RESOLUTION ON DEMILITARISATION

proposed by

CEASEFIRE CAMPAIGN

Sustainable development must be rooted in an understanding that militarisation:

• damages the environment;
• absorbs scarce resources;
• fails to meet human needs for security; and
• militates against sustainable development.

The institution meant to ‘protect’ and ‘defend’ us in reality represents a threat to sustainable security.

Therefore all states must:

• decrease military spending;
• implement programmes of demilitarisation;
• reassess their security away from military security to developmental security.

Motivation for the above resolution is given in the paper entitled ‘Militarisation: The Environment and Sustainable Development’.

MILITARISATION: THE ENVIRONMENT AND SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT

By Jacklyn Cock, Nan Cross and Rob Thomson

Ceasefire Campaign

24 April 2002

SUMMARY

Militarisation as an environmental issue

Throughout Africa the military has been a major obstacle to the achievement of democracy, and war has been instrumental in creating the continent's development crisis. It has meant death and injury to millions, absorbed large amounts of national resources, caused direct ecological damage, destroyed infrastructure and social organisation, distorted production and created millions of displaced people and refugees, thus leaving in its wake further environmental degradation both in rural and urban areas.

Rethinking the notion of ‘security’ is the key to understanding the links between demilitarisation, environmental protection and sustainable development.

This rethinking of security involves confronting a powerful paradox. The paradox is that the military—the institution meant to ‘protect’ and ‘defend’ us—in reality represents a threat to our security.

This paradox is clearest in the growing body of evidence on the disastrous environmental impact of military activity, including research, development, production of weaponry, testing manoeuvres, the presence of military bases and the disposal of toxic wastes, as well as the direct impact of armed conflict.

Apart from the obvious setback to sustainable development caused by the environmental devastation left behind by war, general environmental deterioration is one of the direct threats to our security. This has been termed the ‘greenwar factor’: the recognition that ‘in the complex web of causes leading to social and political instability, bloodshed and war, environmental degradation is playing an increasingly important role.’

Military expenditure a threat to development

Government spending on the maintenance of military forces, the purchase of weapons and subsidies for the arms industry, means less money for sustainable development. And economically valuable land is wasted.

Militarism is the mindset produced by insidious propaganda that promotes the use of military defence and therefore high military expenditure. Such a mindset and climate of opinion

• brands as unpatriotic any criticism of military expenditure;
• emphasises the need to meet undefined military threats, while ignoring or paying lip service to the real threats to national security, such as poverty, unemployment and environmental degradation, all of which need the funding that is being absorbed by ‘defence’ spending.

Rethinking security

A broadened concept of ‘human security’ which emphasises the importance of ‘ecological security’ is emerging globally. It is increasingly recognised that defining national security largely in military terms fails to recognise many other crucial determinants of security. Real security can only be attained by reducing spending on armaments and systematically redirecting those resources to meet critical human and environmental needs. Real defence is making people stronger by meeting their basic needs. There can be no better fortification than a healthy, well housed and literate population.

A distinction has been drawn between the old ‘world order of the last half century organised around ideological conflict’ and a new world order ‘organised around environmental sustainability’.

In the old or traditional approach security was about preserving state sovereignty, political independence and territorial integrity. In this sense security was defined as a military issue. However, this approach has a number of shortcomings: it ignores the underlying reasons for conflict, consumes resources and neglects the various forms of non-violent conflict resolution.

This statist and militarist approach to security also creates what is termed the ‘security dilemma’. ‘The military steps taken by a state to enhance its security may induce insecurity in other states, particularly those with which it has adversarial relations. The inevitable reaction of those states is to heighten their own military preparedness. As the arms race escalates, war preparations become more likely to cause than prevent hostilities’.

The new concept of ecological security is linked to economic development and human rights. The implication is that one should not define security only at the level of nation states, but link it to larger issues of global security and smaller issues of personal security.

In this sense the notion of human security has always been implicit in the concept of development. Its dimensions include:

• personal and physical security including a safe and healthy environment;
• economic security including access to employment;
• social security including protection from discrimination based on age or social status, combined with access to ‘safety nets’;
• political security including access to justice and protection from abuse; and
• ethnic and cultural security, meaning ‘a social climate in which minority populations feel secure in expressing their cultural identity’.

In summary, we need to move away from the narrow statist and militarist conception of security as defence from external aggression, to a more holistic approach which recognises that security is a multi-faceted concept with economic, social, political and ecological dimensions.

