Beyond Darfur: Borders, the Janjaweed and the Al-Bashir Two-Step
By Robert Jason Huf*
August 1, 2007 — Over a year and a half ago, the author advocated the relaxation of U.S. sanctions against Sudan, such sanctions resulting from Sudan being listed by the U.S. Department of State (USDOS) as a state-sponsor of terrorism.
While some within the U.S. Department of State and the intelligence community publicly assert that Sudan has been very helpful in countering terrorism, the easing of U.S. sanctions has become a political impossibility for the foreseeable future. Further, President Bush’s decision taken on May 29, 2007, to impose fresh sanctions and to stiffen the enforcement of long-standing sanctions was unavoidable, and the application of new sanctions by the international community has become more likely than not.
The reason for Sudan remaining on the USDOS’s list of state-sponsors of terrorism, the new sanctions imposed by the U.S., and the likelihood of fresh sanctions imposed by the international community is, of course, the same: No country that calls itself “civilized” can allow its commercial interests to do business in a state whose government is actively engaged in genocide.
Genocide and terrorism are entirely different animals altogether. Nevertheless, the genocide in Darfur keeps Sudan on the USDOS’s list and will result in the U.S. supporting and, eventually, helping to enforce U.N. sanctions against Khartoum.
Upon achieving peace with the southern rebels (a peace his 1996 coup delayed by roughly ten years), Sudani President Field Marshall Omar Hassan El-Bashir looked at a window of opportunity to become something rare in Africa – a statesman – and willfully ignored it. Instead, he chose to become something very common in Africa: yet another mediocre, blood-soaked dictator who relies on corruption and brute force to maintain power for the sole purpose of lining his pockets.
Every glimmer of hope is accompanied by appalling setbacks. Peace with the southern rebels, resumption of mutual and direct relations with the U.S., an about-face on terrorism, the development of energy resources and booming growth in the capital have been overshadowed by the indiscriminate rape, murder and displacement of a population several times the size of the population of Philadelphia.
In addition to inexcusable genocide, El-Bashir’s government (or, more accurately, his cabal of thugs) have criminalized political dissent, arrested journalists, raised corruption to a whole new level and littered the political landscape with a myriad of broken promises – some of them on subjects serious enough to threaten the new and fragile peace recently crafted in the southern and eastern regions of the country (such as Khartoum’s delay tactics in living up to its obligation to share of oil revenues with the regional government in Juba – a promise critical to the feasibility of peace between Khartoum and the former southern rebels).
In short, every step forward is followed by two steps backward. Its an old dance relied upon by dictators past and present that El-Bashir has reinvented and made his own: The El-Bashir Two-Step.
With the stark exception of the broken lives left in his horrendous wake, El-Bashir has effectively danced his way into near irrelevancy. With semi-autonomy in the southern and eastern regions, and his determination to destroy Darfur betraying the ineffectiveness of his writ in the western region, El-Bashir’s governance of the country has reduced him, in real terms, to being the President of Khartoum.
This is of no concern to El-Bashir and his cronies, just as sanctions against that country amount to nothing more than a statement of disgust with the genocide perpetrated by his regime. El-Bashir has all he desires from his position.
The Chinese, using slave labor, have provided his government with a pipeline and other necessary means to exploit Sudan’s energy resources, making the country Africa’s third-largest oil producer. This, naturally, has El-Bashir poised to become one of the wealthiest individuals on earth.
Nor will his military position weaken, as the Chinese and Russians will continue to eagerly sell weapons and other military supplies to the El-Bashir regime. In fact, in some instances, the proverbial middleman was cut out altogether with China – Sudan’s biggest oil customer – trading weapons for oil in some transactions, rather than paying with cash.
It appears that the only point of real pressure that might be applied to El-Bashir on behalf of the inhabitants of Darfur is not in Khartoum, Washington, New York or London, but Beijing.
Threatening to embarrass the communist government there by boycotting the Olympic Games to be held in Beijing may be the only way to convince El-Bashir to refrain from further atrocities in Darfur, as the Chinese are the only ones with sufficient leverage over Khartoum to coerce such a change. However, this is a temporary tool at best: once a decision to boycott is made, or once the games are held, this tool (the threat of a boycott) no longer exists.
The effectiveness of this threat is limited even now by economic realities. Sudani oil is playing a significant role in the rapid growth of China’s industrial economy. The threat of even an Olympic-sized embarrassment may not be enough for China to squander any of its recently obtained, but rapidly deepening, influence in Khartoum.
