Bonino and Shawcross on Sudan

Posted by Chris

Emma Bonino and William Shawcross describe the atrocities in Darfur, Sudan and then discuss possible reactions to it:

But the time for the international community to stand by and hope is long past. The government-supported atrocities in Darfur are too horrific and widespread to ignore.

The roaring silence from the Arab League and the Muslim world over Darfur is inexcusable. Both the Arab aggressors and the black African victims are Muslims. So one might have expected to hear something from those quarters, at least a call from the former for Arab brethren to show restraint, if not condemnation from the latter of the massacre of Muslims.

The European Union has not fared much better, offering weak words at best. A well-meaning statement by the Irish presidency of the EU last month said only that "it is essential that the Sudanese government fulfil its commitment to control the irregular armed forces known as the Janjaweed". That timid line came a week after George W. Bush said Sudan "must immediately stop local militias from committing atrocities against the local population", and also a week after Kofi Annan, United Nations secretary-general, referred to "ethnic cleansing" in Darfur and openly suggested military intervention might be required.

Europe needs to catch up quickly, acknowledge the severity of the situation in Darfur and use its weight in the UN Security Council. That weight is considerable: in addition to permanent members - France and the UK - EU member states Germany and Spain are also currently on the Security Council, as is Romania, an EU applicant. They need to push for an emergency session of the Security Council to take up the Darfur issue in a resolution, making it clear to the government of Sudan that the killing must stop, aid must be allowed to go through and displaced people permitted to return home. The Security Council should in addition authorise all measures short of force to be used against Sudan and warn Khartoum of international military intervention if it does not alter its course. Only such an ultimatum will demonstrate that the international community means it when it says "never again" - that we are not going to stand by as another mass slaughter of innocents unfolds before our eyes.

We may be too late to save Darfur's burnt villages, but we can still save hundreds of thousands of lives.

What does an "international military intervention" mean in this context, though? It can't mean U.S. involvement, as I've argued before. Will Europe threaten military action? Which countries exactly would be part of this force? Not Britain, which has its hands full. Not Germany, which doesn't go in for that sort of thing. France? Perhaps. This isn't a job for NATO, since for political reasons NATO is busy dragging its feet over Iraq, and plunging into Sudan would only make the refusal to go into Iraq more politically damaging. Other African countries? Well, this carries other risks with it. And so on, and so forth.

I do think that a lot more could be done to pressure the government of Sudan on this issue, as Bonino and Shawcross point out. But one reason that everyone is being so timid about the threat of force is that everyone knows that no one is likely to carry through on it.

Posted by Chris at May 20, 2004 04:46 PM