The conversion of military bases to alternative land use

Land use for bases, training schools etc. not only pollutes the land with military debris including unexploded ordnance (thereby making it unusable for development), but also effectively robs the people who have been removed from this land of their livelihood.

Demilitarisation involves the closure of some military bases and the dismantling of military installations. Base reuse is complicated by environmental damage and the economic dependence of local communities, but there are strong ethical arguments for the redistribution of military land.

Conclusion

The conversion and reallocation of military resources to alleviate poverty and environmental degradation should be our priorities.

In developing countries generally, but especially in Africa, the military has been able to accumulate power and resources and subvert democracy partly because civil society has lacked the capacity to engage with it. Healthy civil-military relations require the empowerment of civil society to engage with defence issues; to challenge insider security experts' assessment of security needs and justification of budgets.

Sustainable development must be rooted in an understanding that militarisation:

• damages the environment;
• absorbs scarce resources;
• fails to meet human needs for security; and
• militates against sustainable development.

MILITARISATION: THE ENVIRONMENT AND SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT

By Jacklyn Cock, Nan Cross and Rob Thomson

Ceasefire Campaign

24 April 2002

As citizens concerned with environmental, peace and development issues we are concerned with defence issues for three reasons: firstly because of the direct, negative impact of the military on the environment; secondly, the military's consumption of scare resources; and lastly because of the relation between environmental security and conflict.

Militarisation as an environmental issue

Throughout Africa the military has been a major obstacle to the achievement of democracy, and war has been instrumental in creating the continent's development crisis. It has meant death and injury to millions, absorbed large amounts of national resources, caused direct ecological damage, destroyed infrastructure and social organisation, distorted production and created millions of displaced people and refugees, thus leaving in its wake the further environmental degradation both in rural and urban areas.

Rethinking the notion of ‘security’ is the key to understanding the links between demilitarisation, environmental protection and sustainable development. The legacy of armed conflict over the last thirty years as well as the process of militarisation in Southern Africa has created a precarious, mutual vulnerability in the region. We need to rethink our security and defence needs to take account of the variety of security problems in the region brought about by the effects of poverty, war, drought, disease and social dislocation. It is increasingly recognised that a broadened concept of ‘security’ that emphasises ecological and developmental factors is necessary.

This rethinking of security involves confronting a powerful paradox. The paradox is that the military—the institution meant to ‘protect’ and ‘defend’ us—in reality represents a threat to our security. As Dr Rosalie Bertell from the Toronto based Institute of Concern for Public Health stated at the World Women's Congress for a Healthy Planet in Miami in 1991, ‘It is the military who are destroying the earth’ and they are doing so in the name of ‘national security’. The Congress agreed that ‘the growth of huge military establishments, the hundreds of wars fought since World War II, the nuclear arms race and nuclear power development with their legacy of health destroying nuclear wastes, and unrestricted trade in weaponry and lethal technology, via both governments and private dealers, dangerously pollute our natural environment. They destroy lives, damage the health of women, men, children, foetuses and other living creatures. They consume resources that could be used to benefit humankind, preserve biological diversity and protect our planet’.

This paradox is clearest in the growing body of evidence on the disastrous environmental impact of military activity, including research, development, production of weaponry, testing manoeuvres, the presence of military bases and the disposal of toxic wastes, as well as the direct impact of armed conflict.

If further evidence of the negative environmental consequences of military activity was required, the Gulf War has supplied that evidence in abundance. The Gulf War showed ‘that wars and environmental protection are incompatible’. (Renner, 1991:2) However, environmental damage is not limited to periods and episodes of war and armed conflict, but is implicit in the process of militarisation, the process whereby resources are mobilised for war. Even in peacetime, military activities affect the environment. ‘Such activities include the production and testing of weapons, training and exercises, the establishment of military bases and installations, the maintenance of a state of alert and combat readiness, and accidents of various kinds’. (United Nations, 1991:12) Furthermore, military activities consume resources that are urgently needed for economic development and environmental protection. For example, approximately 20 per cent of the world's scientists are engaged in military research to the detriment of research into environmental issues such as alternative energy sources and conservation. High defence expenditure means that less is available for safeguarding deteriorating environments.

