Sudan: Are We Going There Next?

[Annie]

With the UK?

http://blogs.law.harvard.edu/jim/2004/06/18#a696



I'm surprised more of the blogosphere is not picking up on the new developments about Sudan and Darfur, and the possibility of US and UK military intervention

A few sources such as http://passionofthepresent.org and others--including Google News searched for "Sudan" have been reporting a running summary of the imploding conditions in Sudan, in combination with UN inaction and increasingly likely US and UK action. I'm surprised not to see more comment on these stories.

First, in the past week both the US and UK governments have hinted at the possibility of military intervention in Sudan to stop the government's continued victimization of its people. The US government has undertaken a study to determine whether to officially declare the situation a "genocide"--which would mandate intervention under the 1948 UN treaty on genocide.

Note: I personally support declaring the situation a genocide and taking immediate military action. I think that a no-fly-zone would help a great deal in removing air support from Arab militias, and would cost very little. I believe that some selective positioning of troops would do a great deal to protect refugee camps and assure safe travel for aid organizations and supplies.

Second, fighting is starting to spread into neighboring Chad. Chad is providing safe haven for refugees and a staging area for aid organizations who cannot safely travel into Darfur, and who have been further blocked from doing so by the Sudan government.

Third, the Sudan-government-backed Arab militias are said to be recruiting fighters from Arab tribes in Chad, and fomenting fighting among Chadians.

Finally, for those who are focused on the weaknesses of the UN system and the oil for food scandal--the scandal of the UN response to this genocide seems to me to be equally damning. Sudan sits on the human rights council, Kofi Annan says nice words but appears not willing to either use his bully pulpit to rally world opinion, nor to use his formal powers to take on the Arab, African, and Russian governments that are said to be blocking stronger action in the Security Council.

As those who know me realize, I am certainly not a unilateralist. On the other hand, this case shows why unilaterial action is sometimes the only way to deal with a problem while it still can be meaningfully addressed.

By the way, in Sudan Darfur we are fast moving past the time when the immediate crisis can be meaningfully addressed. The longer the warfare is allowed to continue, the more a next-few-months mass starvation scenario is locked into place by a combination of public health conditions, and logistics limits on delivering aid during the monsoon season when roads becom impassible. This deadly scenario, I believe, is exactly what the government of Sudan wants: Having cleared thousands of square miles and burned hundreds of villages of black Africans, it now hopes to starve the victims so they can never return to claim their land and reestablish their families. This, btw, is genocide. Not by freight cars and gas chambers, but by bands of terrorists on horseback supported by airborne gunships and bombers, village burning and murder, and finally, government-imposed mass starvation and illness.

For supporting details and links see any of the resources listed above.



Posted by James Moore on 6/18/04; 225 PM from the Economics and cybenetics

 

[fishy]

we won't be going there, we're out of money and Sudan don't got enough oil, and Americans didn't forsee the sabatoge thing so it's a waste of money to occupy these arab countries to take their oil because then they'll just blow it up, it's theirs and if they can't have it noone can..

 

[Avatar4321]

I think its on the list of things to do but i think Iran and Syria would be higher on the list.

 

[Said1]

Originally posted by Kathianne
With the UK?

http://blogs.law.harvard.edu/jim/2004/06/18#a696



I'm surprised more of the blogosphere is not picking up on the new developments about Sudan and Darfur, and the possibility of US and UK military intervention

A few sources such as http://passionofthepresent.org and others--including Google News searched for "Sudan" have been reporting a running summary of the imploding conditions in Sudan, in combination with UN inaction and increasingly likely US and UK action. I'm surprised not to see more comment on these stories.

First, in the past week both the US and UK governments have hinted at the possibility of military intervention in Sudan to stop the government's continued victimization of its people. The US government has undertaken a study to determine whether to officially declare the situation a "genocide"--which would mandate intervention under the 1948 UN treaty on genocide.

Note: I personally support declaring the situation a genocide and taking immediate military action. I think that a no-fly-zone would help a great deal in removing air support from Arab militias, and would cost very little. I believe that some selective positioning of troops would do a great deal to protect refugee camps and assure safe travel for aid organizations and supplies.

Second, fighting is starting to spread into neighboring Chad. Chad is providing safe haven for refugees and a staging area for aid organizations who cannot safely travel into Darfur, and who have been further blocked from doing so by the Sudan government.

Third, the Sudan-government-backed Arab militias are said to be recruiting fighters from Arab tribes in Chad, and fomenting fighting among Chadians.

Finally, for those who are focused on the weaknesses of the UN system and the oil for food scandal--the scandal of the UN response to this genocide seems to me to be equally damning. Sudan sits on the human rights council, Kofi Annan says nice words but appears not willing to either use his bully pulpit to rally world opinion, nor to use his formal powers to take on the Arab, African, and Russian governments that are said to be blocking stronger action in the Security Council.

