Sudan: The calamity continues
Colin Powell and Kofi Annan try to ease the catastrophe in Darfur
KHARTOUM, July 02, 2004 (The Economist) — Looking over the calm waters of the Nile from a Khartoum café, you would not think you were in a country scourged by civil war. Seeing Arabs and black Africans rub along amicably in the city’s markets, you would not think that Sudan was the scene of horrific ethnic cleansing. But it is, which is why Colin Powell, America’s secretary of state, and Kofi Annan, the UN’s secretary-general, paid a visit this week to try to get the Sudanese government to behave less dreadfully.
Its actions in Darfur, a western region, have created arguably the worst humanitarian crisis in the world today. The Arab-dominated regime in Khartoum is fighting a revolt there by discontented blacks, and has been driving black Darfuris from the smoking remains of their homes. Most of the driving is done by a mounted militia called the janjaweed, which the government arms but pretends not to.
Some 1.2m blacks have so far fled this campaign of burning, looting and murder. American aerial photos show 576 villages in Darfur, of which 300 have been completely destroyed and 76 substantially so. Female refugees report being triumphantly told, as they were being gang-raped, that they would bear Arab babies. Having lost everything, Darfur’s fugitives face hunger and disease. Andrew Natsios of USAID predicted this week that 1m might die if help did not come fast.
Despite stringent censorship, news of the carnage in Darfur has filtered out. A few Sudanese have satellite dishes, and rumours spread fast. The government’s claim to have the situation under control was widely dismissed even before Mr Powell and Mr Annan showed up.
Without once unfurrowing his brow, Mr Powell told a press conference that, if Khartoum did not move to make Darfur safer for civilians and aid workers, the UN Security Council would take action “within days or weeks”. A leaked draft resolution called for an arms embargo and travel ban on janjaweed leaders, with an implied threat of broader sanctions if matters do not improve. Sudan’s foreign minister promised to co-operate.
The regime is feeling hemmed in. In recent years, American pressure has required it to make much-resented concessions in pursuit of peace with a different set of rebels in the south. Since last year, military successes by rebels in Darfur have made it fear that it may be losing control.
The regime has no democratic legitimacy, and harbours doubts about the loyalty of its armed forces. Some servicemen are so repelled by what they have been made to do in Darfur that they are finding ways to avoid obeying orders. One air force officer complains that he was told he would be bombing rebels, but instead saw women running out of the huts he had attacked with their robes ablaze. “I couldn’t do it any more,” he says. Opposition groups are protesting as loudly as Sudan’s oppressive laws permit. Hassan al-Turabi, an Islamist leader under house arrest, began a hunger strike this week, along with 66 of his followers.
Last week, President Omar al-Bashir claimed that conditions in camps for displaced Darfuris were better than in nearby villages. That may be true. Although the camps are damp, sordid, disease-ridden and scandalously short of food, people stay there for fear that, if they go home, they will be murdered by the janjaweed.
Does the situation qualify as genocide? Mr Powell was vague. “We see indicators and elements that would start to move you towards a genocidal conclusion, but we’re not there yet,” he said on June 29th