Ending the inertia on Darfur genocide

Editorial, The Star Ledger

May 10, 2005 — Jon Corzine has been a leader of the bipartisan congressional effort to push the Bush administration to take a stronger role in ending what it has called genocide in Darfur. His voice has the kind of moral outrage appealing to anyone who deplores the atrocities that have occurred with grim regularity since the world took a vow of “Never again” after World War II.

The Darfur Accountability Act grew out of that anger. Co- sponsored by Corzine and Sen. Sam Brownback (R-Kan.), it called for a military no-fly zone over Darfur and a new United Nations Security Council resolution imposing sanctions against the Sudanese government. After the measure passed the Senate as part of a supplemental appropriations bill, the Bush administration lobbied against it. The House voted it down last week.

Why not embrace legislation that pushes hard to stop the killing in Darfur? Some, including Corzine, say it’s a failure of commitment. Others see a tragedy of competing priorities. There’s truth in both views.

The administration has sent disturbingly ambivalent messages about its determination to end the genocide in Darfur. But it can’t solve Darfur on its own. For example, while a unilateral action such as sending American troops would have unassailable moral integrity, it is unlikely to garner much support from the American or international community.

Why? The fallout from Iraq is one reason. Others include fear of exacerbating anger in the Arab-Muslim world with another American invasion of a Muslim country and the real possibility that such an invasion would lead to yet another difficult, extended exercise in nation-building. There also are concerns that too harsh a stand against the Khartoum government would jeopardize an agreement ending a decades- long war between the north and south in Sudan that claimed 2 million lives.

Genocide — indeed any mass slaughter — is a crime against humanity that humanity should work together to defeat. Yet the sanctions of the Darfur Accountability Act would have put the United States in direct conflict with fellow Security Council members, including Russia and China, each of which has interests to protect in Sudan. Russia sells Sudan arms. China buys its oil. No countries are offering to join the United States in policing a no-fly zone.

That doesn’t mean the administration should retreat into passivity. Two provisions of the Darfur Accountability Act are especially worth considering. The first calls for a special envoy. The second calls for expanding the African Union’s mandate in Darfur.

U.S. advocacy in brokering the north-south agreement was powerfully effective in keeping political negotiations on track. The nation’s envoy to those negotiations, John Danforth, made sure both sides honored a ceasefire and herded them toward peace talks. A comparable special envoy for Darfur would let Khartoum and the rebels know that the United States intends to remain firmly involved.

Where African Union troops have been able to provide monitoring, they have been successful in saving lives. Those troops number only 2,300, though, in a country the size of France. By September, there are supposed to be more than 7,000 African Union troops, but it has been estimated that anywhere from 10,000 to 40,000 are needed. The United States will be spending another $50 million to support an expanded force, but the administration should lobby hard to beef up the numbers and expand the troops’ role beyond monitoring to intervention.

There has been talk of the U.N. deploying to Darfur some of the 10,000 or so peacekeeping troops being sent to monitor and enforce the north-south ceasefire. Those troops are needed where they are, but the U.N. could send more if China could be persuaded that the crisis in Darfur ultimately hurts its interests in Sudan. NATO, too, could step in if France could be convinced that NATO is not being called upon to police the world.

Corzine is justified in his anger. The creaky pace of diplomacy and half-measures is a tepid response to the magnitude of suffering in western Sudan. Darfur illustrates the frustrations and the dangers of trying to build consensus. Genocide happens, as Corzine knows, because the world allows it. That will continue until countries’ self-interest is more broadly defined so that mass murder in places like Darfur is truly seen as a crime against all.