Darfur.1

Darfur has become my cause célèbre after a great deal of research done, documentaries watched, and presentations attended. Sadly most of the damage was done several years ago at which point I did not know much about Darfur besides its name. I am already far too late to do anything meaningful to help save the people of Darfur. Most of its population has already been victimized as the West, including me, stood by. "Never Again" has become a phrase as cheap as the server space this blog post is kept on.

However, as long as a single Darfuri lives and government Antonov bombers still fly raids over what few Black African villages remain standing, we are (I am) still obligated to do something.

Reluctant as I am to lay blame, especially when Darfuris are still dying, as a blogger it is one of my responsibilities to pressure and shame more influential people into action. Apart from specialty international events journals, most of the commentary by the mainstream press has been in denial of the facts on the ground. This article from the BBC illustrates the point quite nicely.

The introductory mention of Rwanda (another personal area of interest) is the stock reaction to genocide by the conscientious Westerner. Of course, it's sadly mistaken. Plenty of powerful people opposed armed intervention. Inaction is not partisan-Bill Clinton let 800,000 Rwandans die just as easily as George Bush is letting hundreds of thousands of Darfuris die (estimates are rough, major humanitarian organizations have estimated around 400,000 dead and approximately 3 million displaced out of a total Darfuri population of about 7 million, just over half of whom are the targeted Black African tribes). Nor is inaction limited to this side of the Atlantic. French President François Mitterrand provided a steady stream of monetary and military aid to the Hutu militia-aid that was used to purchases cheap Chinese machetes by the crateful, which were then used to hack apart their victims. After the heads stopped rolling (due to the victory of Tutsi rebels), the French (under the UN) rushed in with amazing speed to set up a "safe zone" in Operation Turquoise to provide for the safety of Rwandan civilians. They managed to save some innocent Hutus who had not taken part in the slaughter, but it was also a haven for the remnants of the Hutu militia who had killed 800,000 over the past 100 days. The West has largely forgotten its role in enabling the Rwandan genocide.

I certainly credit British Foreign Secretary Milliband for his recognition of the worthlessness of the "Never Again" slogan, however, it comes too late. The genocide in Darfur has already happened and once again we are saying "Never Again".

A war between a sovereign government and a rebel group is the wrong way to characterize the conflict in Darfur. 400,000 casualties. Now if those 400,000 were all rebel soldiers, then the government would have a legitimate argument that it is trying to fight off insurrection, even if the rebels had a valid cause. Then again, if there were a rebel army of 400,000, Omar al-Bashir and his henchmen would be burning in hell right now and Sudan would be under a different regime. The reality is that the vast majority of the casualties in this "war" are civilians. Black African civilians deliberately targeted by the Arab militia. You can call it a war, but it is a war waged by a government against its defenseless citizens.

It is true that most of the deaths have already occurred. But the statement that there are far fewer deaths now than before has an obvious caveat. Go back to the previously mentioned statistics that said that 400,000 have been killed and around 3-4 million displaced. Consider the fact that just over half of the (pre-genocide) 7 million population is the targeted Black African population. Not too many Darfuris left unharmed, are there? Millions have fled to Internally Displaced Persons (IDP) camps, many more to neighboring countries. It is estimated that 90% of African villages in Darfur have been destroyed. No wonder there are less deaths. At least the government can't just level the IDP camps, as foreign aid workers are there who might get killed and cause a Western backlash. Not that the deaths of humanitarian workers (such as the attacks this week) make a difference. Spineless Western countries still will not do anything.

But what is most disconcerting about the article is the assertion that humanitarian aid has made life in Darfur "just about tolerable". That relief has been "so proficient that death rates among Darfur's children have been brought down to pre-war levels". To even suggest that life in Darfur is "just about tolerable" is an incredible injustice to the victims of this horrible disaster. Women and children in IDP camps regularly risk rape, beatings, mutilation, or death when venturing out into the desert to find water or firewood. Many children have been orphaned or separated from their families by the conflict. Disease and famine run rampant in the crowded, understaffed, and undersupplied camps. Regular Janjaweed militia attacks and painful memories keep Darfuris in a constant state of fear. Darfuris already struggle day to day in a living hell. Intervention could hardly "pave the way to a problem from hell" in Darfur.

To even suggest that humanitarian efforts have brought life in Darfur to a tolerable level is a clear path to forgetting the whole conflict. Of course humanitarian efforts should continue, but as the Sudanese government has shown us repeatedly, it is expert at kicking out (or killing) aid workers when the militia want more victims to butcher. It is not enough. Yes, millions of lives have been saved, but if you killed another million Darfuris, you could still say "millions are still alive". Let us not pretend that we have saved Darfur. And as any humanitarian worker who has been in Darfur can tell you, the symbol of the UN is not enough to protect you from marauding militiamen. Only a trained military force can do that.

The rest of the article basically outlines a potential military intervention in Darfur. The author raises some valid points that in my opinion, simply strengthen the rationale for intervention. Mr. de Waal is correct that Khartoum fears regime change or secession for Darfur. And it is exactly this fear that is the West's trump card. Omar al-Bashir saw what happened to Slobodan Milosevic, what happened to Saddamn Hussein. He may be a cruel, genocidal dictator, but he has shown us that he is not stupid when it comes to international politics. So far the West has simply sent him idle threats and International Criminal Court investigations (which Sudan is not under the jurisdiction of anyway) and al-Bashir has read our cowardice perfectly. We are cautious to invade, especially Arab nations, in the post-Iraq era. But our failure in Iraq cannot be an excuse to not intervene in Darfur. I say, out of Iraq, into Darfur! We should have seen the parallels to Rwanda as soon as the killings started.

Lest parallels to Iraq be drawn, I add that the force need not be very large. Khartoum is not stupid enough to directly oppose a modern Western military force. In 2005, a peace agreement was signed in Southern Sudan that led to a (at least in appearance) coalition government and a promised referendum on independence for Southern Sudan. All it takes is enough of a force to scare Khartoum to the negotiating table, and the killing will stop. As Mr. de Waal writes, idle threats are meaningless if not backed up by credible force. So why not actually assemble said credible force? Our problem in Iraq is that we are fighting insurgents. Our goal in Darfur is not regime change, it is just to stop the killing. If the current regime stands, a long-term occupying force is not necessary and we will not have another nation-building project on our hands.

To the worries of opposition from the Islamic world, remember that the victims of the Darfur conflict are themselves Muslims as well. Omar al-Bashir himself is not even an Arab. As long as it is made clear that we are not there to change the regime, there should be no viable arguments from the Arab world. In 1991, we attacked Iraq to get them out of Kuwait-with the support of the Arab world. Bush Sr. smartly decided not to go all the way. Who is there that will say that the Sudanese regime can stand up to the might of the Western world with its weapons aimed at it? For all our claims of superpower status, we have let such petty men as North Korea's Kim Jong-Il and Iran's Mahmoud Ahmadinejad walk all over us, flaunting their defiance of American power. America is still the most powerful nation on the planet, and we must once again put that power to use to save lives and promote peace.