Darfur

“…there must be real pressure placed on the Sudanese government. We know from past experience that it will take a great deal to get them to do the right thing…The U.N. Security Council should impose tough sanctions on the Khartoum government immediately.”

“I am deeply concerned by reports that the Bush Administration is negotiating a normalization of relations with the Government of Sudan…This reckless and cynical initiative would reward a regime in Khartoum that has a record of failing to live up to its commitments…”

First, some background. Sudan’s population is mixed between those of Arab descent (the ruling group) and black Africans. The conflict in Darfur, Sudan, an area in Western Sudan roughly the size of France, began in February 2003 when the Sudan Liberation Army and Justice and Equality Movement in Darfur took up arms against the government, accusing it of oppressing black African Sudanese in favor of Arab Sudanese. After initial direct attacks on Darfurians by government forces, the Sudanese military recruited the Janjaweed, a militia group comprised primarily of nomads.

The Sudanese government has been accused of tampering with evidence, such as covering up the existence of mass graves, arresting and harassing journalists and humanitarian workers.

The United States government has described the conflict in Darfur as genocide, but so far the United Nations has stopped short of this characterization, even though in a report issued in 2005, the U.N. recognized the Sudanese government’s history of atrocities in Darfur, including mass murders, aerial bombing of civilians and widespread rapes.

There are various estimates on the number of human casualties, but the consensus numbers are at least 400,000 killed and 2 million people displaced and living in refugee camps in conditions that are quite literally hellishly overcrowded and rife with disease.

In late 2006, the United Nations Security Council approved a resolution calling for a 26,000-troop UN peacekeeping force to supplement a poorly-funded and ill-equipped African Union force. In response, the Sudanese government launched a major offensive in Darfur the very next day. In 2007, the UN mission in Darfur accused Sudan’s government of orchestrating and active participation in “gross violations” and called for international action to protect civilians there.

In mid-2008, the International Criminal Court (ICC) in The Hague filed ten charges of war crimes against Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir. These charges included three counts of genocide, five of crimes against humanity, and two of murder. ICC prosecutors claimed that al-Bashir "masterminded and implemented a plan to destroy in substantial part" three tribal groups in Darfur because of their ethnicity. On 4 March, 2009, the ICC issued an arrest warrant for president al-Bashir, though he has never been arrested or delivered to the court.

The two 2008 quotes from then-Senator Barack Obama noted above were meant to show that he was concerned about what was happening in the Darfur region of Sudan. Within the past two weeks, however, the Obama State Department has taken initial steps to normalize relations with the Government of Sudan, the very thing candidate Obama seemed to deplore in the campaign. What exactly will comprise the political and economic “menu of incentives and disincentives” the Obama Administration has in mind isn’t known. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton has said that the menu on offer is a “classified annex to our strategy.”

The “tough sanctions” championed by candidate Obama seem to have morphed into a vague promise of improved relations only on indications of, “whether or not progress is being made.” Really tough; this is certain to make the government of Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir shake with fear.

This may surprise you, but I agree fully with the statements of candidate Obama. President al-Bashir has for years made small concessions to the international community in order to stay in power. Given what is happening in Darfur, this is unacceptable. Working in concert with the international community, we should now bring real pressure to bear on the Sudanese government. They will not change until the international community puts substantial overt pressure on them.

Is the conflict in Darfur a threat to our national security interests? Not directly; but it is certainly not in the interests of the United States for genocide to be occurring anywhere on the planet. It is morally repugnant and must not be tolerated in the 21st Century.

What can the United States do? In conjunction with our fellow UN Security Council members, we must develop a list of conditions, metrics and timetables that the Sudanese government must meet. The list will not be negotiated with the Sudanese; it will be imposed by the UN. This will not be easy, but it must be done.

Security Council member China, for one, has to be convinced. China has growing interests in Africa as a source for oil and other natural resources, and is generally reluctant to pressure other governments on human rights policies for fear of being criticized itself. Still, we need China to make this work – Russia too – so our diplomats need to earn their pay and convince China and Russia that it is in their interests to work with the world community on stopping the abuses in Darfur.

In my view, sanctions should be immediately imposed and loosened only once Sudan has shown progress toward the conditions the international community sets for Darfur. If they backtrack, sanctions must immediately be re-imposed. This is the exact opposite of what the Obama Administration has concluded. Here are three immediate sanctions I advocate:

1. Impose a no-fly zone over Darfur. This could be patrolled by an international force consisting of NATO, African Union, and the forces of any other nation willing to take on this responsibility.

2. Privately make it clear to President al-Bashir that the member states of the UN Security Council hold him personally responsible for the actions of his forces and militias, and that if the genocide continues and the situation on-the-ground doesn’t measurably improve in one month’s time, he will be forcibly removed from office and taken for trial before the international Criminal Court in The Hague.

3. A more robust international force to monitor the situation in Darfur, assist with the delivery of humanitarian supplies and repel any attacks on civilians in Darfur. Our troops are busy enough, but we could still provide training, communications and logistics support. The U.S. is beginning the process of standing up our Africa Command (Africom), and the use of African Union and other forces from the region to assist in Darfur under our supervision would help us to assess potential partners. Help in monitoring the situation in Darfur could result in increased U.S. support to their military forces going forward.

Candidate Obama was right. It’s my hope that President Obama’s engagement strategy turns out to be more robust than it presently appears or there will be hundreds of thousands of more people from Darfur killed or displaced.