Darfur — “A Big Test For The Whole World”
By Edward B. Rackley, The Old Town Review
I have a personal confession: all my waking hours and weekends are consumed by the state of Darfur. It’s not because I have a terminally bleeding heart or believe, à la Dostoyevsky, that communing with the world’s pain constitutes enlightened behaviour. No, my motives are mundane by comparison. I work for a western donor government whose politicians are in a global race to see who can throw the most money at the world’s worst humanitarian crisis. My direct political boss wants the tragedy to end; he also wants to get re-elected. With any luck he’ll get both.
My role in this race is to inspect and evaluate the performance of the recipients of our donated public funds. I check on whether the NGOs and UN agencies, swallowing millions of dollars a month, are providing the best possible relief services and supplies, and whether Darfuris have enough water, food and medicine to survive their sub-human conditions. Because I’m on a team of government advisors, we try to learn what civilian atrocities are ongoing and the identity of the perpetrators. But without a reliable system of justice, such knowledge is not tantamount to power. In Darfur where impunity reigns, knowledge is crushed by power. I realize this makes me a cog in the wheels of the “international community,” for better or worse. Western critics of foreign aid-Noam Chomsky and David Rieff come to mind-win extra plaudits by railing against the international community for its nebulousness and unaccountability. But like many impressions that cohere in direct proportion to your distance from them, this one dissolves under scrutiny. Unlike Chomsky, Rieff is a globetrotter, and generally game to visit hotspots like Burundi or Bosnia during the war. Unfortunately for pundits, vacationing in a warzone, even with journalistic intent and a moral calling, is a fallible guide to the intricacies of a conflict.
To understand a place like Darfur, or an entity like the international community, is not to visit or even live a spell within its walls, but to work and toil there. By working on the ground in Darfur, and being constantly busy with Darfur at a distance, the international community has become for me as dense and palpable as a gorilla, and only slightly more nimble. So Chomskies of the world-do not unite; do us a favour and get out of the way. The international community may not bring peace to Darfur, for this is an exclusively Sudanese task, but it does work night and day to save civilian lives there.
Others will remain unconvinced. An epsiode last April gives reason to those dubious of the international commitement to save Darfur. In late April, the UN Security Council Resolutions voted to bring Khartoum officials to trial in The Hague (International Criminal Court) for civilian atrocities in Darfur. The next week, western governments met in Oslo to reward the same regime with $4.5 billion for relief and reconstruction following the North/South peace agreement signed last January, ending 21 years of civil war. A caustic headline in the insider journal Africa Confidential labelled the ill-timed coincidence “Crime and no punishment.”
The headline captured the common sentiment that war criminals were being unjustly rewarded with Western tax dollars. Yet the alternative is not a better solution: withholding aid money as punishment for the political class can kill vulnerable civilians in Darfur, who’ve already got one foot in the grave. The UNSC vote to refer war crimes and suspects to the ICC promises that perpetrators will be tried in due course. On the heels of the UN vote, donor generosity at Oslo underscored the fact that providing aid is not a de facto endorsement of a murderous regime. Clearly, other means than carrots or sticks exist to punish perpetrators. The complex reality is that foreign aid as carrot, stick, and no-strings assistance are all deployed in equal measure by the international community in its dealings with Sudan.
Carrot, stick, or cash — nobody rides for free
Critics of foreign aid come in a variety of stripes, but most fall into two camps. One supports “conditional” aid-carrots and sticks-meaning that public monies should be allocated against proof of better governance or respect for a ceasefire, etc. In the case of man-made crises like Sudan, need alone is not sufficient to warrant international aid, there must be a political outcome to be gained. Most desperately needy countries are run by sadistic, inept or corrupt regimes: the thinking here is that relief aid should not reward brutal governance but try to mold it in the donor’s image. The motto of USAID, the American foreign aid body, epitomizes this view: “foreign aid in the U.S. interests.”