The world's armed forces ‘are a major cause of environmental degradation across the globe’. (Finger, 1991: 220) Renner estimates that the military sector's share of oil and energy use worldwide is about 3 to 4 per cent and double this if indirect use is included. (Renner, 1991) (1) Renner points out that about 0,5 to 1 per cent of the planet's landmass is used for military bases alone. It has been estimated that the operations of the armed forces may account for 6 to 10 per cent of global air pollution and that the armed forces of the world are the largest producers of hazardous chemical and nuclear wastes. Within the US the military is the largest generator of hazardous waste. In the USA the Pentagon's annual toxic output at near 500 000 tons, exceeds that of the top five US chemical companies combined. (Birchem, 1992: 1)

Most military bases worldwide ‘are probably heavily contaminated. The US Department of Defence has found almost 15 000 contaminated sites in about 1 600 military bases within the US alone. It is likely that the pollution problems are even worse on the 35 US bases abroad’. (Finger, 1991:221) Thus ‘with its choreographed violence, the military destroys large tracts of the land it is supposed to protect’. (Birchem, 1992: 2) (2)

The relation between militarisation and environmental degradation is particularly obvious in the Southern African region. The cost of SADF sponsored wars to the countries of Angola, Malawi, Mozambique, Namibia, Zambia and Zimbabwe has been estimated at the loss of 1,5 million lives and 45 billion US dollars since 1980. (Steiner, 1993: 3) In 1992 the civil war in Angola involved a death toll which reached one thousand per day. While the human and economic costs of these wars have been relatively well documented, the environmental impact has been largely neglected. Johnson and Martin maintain that the impact of apartheid on the region in ecological, as well as in economic and human terms ‘represents a holocaust’. (Johnson and Martin, 1989: 11)

Ecologists returning to Mozambique's Parque Nacional da Gorongosa and Maromeuy Delta report that the war has totally decimated much of the area's wildlife. (Dutton, 1994) ‘All that is left are small numbers of the previously abundant impala, waterbuck, hartebeest and nyala’. (Dutton, 1994) Furthermore it is reported that anti-personnel landmines were sown in unmapped localities throughout these parks.

About 20 million, or a third of all the world's antipersonnel landmines are found in Africa. Landmines have been a major source of human injury and suffering in Angola, which, as a result of the civil war, in which the SADF played a central role, has the highest rate of amputees in the world. That war has displaced more than half the population of 19 million and left millions starving; the average global malnutrition rate for displaced people stands at 12,5%.

Further environmental damage in Angola has been the huge decrease in the wildlife population. The SADF has acknowledged that it ‘helped’ UNITA sell ivory from elephants killed during the Angolan war. (General Magnus Malan cited in The Star 19.1.1996) In 1996 the report of the Kumleben Commission found that the SADF was involved in illegal smuggling of ivory and rhino horn from Angola and Namibia from mid-1975 to 1986. The elephant population of Southern Angola was reduced from tens of thousands in 1975 to less than 200 in about 1987.

The Madimbo Corridor wilderness area in the Limpopo River Valley has been degraded by military activities over decades. According to a recent report, ‘concrete slabs and abandoned buildings of old bases litter the wilderness and the area has been carved up by numerous roads now eroding into dongas in the sandy soil. (Allen, 1996: 7)

There are numerous other examples, notably the nuclear attack by the USA on Hiroshima and Nagasaki in August 1945, which not only killed and maimed thousands of people, and also affected unborn babies, but also made the environment radioactive and therefore dangerous to life and development. The use of the chemical herbicide Agent Orange in Vietnam by the American forces is another example of the creation of an unusable environment. The use of depleted-uranium warheads in the Gulf War seems to have affected the troops on both sides of the conflict, as well as leaving the environment radioactive. And in the 1990s war in Eastern Europe, another environmental disaster was the bombing and destruction of historic buildings in towns with a history going back 1000 years; this region is also said to be polluted by radioactivity from the use of depleted-uranium weapons.

Apart from the obvious setback to sustainable development caused by the environmental devastation left behind by war, general environmental deterioration—damage to the natural resource base on which all economic development activity depends—is one of the direct threats to our security. Southern Africa could become caught up in a vicious circle in which environmental scarcity and degradation leads to tensions and local disputes and violence which lead to civil and inter-state wars, which in turn cause yet more environmental degradation. This has been termed the ‘greenwar factor’: the recognition that ‘in the complex web of causes leading to social and political instability, bloodshed and war, environmental degradation is playing an increasingly important role.’ (Bennet, 1991: 2) As Raymond Williams warned some time ago, ‘.. the continuation of existing patterns of unequal consumption of the earth's resources will lead us inevitably into various kinds of war, of different scales and extent’. (Williams, 1982: 55)

Southern Africa's population of about 145 million is expected to double within the next 25 years, resulting in scarcities of some non-renewable resources, unless present consumption patterns are altered. Water could become a source of conflict and tension in the region.

