Enough talk on Darfur

Editorial, The Newsday

July 22, 2005 — The government of Sudan deserves some praise for ending its ruinous North-South civil war and cooperating in the war on terror. But it also deserves strong condemnation for its complicity in the violence wracking the troubled province of Darfur, where a humanitarian crisis has turned into a catastrophe.

In her tense visit to Sudan this week, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice dealt with Khartoum’s new coalition government’s achievements and failures fairly and firmly. She balanced praise and pressure with a high degree of diplomatic finesse, even after Sudanese security roughed up U.S. officials and journalists in her delegation over their questions on Darfur, an incident that prompted an official apology.

Rice acknowledged that Sudan, once a terrorism sponsor, is a far better place today than it had been for decades, or even since her predecessor, Colin Powell, visited it 13 months ago. Sudan now has an elected national unity government that has become a useful ally in the U.S. fight against global terrorism, has increased its flow of oil substantially and, above all, is consolidating the peace deal ending Africa’s longest civil war. The war pitted the Arab government in Khartoum against black Christian and animist rebels in the south and cost millions of lives. Today, a former rebel leader is vice president and the new constitution protects religious and political rights for all groups. In that sense, Rice’s visit was a signal that the United States cautiously welcomes Sudan back into the civilized world.

But on Darfur, Rice was unsparing, and rightly so. Visiting a refugee camp, Rice called the crisis in Darfur, where 180,000 have died since 2003, a “genocide,” the same word Powell used in his visit. And she warned that she wants “actions, not words” from Khartoum on dealing with the situation in Darfur. The State Department has found that the Sudanese government, after promising to quell the violence in Darfur , is still paying salaries to leaders of Arab militias known as Janjaweed that continue to attack and kill black civilians. The leverage Rice has on Khartoum are strict sanctions that, if lifted, would allow Sudan to improve its decrepit infrastructure. But, first, she says she wants to see Khartoum live up to the peace deal it signed on Darfur. On that, she must stay tough.