Thursday, July 15, 2004
Darfur and America's Global Responsibility
The continuing tragedy of Darfur represents a challenge to American foreign and defense policy that cannot be long deferred.
As most readers are aware, the story is this. The Darfur Province of western Sudan is inhabited by a number of Muslim ethnic groups. In very general terms, the problem of the area has been that the nomadic herdsmen in the drier north have developed increasingly hostile relations with the farmers of the south. This has been exacerbated by population pressures and lack of sufficient moisture. On the political side, the larger farming community has felt neglected by the government. This feeling, as well as the knowledge of the relative success of the non-Muslim insurgency in the south, has led to the development of an independence movement in the province. Failing to put this down with government troops, the government enlisted the support of the "janjaweed", mounted ruffians recruited among the nomads, to solve their problem by driving the farmers out of the country. Together, the army and the janjaweed have succeeded in driving hundreds of thousands, if not millions, off their farms and into refugee camps near Darfur cities and across the border in Chad. Hundred of villages may have been destroyed, with the houses burned and the livestock killed. In many villages the men have been killed and the women raped before being driven out. The evidence suggests an even worse campaign than the ethnic cleansing that occurred in parts of Bosnia.
At present, the chance of hundreds of thousands of additional deaths results from the inability of the international community to reach many of the displaced before they starve or die of disease. This inability is due to terrible roads and lack of cooperation, particularly by the Sudanese government, as well as by inadequate international response. In addition, in spite of many promises, the government seems both unwilling and unable to control the janjaweed. Cleansing is apparently continuing; certainly no one is being resettled back in their former communities.
Our commitments in Iraq and Afghanistan seem to rule out any major effort, such as that which occurred in Kosovo in defense of Albanians. The size of the problem also rules out an international effort such as saved the much smaller population of East Timor. Higher on the American national and even world security agenda must be the problem of North Korea, a country that one could say treats its whole population the way Sudan treats the people of Darfur — and in addition is somewhere between knowing how to make nuclear weapons and having them. In addition, Africa is ablaze with similar problems, although at present on a smaller scale. We have only to mention the ungovernable regions of the eastern Congo and Somalia.
If the international community gets its act together, and the United States must be a major actor here, we could pour a great deal more international assistance into the area and more quickly. This would greatly reduce the immediate suffering of over one million. However, this worthwhile rescue operation is not going to prove to the Sudanese and the international community that no government in the modern world can with impunity attack and destroy peoples within or without their boundaries.
Ideally, we would work out an agreement to mount another Kosovo operation, this time with a capable international force on the ground in support of an aerial offensive. Our argument in the Security Council would be that the developed world must prove to Africans that we value African lives and rights just as much as we value European or Indonesian. It would also be based on the experience that the Sudanese government is simply not a reliable partner for a long-term relief effort. Our goals here must be much more modest than in Iraq: no talk of instituting democracy, but rather of establishing a functioning society able to support itself with long-term international aid.
The likelihood the United States would undertake such a program is quite low. It would first require a commitment to spend a great deal more worldwide than we have been willing to do on both our military capacity and our foreign assistance programs. Intervention in the Sudan is not a program for budget cutters. It would also require that major American leaders, such as John Kerry, seriously address the issue. The popular response to such a proposal would be that we were taking on another entangling obligation at a time when we are just emerging (hopefully) from Iraq and Afghanistan, and still face the challenges of North Korea and global terrorism. Many Americans are familiar with the Sudan because of its problems in the south. But here American support was fueled largely by the fact that many southern rebels were Christians. Support for Muslims in the west could undercut what many believe is a growing acceptance by both sides of peace in the south — another reason for hesitancy.
To turn this policy stance around for Darfur and the Darfurs of the future, we badly need a long-term educational campaign in this country that teaches the importance of accepting the burden of responsibility that rests on the shoulders of the most powerful people in the world. At this moment in history, we do have unrivaled power and great wealth. But our people have still not accepted the fact that this places obligations on all Americans to play a leading role in the establishment of an international order that serves the interests of all peoples.
