No blinking on Darfur
International community challenged to prevent threat of famine and near-genocide in Sudan.
The eyes of the world are on the
Darfur region in western Sudan, where an estimated 10,000 people have been killed and more than a million have left their homes, reports
China View in a comprehensive overview of the major events leading up to Sudan's Darfur crisis.The UN has described the situation as "the
worst humanitarian crisis in the world," reports the BBC. In a similar vein, the
Chicago Tribune editorialized today that "The killing taking place in Darfur, in western Sudan, has to be the
best-documented humanitarian catastrophe ever." There is a growing fear that
history may be repeating itself in the Sudan, as images from the region trigger memories of the world's inaction toward the genocide that occurred in Rwanda. A
Houston Chronicle editorial confronts this problem:
There are many explanations for the world's paralysis on Darfur. They include distraction by Iraq, leadership failure from Arab nations that could help, and reluctance to let Darfur's year-old crisis halt a new peace accord for Sudan's two-decade war between North and South. The explanation that may live in history, though, recalls Rwanda: It didn't matter enough. Current "inaction" in the light of Rwanda's history is "
inexcusable," writes the
Chcago Tribune.
The United States has been the most active nation in pressuring Sudan's government and donating tons of food for the refugees, mostly across the border in Chad.... More must be done. Economic sanctions are a start. An international military force, ideally made up of African countries, is another option. Sudan must stop supporting the Janjaweed [Arab militias terrorizing black Sudanese] and allow shipments of food and medicine to flow unimpeded to the refugee camps.
Prompting such outcries and bringing the crisis to the front pages of newspapers worldwide were the recent visits of United Nations Secretary-General Kofi Annan, and US Secretary of State Colin Powell,
who separately toured refugee sites June 30 in Sudan as part of
international fact-finding missions.
Their visits aimed to halt the suffering and violence in Darfur. Both Annan and Powel employed diplomacy, politics, and moral persuasion. "We should avoid the situations where we allow member states to
hide behind the secretary general, use him as an alibi for their own inaction," Annan told the Addis Tribune in Addis Ababa, the capital of neighboring Ethiopia. The editors of the
Daily Star in Beirut, Lebanon
picked up the gauntlet thrown down by Annan, writing:
While the United States is considering formally labeling the Darfur crisis as a genocide in progress, the world - the world beyond the Arab world that is - is justified in asking the following question: 'What are the Arabs doing about this atrocity in their own back yard?' 'The answer, of course - as usual - is nothing.' At the conclusion of this year's annual Arab League summit just a few short weeks ago, a statement was issued. On Sudan, the statement 'reaffirm(ed) ... the Arab states' solidarity with the sisterly Republic of Sudan and their keenness to preserve its territorial integrity and sovereignty and reinforce all peace initiatives started by the Sudanese government with the international and regional parties. "We are sick of vacuous statements," the
Daily Star concluded. "The time for action is now. In fact, the time for action was yesterday, last week, last month, last year, last decade." Powell's visit, reported by
The Christian Science Monitor Wednesday, highlighted the humanitarian crisis, but also fulfilled
other White House goals:
If the Bush team can bring Sudan back into the family of nations, as it did this week with Libya, it would gain a diplomatic victory for the war on terror. It could also fire up its Christian-conservative base by securing a peace deal in Sudan's other war, a 21-year conflict between the Muslims in the north and the largely Christian south. And it could keep critics from having another issue with which to pillory its foreign policy if it can prevent a repeat of Rwanda's 1994 genocide in Sudan. Elizabeth Blunt, an Africa analyst for the
BBC, sees Powell's visit as also stemming from
Sudan's place in President Bush's war against terrorism.
It has a radical Islamist government which hosted Osama Bin Laden in the early 90s; a number of attacks against US interests were planned from Sudan. Since then the Americans have worked hard at persuading Khartoum to be more co-operative. Osama Bin Laden was expelled, training camps were closed, and the US state department says Sudan has "deepened its cooperation in investigating and arresting extremists".
Colin Powell now has to tread a fine line between putting pressure on the Sudanese government over its activities in Darfur, and driving it back into the arms of America's enemies
Meanwhile, intones the
Houston Chronicle, if famine and a great human catastrophe are to be avoided, "The United States, Europe, and the Arab world
have only a few weeks to assemble food airlifts and monitor teams - and plan how to get them into Darfur if Khartoum won't help."
Also...
•
Sudan conflict: Center continues commitment to health, peace efforts (
The Carter Center)
•
France, Germany should take lead in Sudan (
Scripps Howard)
•
Sudan clears refugee camp before UN visit (
Detroit Free Press)
•
'We Want to Make a Light Baby' (
Washington Post)
•
Darfur is 'Humanitarian Catastrophe,' Powell Says (
allAfrica.com)
• Feedback appreciated. E-mail
Jim Bencivenga
.
|
RSS feed