International Politics and Relations in the Current

¶ … international politics and relations in the current era, which define how communities and geographical regions relate to each other, have evolved over a period after time. The human history has been a roller coaster ride, full of violence, bloodshed and genocides. The term genocide refers to a planned and organized destruction against a national, ethnic or religious group.

In every geographical area, there are people from different ethnic, religious and social backgrounds and from different mindsets and school of thoughts. In general, one of the groups remains in the majority while the others remain in the minority. Both the majority and the minority groups have their own respective points-of-view which they aspire to enforce; however, since the majority has the numerical strength, they consider it their natural right to be in the powerful position. In some cases, it had been observed that the minority manages to take over the powerful position; however, it always remains under a threat of being overthrown by the majority. While the inhabitants of any geographical territory have always had a tendency to indulge into some kind of a conflict, the responsibility of maintaining the rule of law, discipline and stability lies on the shoulder of the nation's leadership.

When a deadly international conflict broke out in the twentieth century in form of the First World War, one constructive step that was taken by the nations who were party in the war was the formation of an organization that had the capacity to restore peace in the destabilized regions and can help seeking peaceful solution between the states that were stuck in conflict situations (Destexhe 1995). This organization was then known as the League of Nations. Initially, the aim of the organization was to resolve international conflicts in a peaceful manner. The primary focus was on seeking solutions to conflicts pertaining to geographical and territorial changes resulted due to colonization. However, as international politics evolved and more countries joined in, the League of Nations expanded its mandate to a broader spectrum of activities and emerged as the United Nations Organization. Since then, the United Nations is known for giving political, military, financial and economic assistance to nations that are in any sort of distress or conflict. The United Nations Organization has been a key player as a decision making entity in times of geographical and political conflicts between states. Throughout the history and up to the current age of globalization, the decision making process is always influenced by the people of the state, it political leadership, the foreign stake holders and the super national organization such as the United Nations Organizations (Long & Mills 2008). How these stakeholders and forces influence the decision making process depends on the culture followed in the respective political, administrative and supranational organization. Like any other organizational culture, this culture is also defined by the set of values, norms and belief systems prevalent in the organization and among its people.

This paper evaluates the role of various stake holders along with the supernational organizations like the United Nations Organization in influencing incidents such as the Rwanda Genocide of 1994. The paper analyzes, within the context of management, that how internal and external stake holders influence various decision making processes and make way to provoke or prevent such incidents that may affect history, politics, and human lives across geographical boundaries.

The background of the Rwanda Genocide dates back to the pre-world war colonial time. The Rwandese population is dominated by the dark skinned Hutus, while the white skinned Tutsis constitute the minority of the population. However, when the territory was taken over by the Belgian colonial power, the Tutsis were given an upper hand on ethnic grounds while the Hutus were pushed down to slavish conditions. After the Second World War the colonial powers found it difficult to maintain their power in their colonies, and the rise in nationalist and revolutionary ideas resulted in a series of independence of various colonies. Rwanda was one of them. After its independence the Tutsis were overthrown to be replaced by the Hutus however, the new government was installed on dictatorial lines. The Tutsis, many of whom were forced to seek refuge in neighboring countries, due to Hutu atrocities against them, created insurgent groups to invade the new territory. The government supervised Hutu militias and the Tutsi insurgents were ready to for a deadly clash at any time. As a result, the case was referred the United Nations so that it can assist in restoring peace. The United Nations, in turn, sent a peace mission to supervise the peace agreement in Rwanda, under the leadership of a Canadian military man, Lieutenant Dallaire.

Power and Politics of Organization

The reason why super national organizations such as the United Nations organizations are able to influence, provoke, generate, and prevent incidents like Rwanda Genocide is the power and position these organizations hold in the international politics. Countries around the world are dependent on the United Nation to a great extent, when it comes to strengthening their foreign relations with other countries, or getting their conflicts resolved. The United Nations Organization is well aware of this fact. Moreover, the United Nation itself is an institution which is made up of many member states, which means all those countries have a stake in the organization. The permanent members such as the United States of America are the major stakeholders, of the United Nations. Although it is not a written regulation, however, it has been a practice of the United Nations that they are influenced by the permanent members to a great extent and the Security Council keeps in view the interests of these permanent members before taking any decisions.

As mentioned earlier supranational organizations and strong stakeholders within the organization have power to influence major decisions and outcomes. The term power under management theory refers to ability to make things go the way one wants. In general there are three power bases, namely Coercive, Utilitarian and Normative Power (Etzioni, 1968). The most prominent power base in the case of Rwanda Genocide was Coercive and Normative Power. Coercive Power base involves making someone comply with one's wishes by force. On the other hand, normative power refers to a belief system under which the members of the organization believe that the organization has the right to control their behavior.

