization whose portfolio is specifically and exclusively dedicated to preventing violent conflicts from erupting. In fact, if conflicts do erupt in an area, the HCNM is precluded from involvement. Since January 1993, the office's first incumbent, Ambassador Max van der Stoel of the Netherlands, has undertaken missions of various kinds and lengths to potential ethnic trouble spots throughout Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union, including Hungary, Romania, the Baltic states, Nagorno-Karabakh, Macedonia, and Kazakhstan. The HCNM has also examined the problem of the Roma (formerly called gypsies) in several CSCE states.

The CSCE established this position at its 1992 summit meeting in Helsinki, reflecting its conclusion that intra-national ethnic tensions both between different groups and involving their governments should be a top priority in the region because of their potentially serious international repercussions. Assisted by a small staff and headquartered in The Hague, HCNM efforts have addressed tensions between the Russian-speaking minority and ethnic Estonians and Latvians in those Baltic states; ethnic Russians and other groups in Kazakhstan, Kyrgystan, and Ukraine; Albanians and other groups in Macedonia; Greeks and Albanians in Albania; and Hungary and the neighboring states of Slovakia, Romania, Yugoslavia and Ukraine, where Hungarians are minorities.

The HCNM is expected to look into situations that may become ethnic conflicts, provide impartial evaluations and recommendations, and engage relevant parties in dialogue. Typically, after a visit or two and extensive consultations with the governments and groups affected, he will submit recommendations to the government concerned and maintain contact concerning their implementation. HCNM recommendations sometimes call for creating specific dialogues on pertinent issues and more long-term observer missions, as in the Ukraine. He has opened up communications between different groups that were not in contact, defused tensions and reduced confrontations that were rising between governments and minority organizations, facilitated dialogues and helped encourage local roundtables, and made specific recommendations on national legislation affecting minorities, such as language and citizenship laws, the establishment of special governmental bodies, or an ombudsman dealing with minority issues.

The HCNM was originally to provide "early warning" as well as early action in the form of consultations that might generate ways to ameliorate worsening situations. Interestingly, however, the HCNM has not found it especially useful to sound the alarm bell to alert the wider international community: public statements of this kind could lead to a dispute's further escalation if disputants are tempted to take advantage of a wider political arena to publicize and advocate their cause before and seek allies among other outside parties. Furthermore, the idea of early action in some ways contradicts early warning, since the purpose of addressing tensions at early stages is to facilitate local solutions that avoid the need for wider involvement at all. For these reasons, the HCNM has often preferred simply offering his good offices in a low-key, unpublicized way.

The HCNM uses various sources of information to monitor the 53 member states for areas and issues that might lead to worsening ethnic conflicts. These include ongoing data collection and informal communications with diplomats and specialists. The HCNM decides at his own discretion where and when to get involved and does not require the direct approval of member states or of the OSCE's executive body, the Committee of Senior Officials (CSOs). Because the purview of his office was authorized in general terms through a priori unanimous consent by its member states, technically, he can enter an OSCE participating state even without this state's formal consent. In effect, the OSCE handed the HCNM a portfolio that allows him to make inquiries into emerging ethnic disputes anywhere within its member states and to talk to any of the parties involved, including representatives of minority groups and government officials.

Obviously, however, the HCNM will choose to go places not only where he is needed, but also where he is welcome and can make some headway. He must maintain member states' overall confidence and political support in order to implement recommendations. In this way, the HCNM is held accountable to the overall body, and in fact, consultations have increased between the HCNM and the CSO, as well as the CSO's subsidiary body, the Permanent Committee.

The HCNM collaborates with the various OSCE in-country missions that are active in the field, and he consults regularly with the OSCE's Office of Democratic Institutions and Human Rights (ODIHR). His bailiwick has numerous other regional organizations beyond the OSCE, including the UN, Council of Europe, the European Union, and NATO. These organizations' activities overlap in certain respects. The HCNM tries to avoid competing with these other organizations, or to cooperate with them where they are also involved. This has applied especially with the Council of Europe, which deals more with legal rather than political issues, for often these separate organizations can reinforce each others' approaches to governments and minority groups.

It is critical that the HCNM be seen as impartial and even-handed because member governments are often among the very parties to the disputes he examines. The HCNM is not an outside ombudsman for minorities but a roving emissary on minority problems. This does not mean he will not or cannot call a government to account, publicly or privately, for human rights violations. He can also tell a minority group that it has national responsibilities as well as rights: the HCNM has urged minorities to make a serious effort to learn a dominant language, participate in free and fair national elections, rather than boycott them, and take every opportunity that is opened up to participate in legitimate governmental institutions.

In sum, the genius behind the concept of the HCNM derives from two factors that increase the member governments' incentive to cooperate with him. His discreet and even-handed style of operation engenders trust. Because he does not come from outside this circle, but belongs to the member governments of the organization, he is not threatening because the member governments feel they have some ultimate control over his work.

While the HCNM’s low-key approach appears to have been effective in stemming certain disputes, a drawback is that the office’s accomplishments are not widely publicized and thus may be generally underrated which might make it difficult for the HCNM to get the financial support he needs to carry out his work.