China is the single most influential foreign power in today’s Khartoum. But, why risk damaging a good relationship that works for both parties over the issue of who will, and who might not, participate in an over-glorified track meet?
China’s recent grumblings to Khartoum over Darfur and accompanying assurances to the U.S., U.K. and U.N. (basically, all of the “U”s) appear to resemble a delay tactic rather than real pressure. That may well be the best the world, and the people of Darfur, get out of China on the issue of El-Bashir’s tyranny.
The limited effectiveness of such a boycott, combined with the other important issues and interests at stake between the “U”s and China, make the boycotting of the Beijing Olympics unlikely.
So, what now? People are dying by the thousands. Period. The largest country in Africa is still being mismanaged by a corrupt tyrant and is slowly coming apart at its ethnic seams (which, in turn, will lead to new bloodshed). Period. There is precious little the “U”s can do about it aside from forcefully deposing El-Bashir and his thugs. Period.
And, the use of force is unlikely. With immediate threats to the security of the Western powers in Iraq, Iran and other locales throughout the Middle East and central Asia, the use of force by the West (with its collective military power already stretched thin) in a country where no imminent threat to national security exists, and where the local government is actually cooperative in countering terrorism, is simply impractical, counterproductive and, therefore, unrealistic.
Even if such an intervention were deemed to be wise, too large a percentage of Western populations have already signaled their lack of willpower in meeting murderers head-on and stopping them in their tracks. Even when vital national security interests are at stake, such as in Iraq and Iran, the lack of political will necessary to support the confrontation of terror is shamefully made evident by loud calls for withdrawal – calls made without any thought to the consequences of such a failure.
If the U.S. Congress does not have the stomach to do what is necessary to defeat terrorists in the central front in the War against Terror, they certainly aren’t going to risk American lives – or, God forbid, a dip in their poll numbers – for the nameless, faceless victims of Darfur.
No, if there’s any killing to be done, it will continue to be performed by El-Bashir’s military, his insidious Janjaweed militias and the disunified, unorganized, short-sighted rebel leaders of Darfur.
Such killers are the rule in Sudan, not the exception. In over fifty years of independence, the people of Sudan have enjoyed only a few years of peace. This is because Sudan is an unnatural country, its borders being the product of negotiations between 19th Century European powers whose chief concern was how to divide colonial Africa between themselves.
Eventually, Anglo-Egyptian Sudan was transformed into The Sudan. However, after Sudan’s independence, the changes stopped: A country, whose borders included peoples that traditionally did not get along with each other, was left to govern itself even though the people living there had no experience at such.
Rather than shedding the colonial borders and partitioning the country further along tribal lines, and rather than deciding to remain unified by working together, the Sudani people took the worst possible course of action: A united country that fervently maintained its historical tribal differences and rivalries.
The result has been one bloodstained strongman after another, with each being removed involuntarily by his successor – sometimes feet first.
The same fate probably awaits El-Bashir. Sudan’s artificially created (and, mysteriously unalterable) borders, combined with the Sudani people’s stubborn insistence on clinging to tribal and religious hatreds and refusal to look ahead and move forward, make Sudan a preordained and self-perpetuating killing field.
The genocide will continue, until there is no one left to kill in Darfur. Then, another outbreak of violence will take hold elsewhere in Sudan. Such is the sad fate of this country. Its not a fate that the recently-vaunted U.N. peacekeepers can alter.
And, although the regime in Khartoum has recently signaled a willingness to accept peacekeepers, it is probable that this is yet another delay tactic, and that the actual presence of over 20,000 peacekeepers in Darfur will not become a physical reality until El-Bashir is satisfied that the region has been successfully reduced. At that point, aid workers will be more necessary than peacekeepers. In any event, even if El-Bashir really does relent and actually cooperates in accordance with this new agreement, the U.N. will probably be as effective in Darfur as it has been everywhere else in the world (with the exception of pint-sized East Timor).
When one examines the U.N’s track record, the typical results are “temporary” refugee camps that turn into permanent homes for poor souls who spend the rest of their existences collecting a meager subsistence administered by corrupt and inept socialists entrenched in the U.N.’s bureaucracy and distributed by saintly aid workers who spend half of their time explaining why the rice hasn’t yet arrived and the other half 4-wheeling in the dessert for recreation.
Instead, the killing will stop when the forces that do the killing exhaust themselves, and/or when the Sudani people decide that this really isn’t the kind of government they deserve. After the killing ends, what will happen next?