Military expenditure a threat to development

Government spending on the maintenance of military forces, the purchase of weapons and subsidies for the arms industry, means less money for sustainable development. And economically valuable land is wasted.

The South African government's purchases of arms for its navy and air force will cost at least R66 billion (and much more as the currency drops in value against the dollar). Only now is the South African public waking up to this waste of government moneys.

In the national budget there should be a far greater allocation for sustainable development and far less for the military. In addition to much-needed capital projects such as housing, clinics, schools and the supply of fresh water and sewerage in rural areas, there is a need for environmentally friendly job creation.

Militarism is the mindset produced by insidious propaganda that promotes the use of military defence and therefore high military expenditure. Such a mindset and climate of opinion

• brands as unpatriotic any criticism of military expenditure;
• emphasises the need to meet undefined military threats, while ignoring or paying lip service to the real threats to national security, such as poverty, unemployment and environmental degradation, all of which need the funding that is being absorbed by ‘defence’ spending.

Rethinking security

A broadened concept of ‘human security’ which emphasises the importance of ‘ecological security’ is emerging globally. It is increasingly recognised that defining national security largely in military terms fails to recognise many other crucial determinants of security. Real security can only be attained by reducing spending on armaments and systematically redirecting those resources to meet critical human and environmental needs. Real defence is making people stronger by meeting their basic needs. There can be no better fortification than a healthy, well housed and literate population.

Kaplan argues that West Africa is becoming ‘the symbol of worldwide demographic, environmental and societal stress in which criminal anarchy emerges as the real strategic danger’. (Kaplan, 1994: 46) In his analysis ‘environmental scarcity’ is ‘the national-security issue of the early 21st century’. (Kaplan, 1994: 58) In similar vein former UNCED Secretary-General, Maurice Strong maintained that ‘our security is threatened more by environmental risk than by traditional military conflicts’. (Cited in Disarmament Times March, 1992)

A distinction has been drawn between the old ‘world order of the last half century organised around ideological conflict’ and a new world order ‘organised around environmental sustainability’. (Lester Brown cited in Prins and Stamp, 1991: 164) From this perspective high defence expenditure has been compared to dismantling a house in order to erect a fence around it. The implication is that a shift of resources away from military preparations (with their toxic, polluting side effects) in favour of environmental restoration and sustainable development is necessary.

In the old or traditional approach security was about preserving state sovereignty, political independence and territorial integrity. In this sense security was defined as a military issue. However Nathan (1994) has pointed out that this approach has a number of shortcomings: it ignores the underlying reasons for conflict, consumes resources and neglects the various forms of non-violent conflict resolution.

This statist and militarist approach to security also creates what is termed the ‘security dilemma’. ‘The military steps taken by a state to enhance its security may induce insecurity in other states, particularly those with which it has adversarial relations. The inevitable reaction of those states is to heighten their own military preparedness. As the arms race escalates, war preparations become more likely to cause than prevent hostilities’. (Nathan, 1994: 2)

The new concept of ecological security is linked to economic development and human rights. In 1991 a ‘security basket or calabash’ that linked security, stability, cooperation and development in the African continent was proposed. The Conference on Security, Stability, Development and Cooperation held in Kampala also motivated for the notion of ‘common security’ on the grounds that the problems experienced by individual African countries are shared problems and that instability in one state inevitably reduces the stability of neighbouring states. The implication is that one should not define security only at the level of nation states, but link it to larger issues of global security and smaller issues of personal security.

In this sense ‘the notion of human security has always been implicit in the concept of development. Its dimensions include:

• personal and physical security including a safe and healthy environment;
• economic security including access to employment;
• social security including protection from discrimination based on age or social status, combined with access to ‘safety nets’;
• political security including access to justice and protection from abuse; and
• ethnic and cultural security, meaning a social climate in which minority populations feel secure in expressing their cultural identity’. (Buttedahl, 1995: 14).

In the ‘old’ South Africa in the period of ‘total strategy’ security was defined primarily with reference to white domination and military power. We are only now beginning to learn of the killing and torture which was perpetrated by the apartheid state in the name of ‘national security’. Current threat analyses focus on the variety of security problems in the Southern African region brought about by the effects of poverty, drought, disease and social dislocation. In the ‘new’ South Africa security is defined primarily by meeting basic needs.

In summary, we need to move away from the narrow statist and militarist conception of security as defence from external aggression, to a more holistic approach which recognises that security is a multi-faceted concept with economic, social, political and ecological dimensions.