The opposed camp believes that foreign aid money should flow without strings or ulterior political motive, and be accorded solely on the basis of need. It should take the form of charity, not carrot or stick. This logic recognizes that the war-affected in Darfur are not responsible for their predicament, and foreign aid can save their lives. Ireland’s foreign aid body, for instance, emphasizes in its charter that the “needs of humanity” transcend national interest-the opposite of the US position.
The aid debate aside, it’s always good policy to keep the Khartoum government guessing . In the week after the ICC vote, for instance, many feared an Iraq-style anti-western insurgency, which Khartoum was quick to manipulate to its favour. There were anti-Western riots in the capital and threats against expatriates across the country. In Darfur, aid workers were harassed and jailed, relief convoys robbed at gunpoint; an American was shot in the head but miraculously survived. Then, equally abruptly, Western donors announced an aid budget that almost doubled the Sudan government’s request for $2.6 billion in aid. Continue the anti-imperialist rants or dance with glee? Many government stooges could not decide.
Better synergy between members of the international community is desirable but unlikely. Just to convince the US not to block the ICC referral vote at the UNSC, for instance, took the UK almost six weeks of lobbying. Russia and China, deeply involved in Sudan’s arms trade and oil industries, were also convinced to abstain-an amazing feat given that China has a 40% stake in Sudan’s oilfields and Russia is thought to be Khartoum’s biggest weapons supplier.
Credibility problems
Other UNSC members voted against ICC referral out of blind loyalty to Islam (Algeria and Pakistan) or in defence of Sudan as a fellow African government (Benin, Angola). Across the UN General Assembly, scores of governments have held silence on the Darfur murders out of respect for the sovereignty of other states-the default position of any government defensive about its own abysmal human rights record.
Predictably, Khartoum has refused to cooperate with the ICC, insisting that its own courts are perfectly capable of judging those responsible for the ethnic cleansing in Darfur. Since suspected perpetrators are all members of the ruling party (National Islamic Front, NIF) or its militia proxies, this assertion is the latest in a long line of brazenly pigheaded efforts to ensure immunity for the powerful. Khartoum’s previous dismissal of violence in Darfur as “age old and tribal” and therefore unstoppable is no longer heard. Perhaps the echo was too western, as the international community used the same excuse to justify its inaction in Rwanda. Whatever their rationale, the Government of Sudan has a serious credibility problem, as Condoleeza Rice rightly informed them on her recent visit to Darfur.
But can fair play be expected from a government that decimates its citizens in Darfur while claiming respect for resource-sharing agreements (oil, mostly) with its former enemies in the South? No. Would a western government behave the same wily, duplicitous way, given the circumstances? Without a doubt. We do it every day, and pay the price: western moral authority, particularly that of the United States and Britain, is at an all-time low.
Governments under international pressure to respect human rights, such as Sudan, are finding it increasingly easy to turn the tables and justify their atrocities with precedents set by the Blair-Bush coalition. Kenneth Roth, director of Human Rights Watch, lists some recent American instances: “Whether it is Egypt defending renewal of its emergency law by reference to U.S. anti-terror legislation, Malaysia justifying administrative detention by invoking Guantánamo, Russia citing Abu Ghraib to blame abuses in Chechnya solely on low-level soldiers […], repressive governments find it easier to deflect U.S. pressure because of Washington’s own sorry post-September 11 record on human rights.” Credibility problems are a mainstay of contemporary politics.
A garden less rosy
In the early 1990s, I spent a year in rebel territory in southern Sudan working for the UN. From southerners I heard nothing but bile about Sudan’s northern Arabs and the regime in Khartoum. From rebel strongholds, the only exposure I had to Khartoum were the Antonovs and MiGs regularly dispatched to bomb villages across the south. Near the town of Nasir on the muddy Sobat river, one of these MiGs had been shot down. On days off I used to go and inspect the wreckage, walking alone with a village dog. I wondered about the city the plane had flown from, the fears and loves of the pilots who had died, what knowledge, if any, the pilots had of the people they came to bomb. Mostly I tried to imagine the calculus of war responsible for the twisted metal carcass now rusting at my feet. Was there some glimmer of rationality in it I was missing? From the banks of the Sobat, deep in Southern Sudan, Khartoum seemed a city of rabid war-mongers prone to jihadic tantrums and frenetic arms dealing, all to feed an insatiable sadism.
