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Marc von Boemcken is a senior researcher at the Bonn International Center for Conversion, Germany. His areas of expertise include the international arms trade as well as the privatization of security provision.

Only two days before the UN imposed a mandatory arms embargo on Eritrea and Ethiopia, the German Minister for Development, Heidemarie Wieczorek-Zeul, issued a communiqué wherein she described the ongoing absence of international export restrictions against the warring countries as nothing less than a “scandal” (Agence France Press, May 15, 2000). Indeed, the war between Eritrea and Ethiopia had pre-dated the embargo by two years.

On December 24, 1989, an armed insurrection began in Liberia. Charles Taylor, a former government official, led a rebel force, the National Patriotic Front of Liberia (NPFL), into the north-eastern Nimba County. A breakaway faction, the Independent National Patriotic Front (INPFL), led by Prince Yormie Johnson gained control of central Monrovia – the capital – and killed the President Samuel Doe. The Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) intervened in August 1990, sending monitoring troops (the ECOWAS Military Observer Group, ECOMOG), and convened a national conference which elected an Interim Government of National Unity. In October 1990, ECOMOG established a neutral zone in Monrovia where Dr. Amos Sawyer was installed as Interim President in November. Various different factions and opposition groups were formed and clashes between the rebel groups and the Liberian army continued.

International sanctions by organizations like the United Nations or European Union and individual countries, such as the United States, have become a useful tool of foreign policy. It is needed to prevent the target countries from threatening the economic or political interest of the sanctioning organization and their allies. Sanctions are also applied on moral and ideological ground like supporting human rights and freedom, trade policies and patent violations, protectionist policies, etc. However, it is widely believed that the sanctions are not effective. Some of the sanctions are also costly for the organization implementing the sanctions and the target countries can always go around the sanctions and are successful in getting sources of supply.

In the early 1990s, the single-party regime of the Mouvement Révolutionnaire Nationale pour le Développement (MRND), headed by President Juvénal Habyarimana, came under growing pressure both internally and externally. Rwanda experienced widespread destitution and famine as state revenues from coffee exports fell from an annual US $144 million in 1985 to a mere US $30 million in 1993 (Debiel, 2003, p. 166). A Structural Adjustment Program (SAP), imposed upon Rwanda by the Bretton Woods institutions in September 1991, was largely irrelevant, if not conducive, to the rising impoverishment of the Rwandan people (Chossudovsky, 1994, p. 21). Between 1989 and 1993, the proportion of the population consuming less than 1,000 calories a day doubled from 15 percent to 31 percent (Maton, 1994).

The dependent variables for this analysis include three measures of arms embargo effectiveness, which were referred to as ‘levels of effectiveness’ in the Framework Chapter. These are the embargo's success in causing a targeted policy change (level I effectiveness), success in changing arms flow to the target (level II effectiveness), and a measure of effectiveness to capture the arms embargo initiators satisfaction with the operation of the embargo (level III effectiveness).

Sanctions are normally used as an instrument by one country or an alliance of countries to affect change in the behaviour of another country. As Ian Anthony has noted, “Within the legal code of states, sanctions are that part of a law that inflicts a penalty for its violation. In common usage, international sanctions can be defined as any restriction or condition established for reasons of foreign policy or national security applied to a foreign country or entity by a group of states using substantially equivalent measures” (Anthony, 2002, p. 204). Most analysts would agree that clearly defined goals on the part of the initiator – and outlining a consistent set of policies with respect to such goals – are an important factor in gauging the effectiveness of sanctions at any given time.

As the First Lady, Michelle Obama stated that she had a number of priorities but that the first year would be mainly about supporting her two girls in their transitions to their new life in the White House. Her choice to be mom-in-chief drew unusually intense and rather puzzling, scrutiny. The chapter briefly discusses the range of reactions along the political spectrum as well as African-American feminists’ analyses of the stereotypes of Black women underlying those reactions. This analysis engages the debates from a different perspective. First, the chapter addresses the under-theorizing of the racialized gender norms embedded in the symbolism of the White House and the role of First Lady. It challenges the presumption of traditional notions of true womanhood and the incorrect conclusion that mothering would preclude public engagement.

Second and most importantly, this chapter argues that there are fundamental misunderstandings of what mothering meant for Michelle Obama as African-American woman. Cultural traditions and socio-historical conditions have led Black women, both relatives and non-kin, to form mothering relationships with others’ children and to appreciate the interdependence of “nurturing” one's own children, other children, and entire communities. Those practitioners whose nurturing activities encompassed commitment and contributions to the collectivity were referred to as community othermothering. Using primary sources, this chapter examines in detail Michelle Obama's socialization for and her practice of community othermothering in her role as First Lady. Attention is focused on her transformation of White House events by extending hospitality to more within Washington, DC, and the nation, plus broadening young people's exposure to inspiration, opportunities, and support for setting and accomplishing their dreams. Similarly, the concept of community othermothering is also used to explain Michelle Obama’s reinterpretation of the traditional First Lady's special project into the ambitious “Let's Move” initiative to end childhood obesity within a generation. The othermothering values and endeavors have helped establish the White House as “the People's House.”