Tears in the Darfur dust: Sudan backed by Arabs, Beijing
UNITED NATIONS — Warning that a yet wider humanitarian disaster looms in the Darfur region of the Sudan, UN Secretary General Kofi Annan has again implored the international community and the Sudanese rulers to take urgent steps to resolve the crisis. Recalling the 1994 genocide in Rwanda where nearly a million people died, Annan stated that Darfur is headed for a disaster unless the Sudanese government changes its stand and allows a United Nations peacekeeping force to take over from the existing African Union monitors.
The Darfur crisis is compelling. For the past few years, the Sudan’s predominantly Arab Muslim leadership has been carrying out genocide against rural black Muslims in the arid region. Para-military Janjaweed militia have done the dirty work for the Khartoum rulers.
So now there’s a UN mandate, a mission, and a frightful humanitarian need in Darfur. Jan Egeland USG For Humanitarian Affairs warns of a “man-made catastrophe of an unprecedented scale” looming within weeks unless something is done to stop the spiraling violence and internal displacement of residents. In three years of ethnic fighting, 200,000 people have been killed and at least two million driven from their homes.
This tragedy has transfixed the international community with horror but somehow the UN remains powerless to act. The Bush Administration has been a strong advocate of humanitarian intervention to defend the Darfur civilians. U.S. Ambassador to the UN John Bolton hosted a special meeting in the Security Council where film star George Clooney warned that Darfur represents the “first genocide of the 21st century, and if it continues unchecked, it will not be the last.”
A few weeks ago, the Security Council passed a tough American and British sponsored resolution which would deploy a 20,000 member peacekeeping force to the troubled region to replace an African Union mission now being phased out. The force which would constitute 17,300 troops and a further 3,300 civilian police would deploy by October. The force would have tough rules of engagement under the UN Chapter VII . The units would augment a UN mission already in Sudan (but not Darfur) since last year.
Minor problem. Sudan’s intransigent Islamic regime is not budging on the idea of “foreign forces” coming in to monitor its alleged ethnic cleansing, and there are few countries lining up to even participate in a mission which has been in the planning stages for over a year. In the meantime, Sudan is sending regular military units to Darfur to replace the African Union troop phase out.
With UN peacekeeping stretched thin (recall it’s the individual member states which must voluntarily contribute to a specific mission) the thin blue line is stretched to breaking point. It’s difficult enough to muster military forces for the far higher profile south Lebanon operation and ongoing commitments in the Congo and West Africa. Stated bluntly even if the thugs running the Sudan were to give the green light to the UN blue helmets, there’s a real likelihood that there would even be sufficient troop contributors to provide credible boots on the ground in Darfur.
An obvious question arises. Where does Sudan one of Africa’s poorest countries, get the diplomatic clout to block humanitarian aid and world outrage in the midst of a widely acknowledged crisis? The easy answer is support in the Arab world which while uncomfortable with many of the tactics of the Khartoum rulers, often view the issue as Western- inspired interference in an brother Islamic country.
Another compelling reason remains black gold, Oil! And here the People’s Republic of China just coincidently happens to be one of Sudan’s major partners in petroleum exploration and imports 7 percent of its oil from Sudan. In other words, Khartoum can rest assured of Beijing’s support and veto in the UN Security Council. This provides the Khartoum rulers with a political platinum plan for stonewalling.
Still even if there is some sort of a deal allowing a more limited UN deployment in Darfur, the 20,000 blue helmets go to a territory physically as large as France with few passable roads and rudimentary communications. Monitoring the nearly two million displaced persons would be one thing but being able to provide wider security in such a vast region becomes near impossible.
The reconvened session of the UN General Assembly will make its compassionate pleas for action, the global outrage over the ongoing carnage grows, but despite these humanitarian concerns, the cries of the displaced civilians in Darfur remain merely tears in the dust, until such time that a protective force enters the embattled region .
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