The conversion of military bases to alternative land use.

Land use for bases, training schools etc. not only pollutes the land with military debris including unexploded ordnance (thereby making it unusable for development), but also effectively robs the people who have been removed from this land of their livelihood.

Demilitarisation involves the closure of some military bases and the dismantling of military installations. Base reuse is complicated by environmental damage and the economic dependence of local communities, but there are strong ethical arguments for the redistribution of military land. One of the demands made at the National Land Committee conference held in February 1994 with seven hundred delegates from 353 rural and landless communities, was for the redistribution of SADF land. This demand was echoed in a GEM workshop organised in 1996, and could resonate - to a limited extent - with SANDF plans concerning rationalisation.

The SANDF is the fourth largest single land-controlling authority in South Africa managing some sixty military facilities which cover approximately 500 000 hectares of land in various parts of the country. According to a military source, ‘These facilities are used for a variety of military purposes including training personnel, for ammunition depots, for air force bases, for shooting and bombing ranges and for weapon testing sites’. (Godshalk, 1991: 10).

Some military land was acquired through the dispossession and forced removal of communities under the apartheid regime. Surveys on forced removals documented by the Surplus People's Project show that the SADF benefited from at least four forced removals. One of these occurred in 1973 when 1500 people were moved from Riemvasmaak, a farm of about 74 000 hectares near Upington when the area was declared a military zone for air force training and weapons testing. An SPP spokesperson described the removals as ‘one of the most cruel of all the removals that were taking place around that time. This peace-loving and settled community was divided along racial lines and then—according to how officials had chosen to categorise them—sent to different destinations. Those whom the State chose to call Xhosa were sent to the Ciskei 1000 km away and those classified Damara were sent out of South Africa to Damaraland in Namibia over 1 300 km away.’ Houses were burned in front of the people's eyes. This enforced separation gave rise to numerous problems on the return of the community in 1994.

A removal site that is generating intense controversy is that of Lohatla in the Northern Cape. Three black communities - the Khosis, Maremane and Gathlose - were forcibly removed in 1977 so the SADF could build the world's second largest battle school. These displaced groups have claimed back parts of the battle school, which covers 135 000 hectares of land. Despite these claims the SANDF engages in massive war games against a phantom enemy, which include the participation of foreign military personnel. The situation at Lohatla has been complicated by the SANDF's determination to keep the land, and it has never been satisfactorily settled.

Both Lohatla and Riemvasmaak demonstrate the problems involved in military contamination. There have been several cases of injury to local people that are thought to have been caused by unexploded ordnance. The question of military contamination is dramatised by the case of landmines, which have been widely used as an offensive weapon in Southern Africa.

Conclusion

The conversion and reallocation of military resources to alleviate poverty and environmental degradation should be our priorities. As Eisenhower once said, ‘Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired, represents, in the final analysis, a theft from those that hunger and are not fed, are cold and are not clothed’. In South Africa today the victims of this ‘theft’ are the 40% of our population who live in poverty. In the interests of both justice and social stability their needs must be met. For this to happen civil society needs to be empowered. At present debates around defence policy issues are not particularly well informed and there is no strong mass-based demilitarisation movement to challenge the power of the defence establishment. This is a serious problem. In developing countries generally, but especially in Africa, the military has been able to accumulate power and resources and subvert democracy partly because civil society has lacked the capacity to engage with it. Healthy civil-military relations require the empowerment of civil society to engage with defence issues; to challenge insider security experts' assessment of security needs and justification of budgets.

References

A. Allen, ‘Golden Horshoe Wilderness’, pp 6 -7, African Wildlife vol 49, no 6, 1996

R. Birchem, "The Military and the Environment" (Washington: World Watch Institute, 1992)
P. Buttedahl, "True Measures of Human Security" (Toronto: IDRC Report, 1994).

P. Dutton, ‘A dream becomes a nightmare’, pp 6 - 14 African Wildlife, vol 48, no 6, Nov.Dec. 1994

L. Nathan, 'Towards a Post-apartheid Threat analysis' (Johannesburg: Military Research Group Paper, 1994).
N. Prins & A. Stamp, 'New thinking on security'. Unpublished paper, 1991.
M. Renner, ‘Military Victory, Ecological Defeat’, pp 27 -33 in Worldwatch July\August, 1991

A. Steiner, 'The Peace Dividend in Southern Africa'. Unpublished paper IUCN proposal, 1993.