ACCESSION NUMBER:240820
FILE ID:AEF403
DATE:08/27/92
TITLE:(FRENCH COMING) (08/27/92)
TEXT:*92082703.AEF  SUB:NATO  CO:8/25 NAMIBIA TPC/H.R./PEACE-KEEPING,#JFT(FR),JS,HR
*AEF403   08/27/92 *

1FRENCH COMING)
NON-INTERFERENCE POLICY NEEDS REVIEW, ANALYST SAYS
(Adds human rights is now key issue for NATO)  (620)
By Jim Fisher-Thompson
USIA Staff Writer
WASHINGTON -- A guiding principle of international relations in the Cold
War era -- non-interference in the internal affairs of nations -- should be
reviewed considering the recent triumph of democracy in Europe and ethnic
strains that followed, says foreign affairs analyst Daniel Hamilton.

Hamilton, who is a senior associate at the Carnegie Endowment for
International Peace, told a group of Namibian diplomats August 25 that with
"the balance of terror that was struck by the Cold War" having ended, "a
new balance needs to be struck between traditional sovereignty and the
world community's interest in human rights."

He spoke via telephone with diplomats who were taking part in a training
session in Windhoek during a telepress conference sponsored by the U.S.
Information Agency.

In Europe and many parts of the world, "a new principle of international
relations is arising," Hamilton asserted, which is "that the destruction or
displacement of large groups of people within states does justify
international intervention."

Declaring that human rights, and democracy in particular, are "now the
pledged norm of a majority of the world's nations," Hamilton noted that
when the "core values" that underlie democracy, such as the rule of law,
freedom to vote, and protection of minority rights, are threatened,
multinational organizations such as the North Atlantic Treaty Organization
(NATO) should be able to intervene and protect them.

This is the "new security challenge" for the "new and open Europe," he told
the Africans, and "at the moment, NATO is the only existing viable defense
institution" on the continent which is equipped to take over the role of
peace-keeper and guarantor of human rights.

In the past, Hamilton explained, while the Cold War provided a certain
amount of stability based in part on the military and political standoff of
NATO and Warsaw Pact military forces in central Europe, it "muted a whole
lot of ethnic conflicts, smaller regional and tribal issues that people in
Eastern and central Europe have with each other."

Now, after the collapse of communism in Europe, the question, he said, is:
Can NATO, which for 40 years basically had a defensive role against Soviet
military aggression, carve out a new security role as a protector of basic
human rights -- a role which might involve interfering in the internal
affairs of nations?

"All the underpinnings" of Cold War security arrangements in Europe have
changed, the analyst explained.  Before, the aim of the United States and
NATO was to "promote an intense collaboration" for European defense against
the Soviet Union and its Warsaw Pact allies.

But now, with the Warsaw Pact dead and the Soviet military threat
diminished, "NATO and the American troop presence...do not address Europe's
most pressing security problem," which has become ethnic strife, Hamilton
told the Africans.

Referring to the ethnic conflict playing out in Yugoslavia today, Hamilton
said, "Threats to Eastern Europe today are most likely to arise from ethnic
conflicts within states and from the clashes they may cause between
neighboring countries than from a security threat posed by one country bent
on domination."

Increasingly, said Hamilton, the world community, as well as NATO, "should
1ake a hard look at the policy of non-intervention" in order to address
"urgent humanitarian issues" such as the situations in Somalia and
Yugoslavia.

This does not mean the intervention must always be military, he stressed.
But "the world community must be able to get involved in gross violations
of human rights or reports of them within nations" in some type of
peace-keeping role, he said.

NNNN

.