Strengths

Evaluation

Weaknesses

Special envoys may vary in the degree to which they have authority or de facto influence to coordinate the activities of other third parties in a conflict area. Acceptance of an intermediary may entail trade-offs by the third party. Therefore, disputants are likely to be concerned about such trade-offs before they accept the intervention.

Envoys represent no particular country, do not command armies, bureaucracies, or resources, and bring with them little or no staff. Their strength lies in their stature and experience and in their considerable degree of independence. Their success also depends on how and how much envoys can earn trust from those involved in conflict. This requirement has repercussions in the selection of envoys and how much time they are allowed for mediation. Their stature and flexible authority mean they sometimes can achieve significant breakthroughs and crack diplomatic logjams at relatively low expense, without the cumbersome political processes and time that other tools or procedures that involve multiple actors might require.

All UN Secretary-Generals have used special envoys as a diplomatic tool. Since humanitarian organizations and peacekeepers have political drawbacks, Secretary-Generals use special representatives as their political actors during international crises.. Boutros-Ghali has made it a normal practice to send special representatives to reside in crisis areas. However, the nature of international crisis has changed, and intrastate conflicts are more prevalent than interstate conflicts.

If envoys could offer plans for some economic, political, social development and/or humanitarian assistance in negotiation, all parties in conflict could be willing to work with envoys. However, envoys must be politically very conscious about what they provide (e.g. human rights assistance) not to offend a particular party.

Envoy effectiveness is heavily dependent on the individual incumbent's stature, personality, and skills. Some observers feel, for example, that the OSCE HCNM has been successful largely because of the competencies of Ambassador van der Stoel, rather than other features of the position. This does not mean, however, he could guarantee constant diplomatic success as an envoy. It is highly possible that he could fail in a completely different diplomatic setting.

Special envoys have no powerful carrot sticks to enforce peaceful agreements. Their ability to prevent or mitigate a conflict is constrained by factors beyond their control. Envoy achievements are limited unless the parties themselves are to some degree willing to consider peaceful settlements and to refrain from provocative actions that inflame the situation.

To be effective, envoys must also enjoy continued backing for their work from the top political authorities of their sponsoring organization along with support from other third parties.

Envoys must typically struggle to reconcile the pressures and preferences they receive from their appointing organizations with their own independence and judgments about the leeway and tolerance that can be granted to particular parties with often delicate considerations that must be taken into account. The OSCE HCNM has expressed concern over the possibility that governments and groups with whom he has worked out agreements may subsequently be held publicly accountable to a formal review at the international level for meeting specific goals and timetables. This approach would discourage future parties from working with the HCNM.

Despite their discretion, envoys are still part of international officialdom and are bounded by the formality and visibility of high-level officials dealing with intra-national parties and issues. Accordingly, the HCNM has undertaken discussions with NGOs to explore the aspects of its mandate that they can address in a more informal way.

Envoys may be able to smooth relations between disputing parties, but be unable by themselves to obtain commitments from their organizations to the follow-up programs and resources that are essential to make these agreements stick and to keep tensions from reigniting conflict. For example, the HCNM has been frustrated that funding for minority language training in the Baltics and for economic aid for the Ukraine has been difficult to obtain.

Lessons learned

The "honest broker." Successful envoys must be seen as impartial and competent by the parties in a conflict. One method used to improve the chances an envoy will be favorably received is to appoint someone from the region where the governments and other parties who may be involved in disputes are members. This may depend, however, on the region's particular sensitivities and perceptions of who is acceptable and desirable. Regional roots are no guarantee of acceptability, for ultimately, what may count is the personality of the individual and the image of the organization from which they come. Thus, the UN envoy to Somalia and the OAU envoy to Congo were Algerian and the UN envoy to Burundi was the former Foreign Minister of Mauritania, whereas the CSCE High Commissioner on National Minorities active in Central Europe and the former Soviet Union is from Western Europe.As shown above, envoys’ character and settings are significantly influential to their success. Thus, another important factor for the success comes before negotiation. Before envoys begin directly negotiating about a specific issue, envoys must ensure that conflicting parties, especially political elites of all sides, perceive that negotiation is the best solution as opposed to taking arms or overrunning opposition parties.

References and Resources

Max van der Stoel, Talk on the Work of the High Commissioner on National Minorities, Face to Face Program, Carnegie Endowment for Peace, Washington, DC. November 20, 1994.

Conflict Management Group, Early Warning and Preventive Action in the CSCE: Defining the Role of the High Commissioner on National Minorities, Cambridge, Massachusetts, October 19, 1992.

Konrad J. Huber, "The CSCE's New Role in the East: Conflict Prevention," Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty Research Report, Vol. 3, No. 31, August, 1994.

Washington Post, UN's Man in Burundi: A Rock in a Hard Place, Monday, April, 1995, page A12.

United Nations, Security Council, Report of the Secretary-General on the Situation in Burundi, October 11, 1994.