A Life-Long Supply of Genocide

After the attempted extermination of the Jews during the Holocaust, political, religious, and civic leaders around the world proclaimed a new mantra of “never again.”  Yet, “never again” apparently didn’t apply to the estimated 1.7 million Cambodians slaughtered by the Khmer Rough between 1975-1979; or the thousands of Bosnians, mainly Muslims, killed between 1992 and 1995; or the almost 900,000 people, predominately Tutsis, who were massacred in Rwanda in the span of a mere 100 days in 1994.
        
This brings us to Sudan, a country in Northeastern Africa larger than a quarter of the United States.  The conflict in the Darfur region of Western Sudan, deemed a genocide by the U.S. government over two years ago is another example of the emptiness of the phrase “never again.”  The Janjaweed, Arab militia groups funded and supported by the Sudanese government, have run rampant through Darfur, slaughtering and raping black Africans and pillaging through their villages for at least the past three years.  The violence in Darfur, as Martin Meredith describes in The Fate of Africa, has its origins “in an age-old conflict over land between nomadic Arab pastoralists and settled African agriculturalists that intensified during the 1980’s as a result of drought and increasing desertification.”  When the African tribes of the region decided to seek autonomy like Southern Sudan had recently achieved, Sudan’s government backed the Arabs and supported the Janjaweed in a campaign of ethnic cleansing.  Using the term genocide is controversial, not only because of the scale of atrocities that it connotes, but also because it implies the international community must take action.  The US can call the situation genocide without the legal imperative of intervening to stop it.  The UN does not have such an ironic luxury, as it would be compelled to act by the UN Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide.

Many apolitical experts agree that what has happened and is happening in Darfur is ethnic cleansing and should be called genocide.  Nicholas Kristof has documented first-hand the atrocities through his columns in the New York Times.  A recent study estimates the death toll between 255,000 and 400,000, with the number of displaced persons reaching 2.5 million.  With the high number of refugees, the genocide threatens to destabilize the entire region, particularly in the neighboring countries of Chad and the Central African Republic.  The vast area and numbers of people involved in this crisis make it increasingly difficult for non-governmental organizations (NGOs) and aid organizations to provide effective relief.

The United States and other powerful countries have done little to stem the tide of violence.  They have appropriated humanitarian funds, engaged in bombastic rhetoric, and supported a small, poorly equipped African Union peacekeeping force.  While the United Nations (UN) passed a resolution to deploy 22,500 peacekeepers to Darfur, implementation of that resolution is being blocked by Sudan’s president, Omar Hassan al-Bashir.  Residents of Darfur continue to die as the world community sits idly by.  When a member-state of the UN supports a policy of ethnic cleansing, then the international community, whether it be the UN, NATO, or the US and its allies, must act.  Deferring to the principle of national sovereignty is not acceptable when hundreds of thousands of Africans in Darfur are being systematically murdered.

Yet, President Bashir’s stance is not surprising.  From his perspective as a Muslim leader of a country with oil reserves, his distrust of the West is rational given the Bush Administration’s bellicose rhetoric and policies in the “War on Terror.”  Genocide trials continue in nearby Rwanda, giving salience to Bashir’s concern of opening up his country to further foreign inspection by UN officials and NGO’s such as the International Red Cross and Human Rights Watch, which could lead to his indictment for crimes against humanity and genocide.  Besides supporting the Janjaweed, Bashir’s government has ordered military air strikes and ground assaults in Darfur.  Furthermore, Bashir’s efforts to stave off greater foreign involvement in Darfur have been successful.  The Western states have allowed him to commit genocide for over three years with no repercussions, why would they take a stand now?  Even more horrifying is that the atrocities in Darfur are nothing new for the Sudanese.  Meredith explains that in the late 1980’s, Sudan’s Islamic government also armed militias so they could raid and plunder at will against dissenting southern Christians, a tactic similarly employed by Sudanese leaders in the 19th century.  The genocide in Darfur is an extension of past governmental tactics employed to solidify control over a multi-ethnic and
vast landmass.