At present, the focus of the War against Terrorism is, quite rightly, the Middle East. But, as this war is fought, we should not blind ourselves to emerging “next generation” terrorist conflicts. Africa is fertile ground for such a phenomenon: Most of its people are desperately poor, even though most of the countries on the continent are resource-rich; its leaders regularly rape (both economically and physically) the lands under their rule; and, the rule of these leaders is maintained with an iron fist. Education is nearly non-existent in most places, and ethnic and religious disputes are almost always resolved by violence.
When one looks to Africa for an example of an emerging “next generation” breeding ground for terrorists, they need look no farther than its largest country, Sudan.
Current problems are not properly solved today, they are solved yesterday. For a change, let us start thinking of tomorrow’s disaster right now. Let us consider, as one example of potential future disasters in the complex conundrum of Sudan, the infamous Janjaweed.
Presently, everyone – including El-Bashir – should be concerned about the future of the Janjaweed. When their role in the current genocide expires, what will become of them? Will they be satisfied with the livestock stolen from their victims and simply return to their nomadic way of life, or will they want their “just reward” for doing El-Bashir’s dirty work?
The Janjaweed militias will have battle experience, a taste for blood and a determination to collect the spoils of their conquest. They are not likely to be satisfied with what they are offered. El-Bashir’s now-famous delay-tactics are borne largely out of his greed and rapaciousness. And, even if he were the Santa Claus of Africa, the Janjaweed-types are never satisfied with the “reward” offered. Never.
Like the old Afghan Mujaheddin of the 1980’s, they will be disappointed that the fellow who once held the leash has decided to ignore them. Remember, El-Bashir has his reasons for using them, but they have their reasons for being willing to be used. Rather than going from an important weapon against the enemies of their ally and sponsor, back to being unimportant nomads who wander around the most arid areas of the country, the Janjaweed will seek to increase their “importance”. They will look for their next “mission” – and, they’ll find it.
Whether responsibility will rest with the Janjaweed or one of the many other groups in Sudan with an axe to grind, do not be surprised when bombs start going off in the new, 5-star hotels being built in Khartoum.
That is how it will start. Or, better put, that’s when the West will first notice the development of terrorist groups developing in Sudan.
Sanctions, Olympic boycotts, U.N. peacekeepers, “No-Fly Zones”, covert operations, even overt military intervention, would all make fine statements about where the international community stands on El-Bashir’s reckless barbarism, and may even succeed in ending the genocide in Darfur.
But, Darfur and El-Bashir himself are only symptoms. None of the above addresses the sources of Sudan’s many problems. Whatever the U.S., the other “U”s and the international community as a whole decide to do about today’s symptoms, we must include in our analysis ways to address tomorrow’s symptoms and the dynamics that exist at the source of Sudan’s problems, making her a tortured and, in many ways, failed state, as well as a breeding ground for tomorrow’s terrorists.
In the interim, the establishment of fresh sanctions and the more stringent enforcement of already existing sanctions was inevitable, and is just the start. Even though the best method for engendering broad-based freedom and prosperity that uplifts the general population, rather than enriching a powerful few, may be trade with the Western economies and the exchange of ideas that comes with such, the severity of sanctions and other measures will continue to increase because that is really all the “U”s have remaining to express their revulsion with the mass murder, rape and displacement of so many.
Of course, El-Bashir will not allow U.N. peacekeepers into the Sudan in exchange for lifting the sanctions until the genocide in Darfur has been completed to his satisfaction – he has no real reason to do so. He will continue with his delay tactics: promising statements followed by contrary actions and omissions. Until a more comprehensive approach is developed by the “U”s, El-Bashir need only continue to dance the El-Bashir Two-Step, with China supplying the music.
In summary, the West’s expressions of disgust will become more severe, and so will Sudan’s problems. Over time, the never-ending cycle of morally repugnant actions and reactions that have turned Sudan into a self-perpetuating killing field will evolve into a real and grave threat to national security.
Those who fret over Iraq and demand our withdrawal (defeat) there, who insist that Al-Qaeda is the only enemy we have in this war, and who think that the War against Terrorism should have been over yesterday should take note: Thirty years from now, long after OBL is an irrelevant corpse, the center point of the War against Terrorism will be Africa, with the main theaters of warfare being Sudan and Nigeria. Given our lack of foresight and resolve in the conduct of this war, such is inevitable.
* Mr. Huf holds a BA in International Politics from The Pennsylvania State University and a JD from Hofstra University School of Law. He has worked for law firms in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia and Abu Dhabi, UAE. He also serves as an Adjunct Professor at Penn State University’s Abington College, where he teaches a course on the Politics of Terrorism. He can be reached at [email protected]