Time for Action on Sudan

["F A B I O C C H I::" <eco_fabiocchi at tin.it>]

June 18, 2004 http://www.nytimes.com/2004/06/18/opinion/18FRI1.html
Time for Action on Sudan
     
The United States and the U.N. secretary general have strongly condemned the 
vicious ethnic cleansing campaign sponsored by Sudan's government, which 
threatens hundreds of thousands of people with starvation before autumn. That's 
not enough. The situation demands strong action.

The civil war of the last two decades between Sudan's Arab Muslim rulers and 
the partly Christian south now appears to be ending, after a cost of some two 
million lives. But just as a peace agreement was being worked out, a new war 
erupted in the mainly Muslim region of Darfur, where non-Arab residents 
rebelled against Arab domination.

To suppress this revolt, Khartoum's autocratic clique of generals and 
politicians has backed a thuggish militia known as the Janjaweed, which has 
terrorized non-Arab communities. Women have been raped and branded, villages 
razed and crops destroyed. More than 15,000 people have been killed and about a 
million more driven from their homes.

Bush administration lawyers are busily studying whether this meets the legal 
definition of genocide, but that misses the point. Whatever you call it, the 
rising death toll could soon evoke memories of the tragedy in Rwanda a decade 
ago, when both the United States and the Security Council found excuses to 
stand aside while 800,000 died. That shameful failure must not be repeated. 

Washington and the United Nations are working closely with Sudan to support the 
north-south peace agreement, for which the Bush administration deserves 
considerable credit. But both Washington and the United Nations need to 
convince Khartoum that they will not settle for a peace that permits terror and 
starvation in Darfur.

Sudan's government should cut off support for the Janjaweed and send its army 
to disarm these war criminals. It should allow international relief groups and 
human rights monitors access to the camps where hundreds of thousands of people 
now live under harsh and insecure conditions. And it needs to arrange emergency 
food airlifts until Darfur's people can return to their lands and provide for 
themselves. This will not happen without strong pressure on Khartoum, but in 
the Security Council, Pakistan, Algeria and China have been more interested in 
shielding Sudan's government from criticism than in protecting its people from 
starvation. 

Washington can act on its own and with more enlightened partners, like the 
European Union. So far the administration has talked about imposing travel bans 
on Janjaweed leaders and freezing their assets. That is meaningless because 
none of those leaders are expected to try to travel to the United States, and 
none have assets anywhere Washington can seize them. It would be a more useful 
start to impose these and other penalties on Sudanese government officials 
until they move against the Janjaweed. Hundreds of thousands of lives may 
depend on quick, firm action.