Both these power bases, Normative and Coercive were evident in Rwanda's case at various instances. For example, influential members of the United Nations such as Belgium, France and the United States, played a major role in influencing United Nation to withdraw its peacekeeping force from Rwanda. This was an example of Coercive Power where these strong stakeholders easily pressurized the United Nations to deviate away from the objectives it had set. Similarly, when Dallaire's assistance request were being processed slowly by the United Nations, an intervention by a Tutsi lobby played a major role in speeding up the process. This implies that the United Nation's power is greatly overshadowed by its stakeholders and their strong political pressures and lobbying makes it difficult for the United Nations to keep in line with its organizational objectives.

Leadership

General Dallaire was leading the peace keeping force that was sent to Rwanda. Leadership has a key role to play in success and failure of any organization. Here Dallaire had a double test to take. His leadership was being tested in a cross cultural setting. He had to supervise a peace mission in a foreign land where two different cultures wre face off with each other. Dallaire tried his best to handle the situation. The management theory suggests that a leader must possess the confidence and courage to face challenges and take initiatives. Dallaire had possessed this skill well. However, his leadership skills were sabotaged by his superior, that is the United Nation. He did not get the required support and assistance that was necessary for the successful implementation of his mission.

The mandate of the delegation sent by the United Nations was to monitor the implementation of the peace process and prevent any further violence in the Rwandese territory. However, the militias sponsored and supervised by the Rwandese government were in constant process of triggering ethnic violence. Although Dallaire was assigned a leading position in the peace delegation, however, he was not given the required authority to take the necessary decisions. This was something that contributed in the greatest violence of the twentieth century (Long & Mills 2008).

One thing which Dallaire lacked as a leader was the skill to engage with both the cultures, Hutus and Tutsis, and create an alliance and built a trust relationship with both the parties. However, this needed some time which Dallaire was not allowed.

Dallaire's leadership skills could have been useful for the United Nations if the superiors would have shown considerable support. Under contemporary management theory it is important that superiors delegate responsibilities to lower hierarchy levels, however, it is also important that the superiors give the necessary decision making power to the person on ground. This is important because the person on ground is directly dealing with the situation and being dependent on asking for superiors consent over and over again may result in delays in important decision making.

Bureaucracy

Dallaire had to deal with two different power bases. One was the Rwandese government where complete power rested with the presidential forces as the assembly that was in function was also a cosmetic parliament. The other power base was the United Nations who delegated the responsibility and command to Dallaire, but did not transfer him the authority to take the necessary decisions. As far as the Rwanda issue was considered, the United Nations failed to adhere to its organizational objective of restoring peace in the region. On the contrary, it came under political pressures of superior stake holders of the United Nations, namely the U.S.A., Belgium and France.

Dallaire constantly made requests for resources and authority that could enable him to take and practically implement the necessary decisions; however, his requests were resisted by diplomatic and bureaucratic forces.

Despite of being a super national organization with a mandate of restoring peace in the territory, United Nations failed to deal with the political pressures and withdrew its peacekeeping force from the Rwandese territory at the time when Hutu extremists launched a mass destruction campaign against the Tutsis (Mandani 2002). The UN only left 270 peacekeepers in the region to handle the situation, who failed to prevent the murder of ten Belgian peacekeepers, followed by a mass killing of Rwandese people. In about hundred days time period, 800,000 Rwandese people. Dallaire thought that he failed to be good leader as he could not convince his superiors to give him the required decision making power.

Dallaire approached the United Nations headquarters, he discovered that his recommendations must comply with the budget constraints of the United Nations and thus the peace mission needed to be small. Moreover, the fact that the RPF intervened and was able to speed up the process implies that a strong lobby existed within the United Nations Organization that could influence the organizations decision making process (Kuperman 2001).

To complicate things further, there was a power split in the peace mission sent to Rwanda. One authority was the head of UN mission in Rwanda, Booh. The other authority was Dallaire as the commander of the peace keeping force. Both these powers conflicted every time decision making had to be done, and Dallaire, despite having a more critical responsibility, had to give up to Boohs Booh's authority, which clearly had much more support from the UNO bureaucracy. On his return to Rwanda, Dallaire's leadership skills were put to test as he faced a cobweb of bureaucratic, political and military problems. These problems led to killings and murders in the region and were topped by the ethnic hatred being spread by the Rwandese media (Thompson 2007). The troops that were deployed were poorly resourced with severe shortages of food, lodging and necessary equipment. Dallaire's requests for supplies were rejected on account of budgetary constraints

It was after the discovery of arm caches in a demilitarized zone that Dallaire decided to overrule his superiors and launch a search and seize operation when he was made aware of the fact that the government supervised militias are planning a mass murder. However, his decision was hindered by UN's commandment that asked him to stay within the limits of his mandate. Dallaire resented the fact that his leadership status and skills were not being acknowledged and his opinions were not being considered important by his superiors (Prunier 1995).