I continued to work in Sudan off and on over the years but never had the chance to visit Khartoum. The occasion arose in early 2005. To obtain my travel permits for Darfur, a stay in the capital was required. I expected standard fare from the sprawling city: noisy streets swarming with determined pushcarts and invalid beggars, corrupt officials and administrative dysfunction, decaying colonial buildings on every corner and an obsolete national currency in denominations all lower than $3.
But as we pulled up to the first traffic light upon leaving the airport, I began to wonder if things were different. Taxis, rickshaws, bicycles and heavy trucks all stopped to let pedestrians shuffle past. Throngs of street urchins did not materialize and engulf the car, as they do in Lagos, Nairobi, Kinshasa or Johannesburg. No begging limbs were thrust through my open passenger window. I breathed easy, my heart rate was normal: something or someone was holding back the tide of destitute poverty. Perhaps Khartoum was simply a well-run city, its standard of living exceptionally high for an African capital.
I wasn’t far off the mark. Because of oil and massive investment from China, Khartoum is a boomtown. Construction cranes are everywhere and skyscrapers are going up quickly, all with oil money. On every street, people were engaged and occupied. The adult male population did not loiter aimlessly, as in many urban African centres. Shops were open; business was brisk. Streets were clean and freshly swept-an impressive feat so close to the Sahara with its hot blowing winds and frequent sand storms.
Glyn, my colleague, and I took it all in quietly. Glyn was based in Khartoum; his family would be joining him in a matter of weeks. He had just finished a stint in Harare under Mugabe’s vigilant and paranoid one-party state, preceded by two years in Sierra Leone trying to disarm and demobilise Africa’s most vicious fighters. I broke the silence, saying that I hadn’t seen an African city organized like this since the late 1980s.
Africa for me is sub-Saharan Africa-predominantly Bantu countries having a rough time achieving modern statehood. To my mind, North Africa is a different continent altogether, a swath of middle-income Mediterranean nations, a rank to which Sudan’s Islamic regime aspires. Politically, culturally and economically unconnected to Africa below the Sahara, North Africa is where Islam meets Club Med, with ancient ruins and souks thrown in as tourist attractions. Sudan’s intrigue is that it combines the distinct Africas of North and South; its challenge is to inhabit both successfully.
Glyn shared my appraisal. As it was in Angola or is now in the DR Congo, war continues in parts of Sudan amidst a massive relief effort while calm and prosperity dominate in other regions, including the capital. My positive impressions of Khartoum faded once I arrived in Darfur and saw the cramped humiliation of the displaced camps that dotted the region, where families huddled in hopes of protection and sustenance. As ominous reminders of the devastation underway, helicopter gunships were parked at all three of Darfur’s regional airports. Should the ceasefire with Darfur rebels collapse and Khartoum’s counter-insurgency campaign return in full, civilians would again face these merciless marvels of human predation.
Despite a shaky ceasefire with rebels, civilians remain the targets of Khartoum’s proxy militias who rape, loot, and shoot with impunity. Banditry and economic survival are partial motivations, but terror as a means of emptying and occupying arable and grazing land also drives the violence. Resolution will require the restitution of land to its rightful owners via local tribal commissions. But Khartoum’s current practice of bypassing tribal commissions and unilaterally rewarding the land emptied by violence to its local stooges deepens the land-related grievances at the heart of the conflict.
Sandstorms ahead
Last week my political boss gave our team of advisors a serious dressing down. Darfur, he shouted, was “a big test for the whole of the world,” a test we were apparently failing. Little has changed in the political situation; Darfur remains a death trap for civilians. Aid agencies are stretched to their limits and yet hundreds of thousands still lack food, clean water, and shelter. We stared at the table in silence. Maybe he’s right, I thought. Maybe nothing has changed since Rwanda and the gulf between international concern and action remains as chiasmic as it ever was.
