Genocide in Darfur

Genocide continues:

Eric Umansky: Never Say Never Again: Darfur's nightmare was always bound to end in some way. It could end in a peace agreement... or through the intervention of a strong peacekeeping force.... Or it could end with the civilian population of Darfur being mostly wiped out, either killed or starved or driven into permanent exile. The United States gave the first possibility its best shot last year, and failed; it is now calling, more than a little ineffectually, for the second. But the third is more likely at this point....

How can one government, ruling a weak and deeply divided country, wield such authority? Because it is not isolated.... China has evidently placed its UN Security Council veto at Khartoum's disposal... but China would not so exert itself about a conflict in Africa.... The fact is that Sudan, a member of the Arab League, has the unquestioning support of the [Arab] League and of every Arab government for anything it chooses to do in Darfur. The same governments and Arab media that wail piteously about the suffering of Arabs at the hands of Westerners and Israelis are fine with genocide sponsored by an Arab government.

That is the root of the matter; that is why Khartoum is able to call on China.... The government responsible for genocide knows, as Beijing does as well, that in standing up for murdering large numbers of Africans it will be seen in Arab countries as standing up for Arab dignity. Arab voices outside of government seem to know it too.... The whole situation has grim implications for the Mideast democratization strategy so beloved of President Bush -- how does it help us or anyone else if people tolerant of genocide get to vote in free elections?

That aside, though, now would be a good time to decide if we mean to let Sudan complete its final solution to the Darfur problem without doing anything at all. The least that ought to be done is to push the Anglo-American resolution calling for a UN peacekeeping force in Darfur to a vote in the Security Council. If China and the Arab governments are going to come out in support of mass murder and gang rape as weapons of warfare they might as well be forced to do so in the plain light of day.

After the Rwandan genocide of 1994 any number of people in Europe and America promised each other "never again." Well, "again" has happened at least three times since; a government-imposed famine in North Korea in the late 1990s and the maelstrom that has enveloped Congo for the last several years were the first two. Darfur is the third.... [S]o little effort has been made to isolate a government recklessly pursuing a vicious policy....

Perhaps a more forceful Western effort in the Security Council will accomplish no more than putting genocide's enablers on record. That's not much, but it's not nothing, and we'll never know if more is possible if the effort is not made.

JEB

Comments

[Sonia]

What is Al Jerza showing? At least making a fuss might bring the tragedy in Darfur to wider world attention. Perhaps such attention would reveal the hypocrisy of many critics of the United States and Israel who fail to criticise actions taken by Arab countries and citizens. Not to say that criticism of US and Israel is without merit.

[ned]

Keith, your passion seems to have gotten in the way of your mind. Are you saying that the Sudanese government and its proxies are not committing genocide in the Darfur region of the Sudan? Are you supporting this genocide, as it appears from your post?

[Chris]

One of the benefits of the moral high ground that we used to care about claiming was that we could say to other countries, "Hey, just because you *can* do that, doesn't mean you should - look at all the things we *can* do, but don't."

Not to mention the ever-popular argument we used to be able to win: "You can't just spread violence among non-believers, assaulting and killing people who aren't like you!" / "Why not? You do."

[robert the red]

Why don't we at least arm the Darfur-onians? A pile of AK-47s and ammo and people able to shoot them might diminish the eagerness of some of the Janjaweed.

[dsquared]

Robert: the Darfuris are actually not only rather well-armed, they are formed into (currently) three organised militias (two nationalist and one Islamist) and they were indeed well-armed enough to have believed that they could initiate hostilities against the Khartoum government, which was how this conflict started.

Brad, this is coming from the pen of Eric Reeves, who is a supporter of Southern Sudanese separatists and is thus apparently prepared to spout the most unbelievable rubbish if he thinks it will aid the cause of getting a foreign force to remove the Khartoum government (the point that this would leave Sudan with all the worst features of Iraq, Congo and Somalia has been put to him on occasion but he doesn't seem to care).

The phrase "to let Sudan complete its final solution to the Darfur problem" is quite awesomely disgusting and stupid. The operation to which Reeves is referring is an attack on SLA-Wahid positions in North Darfur. The Wahid faction of the SLA has refused to sign the Darfur Peace Agreement and is currently hiding in North Darfur, forcibly press-ganging Darfuris into its army (Reeves denies this) and firing on UN aid vehicles (Reeves not only denies this but tries to pretend that aid is not going to North Darfur because Khartoum is trying to starve it to death, in the face of the UN's own statements). I don't know why Reeves has chosen to be a partisan of the Wahid faction, but that is what he is; meanwhile SLA-Minnawi and the JEM are currently at uneasy peace with Khartoum, with the result that the violence is coming to an end in West and South Darfur. "The genocide" does not continue.

