Darfur: Mirror on Ugly World

Like almost all Americans, I’m no expert on the Sudan. In recent weeks, I’ve tried to come up to speed, with little authoritative results. Like many of the world’s trouble spots, there’s overlays from centuries of history and politics guaranteed to confuse anyone without a current agenda’s filter.

One doesn’t need to be an “expert” on all the ins and outs of Sudanese history or politics to apply the most important filter. There can simply be no tolerance for genocide. And, anyone or state that seeks to explain away or excuse genocide under any guise is expressly complicit.

The Chicago Tribune’s wrap-up (free registration) describes how President Bush – almost alone among world leaders -- has kept his eye on this central issue, although more need be done.

Bush said he would call for world action on Darfur during a three-day trip to New York for the opening of the General Assembly's annual session, where he plans to meet with Annan and several heads of state, including Chirac.

Last week, Bush expressed frustration that the world body hadn't taken a firmer stance toward Sudan.

"I have said, and this government has said, there's genocide taking place in the Sudan," Bush said during a White House Rose Garden news conference. "The problem is that the United Nations hasn't acted."

The conflict in Darfur, an arid region in western Sudan with an estimated population of about 6 million, has pitted black African rebel groups against the mainly Arab central government and a government-backed militia called the janjaweed.

Fighting has escalated in recent weeks in northern Darfur, with government planes bombing rebels and civilians.

Estimates of the death toll have varied widely because the government has restricted access to the region.

In a new study in the journal Science, two researchers say the conflict probably resulted in as many as 255,000 deaths as of last September.

With the passage of another year, and counting 60,000 more who are listed as missing and presumed dead, the Darfur death count probably is nearing 400,000, according to John Hagan, a Northwestern University sociologist and co-author of the study, "Death in Darfur."

Violence is responsible for about a third of the deaths, said Hagan, who worked with University of Wisconsin demographer Alberto Palloni. The remainder was caused by disease and malnutrition among the uprooted population of black Africans, many of whom have fled to neighboring Chad.

Up to 3 million residents of the region have become refugees, Hagan estimates.

"It's important to have a sense of scale," Hagan said. "It's important to have a distinction between tens of thousands or hundreds of thousands if you're going to get people thinking about this as genocide and pursuing this as a case of genocide."

Human-rights activists have applauded the Bush administration for taking the lead in trying to arouse an international response to the Darfur crisis, but they say the White House could do more, such as appointing a special envoy to focus on the issue. Former Sen. George Mitchell worked toward peace in Northern Ireland, and former Sen. John Danforth crafted a peace agreement between the northern and southern Sudanese factions to end a bloody civil war.

Other steps that the U.S. or the UN could take to put pressure on the Sudanese government include implementing a no-fly zone over Darfur, freezing the assets of Sudanese leaders and imposing travel bans on them.

But ultimately the key to ending the conflict lies in persuading Khartoum to accept the peacekeeping force. And that means enlisting the support of China, Sudan's largest oil customer.

"There has yet to be a genuine international effort to cajole, entice, pressure Sudan to accept a peacekeeping force," said Lee Feinstein of the Council on Foreign Relations.

"If China were to say, `You've got to do this,' they would begin to think twice about resisting."

President Bush has indicated he’s tiring of obstruction and obfuscation by other nations.

”What you’ll hear is, well, the government of Sudan must invite the United Nations in for us to act,” Bush said [last Friday]. “Well, there are other alternatives, like passing a U.N. resolution saying we’re coming in with a U.N. force in order to save lives.”

President Bush emphasized his frustration:

But Bush, bringing up the subject as an example of general frustration with the world body, appeared angry that “the United Nations hasn’t acted” on Darfur and wants to see a “more robust effort. His comments suggested the possibility of a new, tougher resolution that would explicitly bypass approval from the Sudanese government….”Now is the time for the U.N. to act.”

CNS reports the 118 nations of the Nonaligned Movement (NAM) meeting last week, supposed to represent the views of developing states, of which African ones certainly lead the list, devoted just 8-lines to Darfur in their 40,000-word final declaration:

Despite the international focus of attention on the humanitarian crisis in western Sudan – Sunday was a global day of action for Darfur – just eight lines of the declaration dealt with the conflict there.

They made no reference to U.N. attempts to send peacekeepers to Darfur – a move Khartoum is resisting – but expressed support for Sudan’s “efforts to sustain and reinforce peace.”…

By contrast, the document gave six pages to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and another two pages to the recent Israel-Hizballah conflict and Israel’s presence on the “occupied Syrian Golan.”…

Suggestions include allowing two-thirds of the [U.N.] General Assembly to override a [U.N. Security Council] veto decision. NAM’s members account for 60 percent of the U.N.’s 192 member states.

Non-intervention by outside states or alliances, regardless of the extent of calamities inflicted on their peoples, is paramount to NAM, as its petty potentates protect their power instead of their responsibility to uplift their populations’ welfare.

Perhaps, Bush’s insistence and a modicum of embarrassment at the moral emptiness at the U.N.’s core has led Secretary-General Kofi Annan, recently returned from the NAM meeting in Havana, to urge “the body’s recently formed Human Rights Council to focus on Sudan’s Darfur region with the same intensity it has been giving the Middle East.” Annan emphasized the “importance of universality, objectivity and non-selectivity and of eliminating double standards and politicization.” Annan’s words are welcome, but appear forked as one considers his record of just such swaying in the wind from NAM members.

The horror in Darfur is a mirror reflecting most countries’ ugly, inescapable demonstration of unconcern for outright mass slaughter, and instead focus on ways to further it for their own benefits and corrupt regimes’ entrenchment.