Atrocities in Sudan

U.S. stake is both humane, pragmatic

Editorial, The Philadelphia Inquirer

April 27, 2004 — Remember the name Janjaweed. Hope that it doesn’t join this name in the history books: Interahamwe.

The Interahamwe was the Rwandan Hutu extremist group that, a decade ago, helped slaughter as many as one million Tutsis in 100 days. Global leaders and international agencies did little then to stop the genocide.

Now consider the situation in western Sudan’s Darfur region. The Janjaweed is a government-supported, Arab militia that, along with government fighters, is killing and terrorizing non-Arab, darker-skinned Sudanese.

To its credit, the Bush White House has been an assertive broker for ending the more than 20 years of civil war in Sudan between the north and the south. In fact, a peace pact could be agreed to in the next few weeks.

The Darfur bloodshed is threatening to undo the diplomatic progress. The killing rate has stepped up since January. This suggests that a systematic, ethnic cleansing of the non-Arab Sudanese has begun.

Averting that outcome is not just a human-rights priority. It is in U.S. national security interests. Chaotic Sudan has proved to be a congenial haven for terrorists. It remains ripe for such infiltration, not to mention ripe for continued, gross human-rights abuses against civilians.

About 10,000 civilians have been killed, some by the militia, some by aerial bombing. One million have left home to avoid killings, torchings and rapes. Another 100,000 have fled into neighboring Chad. They live in spontaneous camps without adequate shelter, health care, water or hygiene. A famine looms, aid groups warn; child malnourishment is growing.

A cease-fire has been arranged so humanitarian organizations can have safe passage, but fighting has not stopped. Militia harassment of civilians in the camps is so great that the victims are moving farther into the inhospitable desert, away from resources and away, they hope, from their tormenters, said Paula Claycomb, communications officer for UNICEF’s Sudan office in Khartoum.

The White House stood on principle in rejecting a weak United Nations resolution regarding the government’s killing spree in Darfur. The United States should keep trying for a stronger U.N. resolution – one that calls on the Sudanese government to stop recruiting the militia and start disarming it. The resolution also should insist on an investigation of human-rights abuses.

Additional pressure by the United States on Sudan could also make the Sudanese government realize its proxy militias will become a liability under intense international scrutiny. Sudanese leaders are worried that post-9/11, the United States will act forcefully against what it considers to be rogue states.

The United States considers Sudan a rogue state: In 1997, President Clinton imposed sweeping sanctions on Sudan for its state sponsorship of terrorism, its human-rights abuses, and its conduct in the civil war.

Those sanctions must not be lifted until it’s clear the Khartoum government has shed its brutal ways.