Too far to care

Editorial, The Financial Times

Dec 20, 2004 — The humanitarian crisis in Sudan’s impoverished Darfur region is getting worse, not better. Yet the international community seems paralysed in its ability to stop the fighting between rebel forces, the Sudanese government and its cynically inspired surrogate forces in the bloodthirsty Janjaweed militia. More than 1.6m people have fled their land and villages out of a population of some 6m, but arms continue to pour into the region. All the combatants blithely ignore their commitment to a ceasefire.

The latest killing of two aid workers from the Save the Children Fund in a rebel ambush threatens to disrupt an international relief effort that is already desperately overstretched. The rebels have stepped up their insurgency, while the Sudan army responds by bombing rebel-held areas. No visible progress has been made in promised efforts to disarm the militia. A tiny force of soldiers from the African Union, numbering barely 900, is attempting to police a non-existent ceasefire. They need far more help to be effective.

All the worthy international rhetoric about the urgent need for action, including a resolution from the US Congress condemning the killing as genocide, has failed to galvanise a coherent effort to tackle the problem. It has been so much hot air. Although intervention by aid agencies has been partially successful in avoiding the huge humanitarian catastrophe that was predicted in the summer, the situation is spinning out of control.

Of course there are no easy solutions. “We have tried everything,” says John Danforth, the US ambassador to the United Nations. “We have tried the carrot approach. We have tried the stick approach, and we are getting nowhere.” It would take thousands of troops to enforce order in this vast territory, and no one is willing or able to send them. But more AU troops can make a difference, combined with an effective arms embargo, and far more pressure on all sides to observe the ceasefire.

The UN Security Council is putting its hopes on a different peace deal, between Khartoum and the better-organised rebels in the south. The two sides have been given until December 31 to agree, and then form a coalition government. That may help in the long run to change the mood in the country but it will not save lives in Darfur quickly enough. The US should greatly increase pressure on the Darfur rebels to stop fighting, while Sudan’s defenders in the Security Council – China, Pakistan and Algeria – must allow a proper arms embargo.

Yet most immediate should be a far more substantial effort to help the AU get its troops to the region. Some 3,500 have been promised. Double that number would be far better. But they still lack communications equipment, vehicles, aviation fuel and medical capabilities. Above all they lack money. It is time to end the rhetoric, and pay the bills.