As those who know me realize, I am certainly not a unilateralist. On the other hand, this case shows why unilaterial action is sometimes the only way to deal with a problem while it still can be meaningfully addressed.

By the way, in Sudan Darfur we are fast moving past the time when the immediate crisis can be meaningfully addressed. The longer the warfare is allowed to continue, the more a next-few-months mass starvation scenario is locked into place by a combination of public health conditions, and logistics limits on delivering aid during the monsoon season when roads becom impassible. This deadly scenario, I believe, is exactly what the government of Sudan wants: Having cleared thousands of square miles and burned hundreds of villages of black Africans, it now hopes to starve the victims so they can never return to claim their land and reestablish their families. This, btw, is genocide. Not by freight cars and gas chambers, but by bands of terrorists on horseback supported by airborne gunships and bombers, village burning and murder, and finally, government-imposed mass starvation and illness.

For supporting details and links see any of the resources listed above.



Posted by James Moore on 6/18/04; 225 PM from the Economics and cybenetics

I was reading about this in the economist last week. I feel it's genocide also, I can't stand to hear about stuff like this, it makes me sick.

 

[menewa]

Yeah, the problem in Sudan has been making me sick for years. The muslim militants are killing some of the most natural and peaceful tribes left on the planet, Christian and Animists tribes that have lived in a natural state for millinia. Same thing has been occuring against animists tribes in Indonesia for years too from Muslim militants as well.
I believe that a tribal lifestyle is the way humans were intended to live. But these acts combined with globalization are really destroying the original "way of life."

 

[Annie]

For those interested: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A62451-2004Jun22.html

Why isn't the UN dealing with this yet?

 

[Shazbot]

Originally posted by Kathianne
For those interested: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A62451-2004Jun22.html

Why isn't the UN dealing with this yet?

I wonder if "yet" is the appropriate wording...

-Douglas

 

[Jule]

Originally posted by Kathianne
For those interested: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A62451-2004Jun22.html

Why isn't the UN dealing with this yet?

This sounds like one for France. We dont have the troops to do anything at the moment, and France wants to be the world power alternative to the U. S. Let them go save some folks--we had to do Serbia, Bosnia, and Kosovo, we tried in Somalia, we kicked out Saddam. I'm tired of the U. S. trying to solve all the world'd problems. Let France do it.

 

[nycflasher]

So I played basketball with this guy, Luol Deng, last summer. He was here training and went on to complete his first year at Duke where he played basketball. He's entering the NBA draft tommorrow I think! Pretty cool. He's damn good. Anyways, he's from Sudan as was former NBA player, Manut Bol, his mentor.



Sorry for the interuption, carry on...

 

[nycflasher]

Originally posted by Kathianne

I'm surprised more of the blogosphere is not picking up on the new developments about Sudan and Darfur, and the possibility of US and UK military intervention

Who gives a fuck about a bunch of Africans?
Isn't Abu Grahib so much more interesting?

 

[nycflasher]

Note: I personally support declaring the situation a genocide and taking immediate military action. I think that a no-fly-zone would help a great deal in removing air support from Arab militias, and would cost very little. I believe that some selective positioning of troops would do a great deal to protect refugee camps and assure safe travel for aid organizations and supplies.

I've gotta agree with James Moore, here.

 

[nycflasher]

Originally posted by Avatar4321
I think its on the list of things to do but i think Iran and Syria would be higher on the list.

I think genocide NEEDS to be a priority. Don't you?
We have already entered two countries in the name of the War on Terrorism, can't we enter another to fight genocide?

 

[nycflasher]

Originally posted by menewa
I believe that a tribal lifestyle is the way humans were intended to live. But these acts combined with globalization are really destroying the original "way of life."

Yep, sad.

 

[nycflasher]

Originally posted by Jule
This sounds like one for France. We dont have the troops to do anything at the moment, and France wants to be the world power alternative to the U. S. Let them go save some folks--we had to do Serbia, Bosnia, and Kosovo, we tried in Somalia, we kicked out Saddam. I'm tired of the U. S. trying to solve all the world'd problems. Let France do it.

Word up.

 

[nycflasher]

Contributors of ready troops for UN operations discuss potential Sudan mission

23 June 2004 – A potential United Nations mission in Sudan as well as support for other African peacekeeping efforts are among the issues being discussed during a two-day meeting of countries contributing troops to a stand-by arrangement for UN operations.

Brig. Gen. Gregory Mitchell of the Stand-by High Readiness Brigade for UN Operations (SHIRBRIG), told a press briefing in New York that the Brigade would form half of the 14 members of the military component recently authorized by the Security Council in a resolution on Sudan.

That group would provide military advice to the UN envoy and begin to create the environment for the follow-on peace support mission, based on the requirements of the two parties in their final ceasefire agreements, he said. When that occurred and a peace operation in the Sudan was established, SHIRBRIG had already been asked to form the nucleus of the force headquarters and the headquarters support elements for that mission.