When Dallaire asked for further assistance he was shocked to discover that the United Nations was planning to withdraw troops from the Rwandese territory. The member states were apprehensive that they were losing much of their man power and financial assets in a territory where tribal killings were taking place (BBC News 2000).

Under management theory, it is important that organizations have a clearly defined and well structured bureaucracy. Each hierarchy level must be well aware of its position, stature and responsibilities and the chain of command and the span of control must be well defined. In a case otherwise there would be hap hazard communication and decision making processes will be delayed. In organizations where bureaucratic structures have huge differences between the higher and lower level of hierarchy, in such cases it is easier for stakeholders and other external influencers to politicize the objective and functioning of the organization.

Managing Conflict and Negotiation

The efficiency of organization is best tested when conflicts arise and negotiations have to be made. The situation gets more complex if the conflict involves clash between different cultures. In this case conflict management was the primary objective of United Nations and the organization was playing a mediator's role as a super national authority. Under such circumstances both leader and mediator are responsible to keep the conflicts at mediator level. However in organizations where politics and protecting personal interest of stakeholders are given preference over organizational goals, stakeholders do try to deliberately provoke conflicts rather than preventing them.

Analysis in Management Context

Putting the Rwandese Genocide case in context of leadership and management, it could be concluded that United Nations laid back attitude towards the problem had a lot to contribute in the mass destruction. Throughout the study of the Rwanda Genocide, a strong power culture and a weak role culture demonstrated where the responsibilities of people like Dallaire, who were in more critical positions were overshadowed by the strong power cultures demonstrated by the UNO bureaucracy and the Rwandese presidential forces (Long & Mills 2008).

The United Nations, if determined to put the political interest at the back seat, could have taken solid steps to resolve the problem. However, the world's largest supranational organization failed to deal with the political pressures and avoided to term the humanitarian disaster as genocide. By the time United Nations recognized the severity of the problem and declared the region disaster struck, 800,000 lives were already lost. Again, it showed that United Nations deviated from the goals and objectives it had set for the organization to achieve (Totten & Sherman 2005).

It is also evident that the United Nations allocation of resources was also highly mismanaged. The mandate and objective of the organization is to work towards restoring global peace, stability and social welfare. On the contrary, the United Nations spends large sums of money on extravagant buildings and on giving luxurious perks and fringe benefits to people on top diplomatic and bureaucratic positions. However, it allocates little resources to satisfy the requirements of the workforce that is working on the ground. It was clearly evident that the United Nations repeatedly rejected Dallaire's request of capital assistance on account of financial constraints, but the organization was not ready to cut on its extravagant bureaucratic expenditure.

The United Nations also gave little importance towards motivation of its employees and human resource. The United Nations failed to put Dallaire's forceful leadership skills to its best possible use. Instead, it demoralized and demotivated a self-motivated leader like Dallaire and repeatedly hindered his urge to take initiatives in order to achieve the targets. Dallaire was not working for personal interests, but was ready to take initiatives that reinforced the mandate that the United Nations undoubtedly had. However, the United Nation itself avoided and overlooked its organizational objectives and it seemed that it deliberately created a situation that led Dallaire's determination into a failed plan (Cook 2009).

Analyzing Dallaire's leadership skills, it is evident that although Dallaire's team failed to prevent the massive destruction, however, despite of being a leader Dallaire cannot be fully blamed for the mission's failure. This is because although Dallaire was the commander of the troops, his superiors, which were the United Nations bureaucrats did not allow him the liberty, resources and authority to take the necessary decisive actions. It must be noted that the kind of mission Dallaire was assigned to, did require him to have special powers and authorities (Normand & Zaidi 2008). However, the United Nations although made him the captain of the ship and gave him management responsibilities, but the resisted giving him authority and resources that were necessary to carry out that management process effectively and efficiently. In spite of constant reminders that Dallaire sent to the United Nations to remind them of the severity of the situation, the United Nations kept on declining his requests (Long & Mills 2008). Even with such extreme pressures, at one point in time Dallaire decided to go beyond his mandate and work towards the achievement of the desired goal. However, his plans were again hindered by the United Nations and his determination was demoralized by a further cut down in budgets followed by a withdrawal of the peacekeeping mission from the Rwandese territory altogether.