The continuing tragedy of Darfur represents a challenge to American foreign and defense policy that cannot be long deferred.
As most readers are aware, the story is this. The Darfur Province of western Sudan is inhabited by a number of Muslim ethnic groups. In very general terms, the problem of the area has been that the nomadic herdsmen in the drier north have developed increasingly hostile relations with the farmers of the south. This has been exacerbated by population pressures and lack of sufficient moisture. On the political side, the larger farming community has felt neglected by the government. This feeling, as well as the knowledge of the relative success of the non-Muslim insurgency in the south, has led to the development of an independence movement in the province. Failing to put this down with government troops, the government enlisted the support of the "janjaweed", mounted ruffians recruited among the nomads, to solve their problem by driving the farmers out of the country. Together, the army and the janjaweed have succeeded in driving hundreds of thousands, if not millions, off their farms and into refugee camps near Darfur cities and across the border in Chad. Hundred of villages may have been destroyed, with the houses burned and the livestock killed. In many villages the men have been killed and the women raped before being driven out. The evidence suggests an even worse campaign than the ethnic cleansing that occurred in parts of Bosnia.
At present, the chance of hundreds of thousands of additional deaths results from the inability of the international community to reach many of the displaced before they starve or die of disease. This inability is due to terrible roads and lack of cooperation, particularly by the Sudanese government, as well as by inadequate international response. In addition, in spite of many promises, the government seems both unwilling and unable to control the janjaweed. Cleansing is apparently continuing; certainly no one is being resettled back in their former communities.
Our commitments in Iraq and Afghanistan seem to rule out any major effort, such as that which occurred in Kosovo in defense of Albanians. The size of the problem also rules out an international effort such as saved the much smaller population of East Timor. Higher on the American national and even world security agenda must be the problem of North Korea, a country that one could say treats its whole population the way Sudan treats the people of Darfur — and in addition is somewhere between knowing how to make nuclear weapons and having them. In addition, Africa is ablaze with similar problems, although at present on a smaller scale. We have only to mention the ungovernable regions of the eastern Congo and Somalia.
If the international community gets its act together, and the United States must be a major actor here, we could pour a great deal more international assistance into the area and more quickly. This would greatly reduce the immediate suffering of over one million. However, this worthwhile rescue operation is not going to prove to the Sudanese and the international community that no government in the modern world can with impunity attack and destroy peoples within or without their boundaries.
Ideally, we would work out an agreement to mount another Kosovo operation, this time with a capable international force on the ground in support of an aerial offensive. Our argument in the Security Council would be that the developed world must prove to Africans that we value African lives and rights just as much as we value European or Indonesian. It would also be based on the experience that the Sudanese government is simply not a reliable partner for a long-term relief effort. Our goals here must be much more modest than in Iraq: no talk of instituting democracy, but rather of establishing a functioning society able to support itself with long-term international aid.
The likelihood the United States would undertake such a program is quite low. It would first require a commitment to spend a great deal more worldwide than we have been willing to do on both our military capacity and our foreign assistance programs. Intervention in the Sudan is not a program for budget cutters. It would also require that major American leaders, such as John Kerry, seriously address the issue. The popular response to such a proposal would be that we were taking on another entangling obligation at a time when we are just emerging (hopefully) from Iraq and Afghanistan, and still face the challenges of North Korea and global terrorism. Many Americans are familiar with the Sudan because of its problems in the south. But here American support was fueled largely by the fact that many southern rebels were Christians. Support for Muslims in the west could undercut what many believe is a growing acceptance by both sides of peace in the south — another reason for hesitancy.
To turn this policy stance around for Darfur and the Darfurs of the future, we badly need a long-term educational campaign in this country that teaches the importance of accepting the burden of responsibility that rests on the shoulders of the most powerful people in the world. At this moment in history, we do have unrivaled power and great wealth. But our people have still not accepted the fact that this places obligations on all Americans to play a leading role in the establishment of an international order that serves the interests of all peoples.
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