UNsafe in Sudan

REVIEW & OUTLOOK, The Wall Street Journal

March 18, 2005 — Sudan may have disappeared from the front pages of the international press, but the suffering in Darfur is only getting worse.

Jan Egeland, the United Nations emergency relief coordinator, estimates that more than 180,000 people have died there in the last 18 months from hunger and disease alone — twice as many as he previously estimated. And that’s not counting the many more Darfurians actually murdered by the Sudanese army and Khartoum-backed Arab militias.

The situation is not only getting more perilous for the black Muslim tribes in Darfur. Those coming to their aid are now under attack as well. “There are threats by the Janjaweed militia against international staff, against foreigners and people in the service of nongovernmental organizations,” the U.N. envoy to Sudan, Jan Pronk, told the BBC. As a result, some 30 foreign U.N. staff have been withdrawn to western Darfur.

That the regime would feel so emboldened as to allow its militia to threaten U.N. officials should come as no surprise. What is there to fear from an organization that couldn’t even bring itself to call the slaughter in Darfur genocide, let alone impose sanctions on the regime? The U.N. Security Council continues to be paralyzed as China and Russia refuse to get tough with their business partners in Khartoum. Moral weakness, like military weakness, invites aggression.

That’s why the U.S. Senate’s confirmation of John Bolton (of “I don’t do carrots” fame) as the new U.S. ambassador to the U.N. cannot come quickly enough. Khartoum, after all, has proven quite responsive to sticks in the past. Sudan quickly abandoned its terror-sponsoring program in the 1990s when the international community briefly showed some teeth.

It is time for Washington to consider some real action against Sudan. Earlier this month, Sens. Sam Brownback and Jon Corzine introduced the Darfur Accountability Act, which calls for a military no-fly zone, a tight arms embargo and sanctions against members of the regime, including travel bans and asset freezes.

If even Mr. Bolton’s tough talk can’t move the U.N. in that direction, and thus save the organization from utter irrelevance, the U.S. may be tempted to look for another coalition of the willing.