No solution over Darfur crisis
By Chege Mbitiru, The Nation
July 2, 2007 — Two new would-be saviours of the people of Darfur rocketed into the diplomatic scene a week ago. They are France and China. The French capital, Paris, became the launching pad.
Representatives of 18 countries gathered there at the invitation of Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner. The agenda was-once more-to find a solution to the conflict in Darfur. None popped.
Some key players, Sudan and the African Union, for example, stayed put. The media explained their absence incoherently. They were invited, uninvited, declined, felt slighted, etceteras. Talk of confusion. Nonetheless, their presence would have mattered.
The conflict began in 2003 and estimates of the dead go up to 200,000 and the displaced to 2.5 million. Darfur’s devastation is now available on Google Earth.
The United States has remained the most hawkish over President Omar el-Bashir’s handling of the Darfur conflict. That’s not due to President George W. Bush’s love for Darfurians. Groups ranging from money people to the pious and principled enticed the Texan to throw around his country’s might, this time for an honest cause. France remained lukewarm all along. This is despite spillover of the Darfurian conflict into neighbouring Chad, a country of seemingly over-baked Gallic descendants. Anyway, conflicts in non-former French colonies hardly stir Gallic souls.
China, or rather a re-fashioned Middle Kingdom, practices a silk policy to exploit Africa-sooth the natives, extract resources and ensure enough generosity to hoodwink them.
Therefore, to Beijing the bloodbath in Darfur remained unworthy of a silk complaint to el-Bashir. Implicitly though China opposed punitive measures against Khartoum over Darfur. However, recent developments have forced France and China to change course.
Taking pot shots
Uppity Nicolas Sarkozy assumed the French presidency, succeeding sulky Jacques Chirac. The former president loved taking pot shots at the sole super power, the US, and rubbed fellow Europeans the wrong way. He loathed France being a smaller hound in the hunting pack. It seems being so doesn’t bother Sarkozy.
Writing in the Christian Science Monitor, Robert Marquand said Mr Sarkozy “wants his nation back on the diplomatic map.” What’s a better start than embracing one of today’s cause célébré, also dear to Bush’s political heart? Voila! US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice praised France’s “energizing role” on Darfur.
On its part, China woke up to a deteriorating image problem. The country lives a political lie, a communist-ruled nation that wallows in capitalist greed. The momentum is slow, but calls for a boycott of the Beijing Olympics over China’s stinky human rights record, exploitation of hard wood in South East Asia and silence over Darfur’s bloodletting are in the air.
Marquand quoted Francois Heinsbourg, a strategic studies expert, as saying, “Beijing can see their role in Darfur is harming their reputation, and they have wised up.” Let’s save face!
Strategic studies
The talks in Paris aimed at boosting the proposed hybrid of African Union and UN peacekeeping force of some 20,000. However, despite all the international pressure on Al-Bashir at the UN and his acceptance of the plan, the UN force remains a mirage.
Nonetheless, some countries at the Paris talks tangibly backed their rhetoric. France sugared its discovery of Darfur with a $13.46 million pledge. The European Union put up $42 million. Spain, forever burying the Conquistadores’ legacy, offered $13.4.
In Darfur, the United Nations Mission reported continued attacks on humanitarian missions.
It seems nobody counts Darfurian dead anymore. Ms Rice cautioned those present in Paris of el-Bashir’s flip-flops on agreements.
She obviously knew, for now, the winners in Paris: France, China and, by acquiring new allies, the US. Darfurians wait and die.