There are other reasons that explain the failure of the world to stop yet another genocide.  First, the United States is the world’s only superpower.  Its military dwarfs that of any other country and its diplomatic and economic strength provide unrivaled influence and power.  However, the U.S. military is tied down in a quagmire in Iraq.  Beyond that, it is focused on its “War on Terror,” to which Sudan is only a tangential aspect.  Stopping this genocide is not in the U.S. government’s self-interest, only in its moral interest, and officials seldom, if ever, act on morals alone.

Second, UN norms have been in conflict since its inception, causing inertia around critical issues such as genocide.  The world body tries to balance two principles that often come into conflict: national sovereignty and universal human rights.  While human rights is an overarching norm of the organization, the UN rarely acts in that interest if it will violate state sovereignty, as the genocide in Darfur illustrates.  Many member states are averse to risk and forceful action for fear that any alterations in the status quo could then be used against them.  If an international force breaches the principle of sovereignty, even under the mandate of stopping genocide, it sets a dangerous precedent for other regimes that are flouting international human rights standards, as articulated in the UN’s Universal Declaration of Human Rights.  The United States’ disregard for international agreements from the Kyoto Protocol to the International Criminal Court does not help the case for building an international coalition to tackle genocide.

Third, despite featuring the violence in Darfur on the front-pages of newspapers and magazines, the media does not always help in stopping genocides.  Samantha Power, a Professor of Human Rights Practice at Harvard's John F. Kennedy School of Government and author of A Problem from Hell: America and the Age of Genocide writes, “Despite all the ‘globaloney’ about reporters being ‘everywhere,’ stories about the early stages of genocide are often unattainable because the price of accessing such terrain may be the life of the reporter.  And even if technological advances –such as Internet television images or flying, unmanned rescue cameras –succeed in bringing viewers live genocide, the ‘CNN effect’ will not necessarily translate into louder or wider calls for humanitarian intervention, as television images have both attract and repel concern.”  Sudan’s government has repeatedly barred foreign reporters, NGO’s, and even foreign government and UN officials from witnessing the horrors of Darfur.  Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Paul Salopek was jailed by the Sudanese government after he snuck into the country to document the genocide.  After an intense diplomatic effort, he was released a month later, but Sudan’s point was well-taken: it will censor what information the rest of the world receives about Darfur to the best of its ability.

Despite the grave situation, there continues to be a united front that transcends politics and advocates for international action to stop the genocide in Darfur.  Both Save Darfur and Evangelicals for Darfur have run full-page ads in the New York Times demanding action by the U.S. government to stop the genocide.  Senator Sam Brownback, an archconservative, has joined with liberal politicians to advocate for a stronger U.S. role in stopping the genocide.  On Wesleyan’s campus, Students Take Action Now Darfur (STAND) has a strong presence in organizing and promoting awareness of the genocide while also raising funds for humanitarian relief.  Yet, there are certain political realities and inequalities in the international system that must be recognized before we can realistically hope to end another genocide.  The United Nations is not in the business of usurping the will of member states –even when that will is ethnic cleansing.  The world’s most powerful country, the United States, is not in the business of acting solely in its moral interest –even if that moral interest is stopping genocide.  As a result, genocide occurred in Rwanda and continues in Darfur.  There is a systematic problem that needs to be addressed.  As Samantha Power commented, “Never again” has turned into “Again and Again.”  With mid-term elections fast-approaching and the upcoming inauguration of a new UN Secretary General, perhaps the political climate is finally right to address the terrible legacy of “Never again.”

Addendum: On November 16th, the Sudanese government agreed in principle to let in a United Nations peacekeeping force working in conjunction with the African Union.  Details remain to be worked out, but regardless, this is a huge breakthrough in the conflict.

Thomas Coen is the co-founder of and an editor for Incite Magazine.  He is a senior government and economics major at Wesleyan University.  Besides Incite, he heads the Wesleyan chapter of the Roosevelt Institution, the nation’s first student think-tank.  Thomas is a student representative for Campus Progress and co-hosts a weekly political talk show, Don’t Believe the Hype, on WESU.  He has interned both in government for Senator Jeffords, and in the non-profit sector for People for the American Way.  In addition, Thomas has worked on political campaigns at both the state and national level.  He can be reached at Thomas@InciteMagazine.org