Peace in Darfur demands a political settlement between Khartoum and local rebels; this the international community cannot provide. Political will on both sides is lacking, the conflict seems destined to simmer on indefinitely. What the international community can do is better ensure the survival of innocent civilians as the political process slowly finds its feet. There are three paths that need to converge for this to happen, none of them easy.
First, improved and expanded humanitarian assistance. Donor money is available for Darfur relief efforts, but Khartoum must reign in its militias and stop obstructing aid agencies. Aid personnel are constantly harassed, arrested, even expelled from Sudan by recalcitrant officials. Without a doubt it is the most difficult working environment among the world’s large-scale relief operations. And the relief presence is enormous: over 1000 foreign aid workers with scores of agencies employing around 10,000 national staff to provide assistance for over 3.5 million war-affected and displaced in a region the size of France (but with only 6.2 million people). Unlike Rwanda, Congo or northern Uganda, no cumulative mortality figure exists for Darfur-again due to government obstruction. The UN agency charged with conducting mortality surveys has had members of its staff detained, physically intimidated, and expelled from the country by Khartoum officials.
Official obstruction and harassment is one obstacle to effective aid, the other is rampant insecurity. Despite the scale of the humanitarian presence, relief operations are largely confined to the safety of urban centres. Rural banditry and violent ambush deter regular food deliveries to outlying areas. Local trucking companies hired by the UN to move the food have lost so many drivers and trucks to murder and theft that many now refuse to lease their vehicles. With the current planting season missed because of violence-related immobility, widespread famine is expected by late 2005.
Second, a rapid and dramatic increase in the number of African Union peacekeepers. The African Union is a new institution with few resources and no experience of peacekeeping or military operations of the scale required. It currently has nearly 2500 troops on the ground, which is far too few. With recently pledged NATO support, it will scale up to 7500 by September and to 12,000 by Spring 2006. Most observers doubt this is possible given meagre AU resources and, even if so, claim it is still not fast enough to bring protection to Darfur civilians.
The AU mandate is to “monitor and verify” ceasefire breaches and unlawful violence against civilians. It is the duty of the government to protect civilians, a responsibility it shows no capacity or will to fulfil. Many Darfur advocates are pushing for a tougher, more trigger-happy mandate for the AU troops. This is unnecessary and undesirable for two reasons. First, a tougher mandate sends the wrong message that the onus is off the government to disarm militias and defend civilians. Proactive disarmament of militias by outside forces will trigger a new theatre of conflict, pitting peacekeepers against militias and their government backers. Longterm protection for civilians ultimately rests with political negotiations, due to recommence in June, not in peace enforcement. Second, although the current AU presence is too insignificant to deter targeted attacks, where present they provide an effective buffer for civilians. AU opposition to augmenting its troops with non-Africans, as in the Nuba Mountains and the South, should be re-considered. The AU target number of 12,000 for 2006 is too little too late. 30-40,000 troops by late 2005 is the minimum required given the vastness of Darfur.
Third, end impunity for Darfur’s killers. The Security Council’s vote to refer war crimes and suspects to the ICC is welcome, but government intransigence and sabotage is just around the corner. The UN and donor countries need to think hard about how they will tackle this impasse, which may rouse significant popular opposition (and violence) against foreigners in Sudan. Human rights groups argue that the prospect of justice is the best deterrent against further violence in Darfur, but this is a platitude. As in Iraq or Somalia, Sudanese would readily take to the streets in defence of their government if they felt it was unjustly accused or attacked, and Khartoum is a master manipulator of public opinion. Constant and relentless international pressure on the government is essential.
Edward B. Rackley received his doctorate in philosophy from New School University, and works as a consultant to international agencies operating in conflict and post-conflict contexts, primarily in Africa. His writing has appeared in the Christian Science Monitor and Multitudes, a Parisian journal.