The ranking no country wants to be on: People Under Threat 2009

“You have to recognise that the situations that are the most worrying globally are overwhelmingly in Africa and Asia, but that’s not to say that genocide, mass killing or other systematic violent repression couldn’t happen in Europe as well.  It’s happened within living memory, I think there is still a great danger for communities in Europe.”

Executive Director of  Minority Rights Group International Mark Lattimer talks to Vita Europe, following this year’s publishing of  “People under Threat 2009” on July 2.  The ranking which has been produced from the London based charity every year for the last four years has a very specific objective:

“It was first of all conceived because there was a problem in focusing diplomatic effort on situations where there was no current conflict but a dangerous situation developing.” 

“The United Nations for instance tends to react to situations which have already blown up, like what we saw in Darfur, but it finds it difficult to take action early enough to prevent conflict or to prevent killing.  This table was created as a tool to prevent situations of genocide and mass killing of civilians at an early stage.”

While the top five countries are unchanged in the table from last year – Somalia, Iraq, Sudan, Afghanistan and Burma/Myanmar – certain new countries have grabbed attention as highest risers, including Israel and the Occupied Palestinian Territories, Georgia, Zimbabwe and Guinea Bissau.

 

In the analysis chapter of this year’s report you pinpoint identity conflicts as being a definite cause for people under threat, would you say the phenomenon is on the rise?

It’s definitely a major problem.  Is it a new one?  Well it’s certainly a growing one, and a new one in certain areas of the world.  After the end of the cold war there were a series of identity conflicts on the periphery of the former soviet union which tore apart many different countries including former Yugoslavia.

We’re in a new era now, and what we have seen is the growth of a new set of identity conflicts in the Middle East and West Asia as a result of war against terrorism.  So it’s an old problem but it’s come back with a vengeance.

 

Would you say therefore that we in the West are helping to create, not solve, a problem in the Middle East?

I think most definitely that’s the case.  I think the response to the rise in violence and extremism has been to take the fight to the countries where extremists are perceived to come from.  And to have made that fight one that engulfs the whole of those societies.   This has placed millions and millions of people in danger, and has also arguably done very little to protect people in the West.

 

Would you say that increased identity violence is a paradox that goes hand in and with Globalisation?

I would not necessarily put it like that. 

Societies are becoming increasingly diverse, partly through migration.  The interesting thing though is that often the most stable societies are the most ethnically diverse. 

What is very dangerous is when you have a small number of ethnic groups competing for power.  In this case the globalised influence is both a potential source of danger but also something that can help.  In all of those countries listed in the Middle East or East Asia, from Iraq to Pakistan or Afghanistan, you see them radically destabilised by international action, but they are also places where international help, for instance through the United Nations, almost represent their only chance to come back together again.

 

Ten out of the top twenty rated countries are African, how could you explain this? 

First of all, I think it is important to note that most of those countries are in a limited amount of places. 

If you want an answer as to why ten of the top twenty rated countries are in Africa, well that’s a complex situation, but I think it partly has to do with two factors. 

One is the fact that Africa is the poorest continent and hasn’t benefited from development in a way that most other continents have including most parts of Asia. 

But also there is the question of the legacy of colonialism.  Many of the colonial relationships in Africa – most of which are very recent and only go back to a few decades ago – were about favouring one or two ethnic groups in order to keep the others subjugated.  That’s how both the anglophone and francophone Africa functioned in the colonial era.  I think that has created a series of tensions between certain ethnic groups that we are now still seeing the legacy of in the threat of mass killing and inter-ethnic violence.

 

What about Europe?  No European countries appear in the top twenty and few in the overall, are we safe from ethnic based violence in Europe?

There are a number of European countries in the ranking, the highest being the Russian federation (position 21) and Bosnia and Herzegovina (24, just after Yemen).  In both these two countries the Roma face a very difficult situation: they face a very physical threat, but then it’s not just the Roma.

The most worrying situation is in Ingushetia which hasn’t been really properly covered by the media.  The situation in Georgia is very worrying as well, people all say “oh but I thought that was last year, and it’s all over now,” but the situation in Abkhazia now is extremely dangerous. 

This is a table of the risk of really one of the most terrible things in the world, you know – mass killing.  You have to recognise that the situations that are the most worrying globally are overwhelmingly in Africa and Asia, but that’s not to say that it couldn’t happen in Europe as well.  It’s happened within living memory, I think there is still a great danger for communities in Europe.

 

What considerations did the research make of Italy, which did not appear in the ranking?

Italy exhibits a similar pattern to a lot of other Western European countries, which is that there is a deep historic awareness of different national minorities, such as Sardinians and Sicilians.  There is a sense that a lot of political and economic efforts have gone into building and maintaining links with those minorities within the nation state.  They’re in denial however about the situation of other minorities, including particularly the Roma and secondly, more recently settled immigrant communities. 

The kind of sensitivity to multiculturalism that the Italian state can show to its own older national minorities, it seems incapable of according to newer immigrant communities and to the Roma.  Those communities are under risk of being systematically excluded from Italian society.

 

Would you say that the rise of the far right in recent European elections poses a threat to minorities in Europe?

Yes, I think it’s a very worrying trend.  You often see far right parties using the economic crisis as an excuse to pursue racist policies.  I think that is a real danger in Europe at the moment, including of course in Italy.

Follow this link to the People Under Threat 2009