Disturbing evidence, much of it arriving in the past two days,
suggests that the situation is about to change very rapidly in Darfur
and neighboring Chad. Our coalition should be ready to respond to the
issues that we can expect to come to a head in coming weeks. I want to
put out some ideas that might be helpful.
First, security has plummeted in Darfur, and the ethnic cleansing
has extended into eastern Chad, with Janjaweed militias attacking
non-Arab villages. The French have suddenly kicked out UN agencies such
as UNHCR and NGOs that were sheltering at their military base in Abeche,
in eastern Chad, so these organizations have had to withdraw to
N'Djamena, the capital of Chad, too far away to function efficiently as
a staging area for food deliveries. The rebels have seized abandoned
trucks full of food, and especially as the rebel factions continue to
fight among themselves, the possibility of getting food and water to
Darfurian and Chadian refugees and IDPs on both sides of the border
become more dismal by the hour.
So what do we do?
Based on interviews I had last week with Alex de Waal and Samantha
Power, when I was wearing my journalistic hat, one thing I believe we
should NOT do is give in to the cry we are going to hear directed at the
Bush administration to resort to the so-called "Plan B," if this
so-called plan involves military force launched on grounds that Khartoum
cannot be persuaded to accept a robust AU/UN peacekeeping force.
Why do I say that?
Because, for starters, most people don't realize how numerous the
Janjaweed are. The Janjaweed number 20,000-30,000, according to de Waal,
who was a key member of the negotiation team last spring in Abuja.
You've got another 40,000 regular Sudanese Army forces. Throw in several
thousand Chadian rebels and various factions of Darfurian rebels, and
you've got an ugly mess that could occupy 200,000 peacekeepers.
Moreover, peacekeepers can only keep a peace. They can't effectively
wage war and they cannot substitute for a political agreement.
Militarily, the hard fact is that the AU and UN are going to find it
difficult to ramp up the 20,000 or 27,000 peacekeepers that are now
being suggested.
In short, paradoxical as it sounds, we do need the "permission," in
some sense, of the genocidaires. As Samantha Power told me last week,
there is simply no middle courses between a non-consensual force, i.e.
war, and a peacekeeping mission. You can't introduce a non-consensual
force without it quickly becoming a war - a war that will be seen in a
Jihadistic light by many Islamacists around the world, and a war that
would vastly exacerbate the suffering of Darfurian civilians caught in
the middle. So let's not delude ourselves about the military option.
We should urge our own government to take far more assertive
diplomatic steps, and spend what little remaining diplomatic capital it
has, workling with the Chinese and with the Sudanese government itself,
to see that stability in the region is in everybody's interests.
We can also write the embassies of China, Russia, and India, who
have deep commercial interests in the region - chiefly weapons and oil.
We can make our presence and our opinions known to them. We can also
urge the case, both to them and to our own Congressional
representatives, for targeted sanctions that would freeze the overseas
assets of the perpetrators of this slaughter. It is the one thing they
fear, and the Bush administration has dropped it, along with almost any
references to capital markets, in the perinneally wishful "band-aid" of
the Darfur Peace and Accountability Act.
Most definitely we shold NOT settle for the false choice of
continued anemic and empty diplomatic efforts, on the one hand, and war
on the other. That is a false choice that only muddies the clear need
for a vital and far-ranging diplomatic initiative coupled with targeted
sanctions and a call for callibrated international embargos on Sudanese
trade.
Those are more realistic "sticks" than anything anything the U.S.
has offered, beyond its usual empty bluster.
As for "carrots," I would like to propose the establishment of a
billion-dollar fund aimed at aiding Darfurian refugees in the longer
term. Call it a Victims Assistance Fund, or something catchier. It could
be used for drilling water wells, providing clinics and schools, and
helping to acquire land for resettling those Darfuris who have been
displaced, as well as corridors for nomadic herd movements - all of it
aimed at reducing the tensions that contributed to this conflict in the
first place. It could be funded partly by the U.S. Government, partly
from private donors (including the oil companies that would so like to
eventually join in Sudan's oil wealth but who are constrained by the
existing commercial sanctions); it could come from other national
governments and entities with an interest in the stability of the
region. Perhaps this idea will catch the imagination of someone out
there in the greater informal coalition that links all our efforts. Good
protocols would have to be found to administer it in a way that reflects
local wisdom and the real needs, both "Arab" and "African." But there
are models, if we look around.
Khartoum, we all know, is a tough case. President Omar Bashir's
recent claim that there were only something like 9,000 deaths would be
laughable, were it not so grim. But our government seems hardly to have
explored what common ground surely exists among the players in this
region - again, especially China.
As the present crisis deepens - and it will, terribly in coming
weeks - we need to hold our leaders' feet to the fire: our President,
our representatives in the House and Senate, and also the editors of
newspapers and others who shape public opinnion.
We demand a serious peace effort, involving both carrots and
sticks, and it should begin NOW.
David Morse
For talking points, listen to the interview with Alex de Waal. The interview with Samantha Power will be
available in another few days. Transcripts will also be posted, courtesy
of Dori Smith of Talk Nation. Other material will follow.