[Rich Gibson]

dsquared...

Are you trying to quote out of context here, where you wrote:

'The phrase "to let Sudan complete its final solution to the Darfur problem" is quite awesomely disgusting and stupid.'

The sentence in the article is:
"That aside, though, now would be a good time to decide if we mean to let Sudan complete its final solution to the Darfur problem without doing anything at all."

Which is not 'disgusting' nor 'stupid' but rather the assertion that Sudan is engaging in this systematic killing of people based on their race, religion, or ethnicity (not that we would call that 'the genocide') and we should decide if we are going to do anything about it.

[Chuckles]

The only things stupid and disgusting on this thread are the comments of DSquared. Uneasy peace with Khartoum? How absurd! The reality is that Reeves (and anyone else) is quite justified in supporting the Southern Sudanese separatists. Contrary to the idea that Darfur started this - this entire fiasco has been stagemanaged and planned by the Khartoum government. The Darfuris did not start this. Not only are the Darfuris rather measly armed; the idea that Sudan will be left with the worst features of Congo, Somalia and Iraq should a foreign government remove Khartoum is completely idiotic. What, pray tell, is the current situation? The genocide is in fact continuing apace - and the only partisan here is the shill for Islamic terrorism - Dsquared.
As Wole Soyinka - who has been involved, AFAIK, intimately with the situation on ground for extensive periods - noted at Cambridge a couple of months ago; this is nothing but a campaign to change the demography of the Sudan to suit Islamist tastes.

http://www.democracynow.org/article.pl?sid=06/04/18/1358206

http://www.booktv.org/PublicLives/index.asp?segID=7044&schedID=428

But of course, people like DSquared, in their overwrought, kneejerk antiwar pose will do nothing but twiddle their thumbs as entire peoples are destroyed on the altar of race and religion.

[Jon Fernquest]

Isn't slinging mud each other a little counterproductive? These all seem like valid points:

"The Wahid faction of the SLA has refused to sign the Darfur Peace Agreement and is currently hiding in North Darfur, forcibly press-ganging Darfuris into its army (Reeves denies this) and firing on UN aid vehicles (Reeves not only denies this but tries to pretend that aid is not going to North Darfur because Khartoum is trying to starve it to death, in the face of the UN's own statements). I don't know why Reeves has chosen to be a partisan of the Wahid faction, but that is what he is; meanwhile SLA-Minnawi and the JEM are currently at uneasy peace with Khartoum, with the result that the violence is coming to an end in West and South Darfur. 'The genocide' does not continue."

Obviously, first priority is to avoid genocide, but does that require proactive regime change?

Seems like they should be working on more accurate methods of monitoring casualty rates. Why the huge disparities? Are they going to intervene irrespective of sovereignty issues when casualty rates go beyond acceptable limits? Might that imply "empire" in the sense of Niall Ferguson's "Colossus" if Khartoum is not willing to accept UN forces?

Difficult choices, it seems, might as well acknowledge such, and draw out the implications of different historical trajectories in a calm, rational fashion.

[dsquared]

Chuckles, nobody other than yourself has ever claimed that the conflict in Darfur was started by anyone other than the SLA.

Rich: it's not out of context. The context is that someone is trying to claim that there is something going on in Darfur right now which is meaningfully comparable to the extermination of Jews in Nazi Germany, and that's not true (furthermore, the person writing it knows it's not true).

The problem here is that there is blame on both sides at present, as Jan Egelund said in a very sensible interview with Radio 4 last night. Khartoum are raising silly objections to a UN force. However, this has to be set against the fact that the actual violence at present is being carried out by the anti-government forces (particularly, by Reeves' mates in SLA/Nur). The majority of the murders and rapes are occurring in and around the refugee camps in rebel-controlled territory. I find it quite hard to take seriously someone like Reeves who throws around accusations of genocide against one side without even mentioning the other.

[Chuckles]

Wrong, wrong, wrong.

