After having closely monitored the successful revolts in Tunisia and Egypt, I was wondering which would be the next country in the domino game of dictatorships. I must say, I was really happy for the Tunisians and Egyptians for making the first step in direction of a more democratic and free political system for their respective countries. But something was bothering me from the beginning. It was the lack of initiative the Western world showed towards guaranteeing the most elementary civil liberties in the region. Only because of activists like Telecomix was it possible to maintain digital communications with the region and get witness reports to Europe and the U.S.

The war in Afghanistan was not only dubbed as “war against terrorism”, but also as war in favor of more democracy. The same pattern was repeated for the war in Iraq and we all know how both of them are still ongoing. Restoring democracy was obviously a failure if we consider that both countries are lead by not so democratically elected governments. But still, the Western world has written the goal of democratizing the world on its flag. This is an ambitious goal especially if we now know that military action does not promote democracy.

Why was it impossible for the European Union or the United States to quickly condemn the Ben Ali or the Mubarrak regimes? Was it because they had no proof of violations of civil liberties? I don’t think so, there where more proofs than for WMD in Iraq. Probably they hesitated because of economic implications, perhaps they did not want to disturb the vacation of their countrymen.

It was only when I was watching the images of the Lybian revolt on the wonderful Al Jazeera English channel that I thought more about how we can ensure civil liberties through the world without using blunt force. The question popping up was:

How can we (effectively) put up safeguards against future dictators attacking their own people?

I think we could do this in two minimally invasive ways, which would safeguard our civil liberties and our privacy without growing the fear of terrorism.

Method 1

Fast freeze of all dubious accounts which could be related to dictators and their families as soon as there begins a civil unrest in their countries. It has to be clear for them that the Western world will NOT, I repeat, NOT harbor their money while they are killing their own people. This method will be not invasive for regular citizens because banks already got the power to block dubious accounts, and if the account belongs to a legitimate owner, that owner can show up and identify himself, which is a prerequisite for doing banking anyway. So this would be of no harm for the general population but would be a big deterrent for dictators as their retirement fund will not be available if they kill their people. This has to be put in action independently of the origin of the money. We can not accept that dictators earn money in a legal way, every $ they earn, they earned it illegally because if it were legitimate, they would not need to hide it abroad.

Method 2

No dictator has to be granted asylum in the Western world. This should go so far that every country should deter every attempt of another country to offer asylum to a dictator by all means without resorting to force. This method will still safeguard all our civil liberties but will also show every dictator that they will be judged by their own people because they can not escape. Clearly this could lead to a longer hold to the power but will ultimately lead to a more humane and less brutal intervention by the government because they can fear the retribution. An extension of this method would be to offer asylum to every dictator who wants to leave without a power struggle as soon as civil revolts begin. As soon as there are dead people, the head of government should have no more place to hide than in its own country.

I believe that by combining method 1 & 2, we could effectively deter the attractiveness of blunt force against (mostly) peaceful protesters. My personal opinion is, that if dictators come to the realization that there is no place to hide and no retirement fund, they will no longer try to smash protests by the use of military force.

What do you think? Could this work? Where do we need to expand the deterrents?