Crisis in Sudan: Multilateralists, please step forward

If ever there were ever a humanitarian emergency begging for a multilateral, internationalist solution, the crisis in Western Sudan is it. Most of Sudan’s 38 million people already live on the ragged edge of subsistence. War now threatens to push hundreds of thousands of them over that edge into starvation.

Since early last year, Sudan’s far western province of Darfur has been wracked by fighting between tribal-based rebel groups and forces allied with the central government in Khartoum. The fighting in Darfur is actually the second civil war now underway in Sudan. The first is the long-running struggle between the Arabic/Islamic north and the African/Christian/Tribal south.

Recently, there has been encouraging progress towards a negotiated peace between Khartoum and the southern rebels of the SPLA. But warfare in the west, tragically accompanied by atrocities and destitute refugees, is creating a desperate humanitarian crisis there and could derail any peace in the south.

The four million people in Darfur are mostly subsistence farmers or nomadic herdsmen. The farmers are mostly black Africans while the nomads are mostly Arabs, but both are predominately Muslim. The area is extremely remote, with few serviceable roads and little if any transportation infrastructure. Beginning in February of 2003, two rebel groups--the SLA and the JEM--rose up to challenge domination from the Islamic fundamentalists in the capital. The regime in Khartoum chose to crush them and their supporters among the African populace, using age-old practices that today we call ethnic cleansing.

Government troops of Arab descent, accompanied by Arabic “militia groups”, have destroyed or emptied many of the African tribal villages in the Darfur. Their tactics have included indiscriminate bombings from aircraft, mass killings, rape as standard practice, and wholesale pillage. Especially brutal are the so-called “janjaweed”--roughly translated as “gunmen on horseback”. These are irregular fighters, drawn from the Arabic nomads and equipped by the government. Some are released criminals, given a horse, a weapon and license to loot--then unleashed on the populace.

The rampages of the janjaweed--supported by government forces--have already affected around a million people. Human rights monitors estimate that 750,000 people have been forced from their homes and 100,00 more have fled to the inhospitable desert in neighboring Chad. Depending on the estimate, thousands or tens of thousands have been killed already.

More alarming, the real tragedy may be about to unfold as the rainy season begins, slowing the transportation of needed food and medical supplies. Disease and starvation will rapidly spread if action is not taken quickly. Hundreds of thousands may die in the next 9 months, according to the U.S. Agency for International Development--the largest donor of food to Sudan.

On the 10th anniversary of the Rwandan genocide, you would think the United Nations would be marshaling a great international effort to prevent another calamity of genocidal proportions. Instead, while events in Darfur spin out of control, little pressure is being applied to force the Sudanese government to cease the atrocities. A ceasefire was arranged through U.N. auspices, but has been repeatedly violated.

Meanwhile, the U.N. Commission on Human Rights (UNCHR) refuses to denounce Sudan’s regime, and the U.N. actually delayed issuing a report alleging Sudan’s use of starvation as a weapon. No surprise once you realize the UNHCR includes Cuba, Saudi Arabia, and yes, Sudan--reelected to the Commission earlier this month.

So, here is a perfect opportunity for the U.N. to actually fulfill its charter and prevent another genocide in Africa, for the great multilateralists of Europe to step up on their own, and for Arab leaders to defuse a war where Muslims are killing Muslims. They each decry American “unilateralism” in the world, and withhold their full support for our efforts in Iraq and elsewhere. Now let’s see how effective they can be to stop the slaughter in Sudan.

T.T.

©2004, WestRim Digital Arts