Playing politics with genocide

Review & Outlook, The Wall Street Journal

Feb 3, 2005 — When the United Nations released its report on the atrocities in Sudan ‘s western region of Darfur Monday, the legal minds of that body absolved the regime in Khartoum of genocide by distinguishing between massacres with and without intention to destroy in whole or in part a population group. Supposedly, Khartoum’s assault on the black Muslims of Darfur was of the latter variant.

Of course, the investigators couldn’t rule out “genocidal intent” among some individuals but generally “it would seem that those who planned and organized attacks on villages pursued the intent to drive the victims from their homes, primarily for purposes of counter-insurgency warfare,” the report concluded.

The Arab rulers in Khartoum have been waging an almost constant war against their own population since independence 50 years ago, killing more than two million Christians and animists in the south. It thus comes as a shock to see the U.N. blandly accepting Khartoum’s line about “counter-insurgency warfare.” Even more so because just last year, the same U.N. described the “counter-insurgency” as the result of “a strategy of systematic and deliberate starvation,” which sounds like genocide to us.

Sudan ‘s scorched-earth policy in Darfur has already killed at least 70,000 and forced two million people to flee their homes. Were it not for the assistance of international aid donors, chiefly American, the death toll would already be much higher.

What do these semantics matter, some may ask, as the same report does acknowledge that “crimes against humanity” are taking place in Darfur and recommends that “action be taken urgently to end these violations.” Well, this legal hair-splitting was done for a reason. Those propagating “multilateralism” always want to ensure that they act in accordance with “international law.” No matter how morally repugnant the policy actually is, as long as it conforms with the consensus interpretation of an international treaty, the multilateralists can still claim the moral high ground.

This brings us to the Genocide Convention, which in theory obliges signatories to take action to stop genocides. Ten years ago, the Clinton administration, whose departure multilateralists around the world still bemoan, explicitly forbade its staff to use the “g” word in reference to Rwanda. Why? Simply so that when they didn’t lift a finger to stop the mass murder there they didn’t formally violate the convention or international law.

The Bush administration, which has been fighting a lonely battle on the Security Council to get some tougher action against Sudan , no doubt hoped that its branding of the atrocities in Darfur as genocide would help rally the “international community” to some form of action. But any hope for sanctions or an arms embargo against Sudan has so far been blocked by China and Russia, respectively Sudan ‘s biggest oil investor and arms supplier. France, whose Total oil company sits on the most promising Sudanese oil field, also has no appetite for sanctions.

Against the opposition of these veto-wielding U.N. Security Council members no “legal” action to stop the horror can be taken. More importantly, it remains absolutely within international law to continue drilling for oil in Sudan , thus filling the war chests of the butchers in Khartoum, who just the other week bombed civilians with Russian-made Antonov planes, killing and wounding about 100 people.

But Europe has an idea. Led by France, it is backing a recommendation in the U.N. report that the situation be referred to the International Criminal Court, knowing full well that the ICC is anathema to the Bush administration. The U.S. opposed the treaty that created the ICC because it didn’t trust the U.N. with the sweeping powers the court would have, a distrust that seems justified by the nearby report by Paul Volcker on the Oil-for-Food scandal. The U.N. recommendation cleverly puts the U.S. in the uncomfortable situation of either giving legitimacy to a court it politically rejects or siding with a country like China against the referral to the ICC — and thus standing accused of denying justice to the Darfurian victims.

This comes even though the U.S. has done more than any other country to try to help the Darfurians. Washington correctly wants war crimes tribunals limited in scope as has been the case with the ones in The Hague specifically focused on the Balkans. It proposes a temporary U.N. African Union court set up in Arusha, Tanzania, to deal with the outrages of Sudan ‘s leaders and would probably be willing to foot most of the bill.

The brouhaha about the proper court for Sudanese war criminals has completely overshadowed the really important issue: how to help the Darfurians. Few of the legal eagles seem to realize the absurdity of discussing the trial before anything has actually been done to stop the atrocities. Washington’s renewed calls for sanctions and an arms embargo receive little attention while heated discussions are taking place about the Bush administration’s “unilateralist” rejection of the ICC.

Those who always insist on some “diplomatic” solution and thus reject tougher actions failed to answer why the Sudanese government should be willing to change its behavior if its critics can’t agree on a punishment. In a just world, the first action would be to stop the crime, then apprehend the guilty and try them. The idea of invoking the ICC while the Security Council is deadlocked and the killings continue unabated cannot be taken seriously. It’s a phony debate, designed to embarrass the U.S. instead of helping the people in Darfur, and should be exposed as such.