Sudan: time running out

Leader, The Scotsman

June 10, 2004 — SPEAKING after his return from the Sudan, Hilary Benn, the Secretary for International Development, deemed the situation unfolding in that country the largest humanitarian crisis in the world. At least 10,000 people – some estimates are much higher – have been killed in the Darfur region of Western Sudan since a campaign of ethnic cleansing began last year, and more than one million have been forced to flee their homes. “We are in a race against time in Darfur,” said Mr Benn. He went on to criticise the adequacy and speed of the United Nations’ response. Seasonal rains have now begun to fall, which will soon make Darfur (an area the size of France) virtually impassable. As a result, one senior aid worker has warned that another 300,000 people will probably starve even if help is sent immediately.

The root cause of this tragedy is man-made: inter-ethnic and religious conflict between the Arab Muslim north of the country and the black African west and south. The Arab Muslim regime in Khartoum has been fighting a civil war with the black Christian south for a generation, resulting in more than two million deaths.

At stake is control of Sudan’s oil wealth. Political and economic exhaustion on both sides has recently produced a truce that might lead to partition and a sharing of the oil.

However, a second conflict has intensified in Darfur, in the west of the country, between the Arabs and blacks, who are in fact mostly Muslim rather than Christian. The cause here is racial antagonism and the fight for land, which caused black Africans to take up arms in protest at oppression by Sudan’s Arab elite in Khartoum. In return, Khartoum has provided arms for vicious Arab local militia to kick out the blacks to neighbouring Chad, with a little help from Khartoum’s air force.

So far, the UN has been loath to become involved in a major way, partly because the Arab states are unwilling to interfere with a fellow regime, and partly because the United States and Britain are bogged down in Iraq and so are in a difficult position when it comes to mobilising action against yet another Arab country. This impasse is compounded by the bizarre fact that Sudan now sits on the UN Human Rights Commission. As a result, Sudan is the crisis that has been forgotten – until only a few weeks ago, when the sheer scale of the humanitarian crisis could no longer be ignored. What needs to be done?

In the first place, food, shelter and medicine have to be provided – rain or no rain. Britain has made a good start, and some UN aid is at last arriving, but more has to be done. With the Iraq resolution through the Security Council, the decks are clear to get the UN focused on Darfur. The barrier is less the climate or the geography than the continuing resistance of Khartoum to let aid into Darfur, or to let the black refugees return to their villages. The Security Council has to apply pressure here, including the threat of economic sanctions. There is also a case for the West to ensure that neighbouring Chad is helped in discouraging further military activity by Arab militants operating out of the Sudan, especially as the latter are often supporters of Osama bin Laden (who used to be based in the country).

That might get the attention of Khartoum, which often responds only when it is pushed hard.