I'd like to seem some evidence that the SLA initiated the present hostilities in the Sudan pls - cause thats BS.
Furthermore, there is some kind of doublespeak at work here: The article mentions Rwanda, mentions Congo - and all DSquared sees is - oh! someone is trying to make a comparison to the genocide in Nazi Germany - like 6 million Darfuris have to die before someone bombs the hell out of Khartoum. The point of the article is simple: By pointing to previous examples, in Rwanda, Congo and others - where the global community has failed its most basic moral principles - we see parrallels with the situation going on right now in the Sudan.
And it simply is not true that the SLA is currently the perpetrator of violence around refugee camps. If that is in fact the case, I'd like to see some evidence for the claim.
To claim that the SLA is equally guilty of genocide - as an other side in this fiasco - is just absurd! Yes, DSquared, you are quoting out of context. No one is saying this is Nazi Germany in Sudan - but a whole lot of people are saying that the MO is the same. People are being exterminated because of race and religion. Its the same MO. No one should blame Darfuris or Southern Sudanese for responding with violence.
Finally - hows this for contradiction - you claim, in the 2nd post, that the SLA is guilty of genocide - yet, in the 1st, you claim that there is an uneasy peace and that the genocide is not continuing. So which is it?

[dsquared]

I have not, in fact, claimed that the SLA (or any of its factions) is guilty of genocide.

The relevant Wikipedia page has a clear timeline:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Darfur_conflict

in which the conventional start of the conflict is identified as a rebel attack on a garrison (Alex de Waal and Julie Flint identify the start of the conflict earlier but nobody else does).

This Human Rights Watch report

http://www.hrw.org/backgrounder/africa/chad0606/4.htm

is the first result on a google search for "sla violence refugee camps". I don't see how anyone who was interested in keeping up with events in Darfur could possibly claim that the SLA did not carry out violence within refugee camps.

[Chuckles]

RE: Dodge #1
[...I find it quite hard to take seriously someone like Reeves who throws around accusations of genocide against one side without even mentioning the other...]

Pray tell - what is the above supposed to mean exactly? Or is this just another example of shades of grey blending into black completely? I suppose I am missing the nuance and subtlety in that there statement of yours above...

RE: Dodge #2
[...I don't see how anyone who was interested in keeping up with events in Darfur could possibly claim that the SLA did not carry out violence within refugee camps...]

The claim is not that the SLA *did not* carry out violence. In my post, I referred to *current perpetrators* in response to this claim of yours:

[...However, this has to be set against the fact that the actual violence at present is being carried out by the anti-government forces (particularly, by Reeves' mates in SLA/Nur)...]

So in fact, you have not provided evidence that the SLA is the current perpetrator of violence (and in context, you actually meant that it is presently the sole agency of violence in the region)
Certainly the SLA has carried out violent attacks - and violence amongst the refugees themselves should not be unexpected; indeed, violence from UN forces against the Darfur refugees should not be unexpected, if we have learned anything from Congo.
However, the current violence around the refugee camps is clearly a work of the Khartoum forces and the Janjaweed.

As countless recent reports continue to indicate, the rape and violence is a form of ethnic cleansing and genocide:

August 24:
http://allafrica.com/stories/200608240406.html

While Amnesty International acknowledges that the trajectory of the conflict includes historical violence by all parties; it lays the current predicament solely at the doorstep of the Khartoum government and the Janjaweed:

http://www.amnestyusa.org/countries/sudan/document.do?id=ENGUSA20060827001

http://www.amnestyusa.org/countries/sudan/summary.do

RE: Dodge #3

[...in which the conventional start of the conflict is identified as a rebel attack on a garrison...]

Assuming I accepted this conventional start in ignorance of the historical current - you would still be wrong. This is from Wikipedia:

[...when a group calling itself the Darfur Liberation Front (DLF)...]

This is your claim DSquared:

[...Chuckles, nobody other than yourself has ever claimed that the conflict in Darfur was started by anyone other than the SLA...]

So tell me, since when did the DLF becomes the SLA? I notice you carefully assimilated the SLA into the mere notion of rebel, so you could make your point - but sorry - that deception aint gonna fly. The fact is that the DLF was a seccessionist movement which later devolved into a non seccessionist SLA / M. Your deceptive use of labels knows no bounds. The SLA *is not* responsible for beginning the Darfur conflict.

I think it is pretty much clear that you have no interest in the truth with regards to this issue.