Gen. Gunther Greindl, Chairman of the SHIRBRIG Steering Committee, said the Brigade was at a crucial juncture on building capacity in Africa because the continent had now developed its institutions to better manage crises there. He noted that the Africa Peace and Security Council had started work, the African Union was mandated to manage certain aspects, and regions were becoming active in peace operations....
source/more--un.org

Anyone very familiar with Stand-by High Readiness Brigade for UN Operations (SHIRBRIG)?

Or Africa Peace and Security Council?

 

[st8_o_mind]

Originally posted by nycflasher
[
Anyone very familiar with Stand-by High Readiness Brigade for UN Operations (SHIRBRIG)?

Or Africa Peace and Security Council?

Good question. Makes one wonder where SHIRBRIG was when the RUF were hacking off the limbs of their victims in Sierra Leone (come to think of it, the UN did send a force into Sierra Leone and the RUF captured their weapons, armored vehicles and troops who were held hostage until I believe the Brits came in with some gunships and chased the RUF back into the countryside.)

So, not the best track record. Nor did the UN do much for Liberia who was run by the maniac Charles Taylor, or the Democratic Republic of Congo where 3.5 million innocent people have died from war recently, or the Rwanda genocide, or the meltdown in Zimbabwe.

I've never heard of SHIRBRIG but I'd bet that it is probably made up of primarily Nigerian troops. They have done most of the dirty work for the UN in the past decade or so. They have one of the few subsaharian professional militaries that is equiped and trained. Talking about the fox in the henhouse.

 

[Shazbot]

What's sad about situations like this, is that peace will only last if it is militarily enforced. I wonder what would happen if the Korean "Demilitarized Zone" was truly demilitarized! Basically, we can send troops in, stop the killing, and make everything roses again...but the moment we pull out, it'll all flare up again. Kind of like an Israel-Palestine issue. Now, granted, not understanding the issue completely...if the genocide is being performed ONLY from the orders of certain leaders, then my argument has no foundation. BUT, if the actual people commiting the genocide are doing what they truly want, those desires will never be crushed. What's worse, they'll teach their kids the same thing.

-Douglas

 

[Annie]

The UN or the US is going to have to move in here pronto:

Sudan hit by genocide; witnesses
June 24, 2004 - 10:05AM

http://www.theage.com.au/articles/2004/06/24/1087845040573.html?oneclick=true

An American human rights group claims that a genocidal campaign is underway in the Darfur region of Sudan, based on eyewitness accounts of systematic killings, rapes and destroyed villages.

Physicians for Human Rights issued a report blaming the government of Sudan for orchestrating a campaign, with help from Arab militias known as janjaweed, to kill or displace several million black Africans in western Sudan.

The Sudanese government is "targeting several million non-Arab Darfurian inhabitants for removal from this region of the country, either by death (most commonly through immediate violence or slow starvation) or forced migration," the report said.

The Boston-based group called for immediate international intervention. It cited a US Agency for International Development report warning that without intervention, between 300,000 and one million civilians could die.

Already, 1.2 million have been displaced, with 200,000 refugees living in Chad in camps and in villages along the Sudan-Chad border, the group warned.

Last month, another group, Human Rights Watch, accused the Sudanese government of "ethnic cleansing" in Darfur.

Sudan's government has denied its forces are engaged in any such campaign, calling it instead a humanitarian crisis resulting from fighting a rebellion by black Muslim tribes in Darfur. It has also denied cooperating with the janjaweed militias.

Fighting erupted in February 2003, when the Zaghawa, Fur and Masalit tribes rebelled against what they regarded as unjust treatment by the Sudanese government in their struggle over land and resources with Arab countrymen. The government and the two main rebel groups signed a cease-fire in April, but each side has accused the other of violating it.

The conflict is separate from the 21-year war between ethnic Arab Muslim militants in northern Sudan and the black African non-Muslim south.

Physicians for Human Rights said two of its staffers collected testimonies from refugees in eastern Chad and along the Sudan-Chad border during a two-week period in May.

They found consistent patterns of actions in six categories that the group believes would indicate a genocide is occurring: attacks on and destruction of villages, the destruction of livelihoods and means of survival, the pursuit of villagers to eradicate them, the targeting non-Arabs and the systematic rape of women.

"There's a clear intent to destroy non-Arab families in Darfur and all means of livelihoods," said John Hefferman, one of the group's workers who collected the information.

The dictionary defines genocide as "the systematic killing of a racial or cultural group". The US government is reviewing whether Darfur qualifies for the designation.

UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan said he wasn't ready to describe the situation in Darfur "as genocide or ethnic cleansing yet," but he called it "a tragic humanitarian situation". He plans to visit Sudan soon to make a first-hand assessment of the situation in the province.

 

[Yurt]

Originally posted by Kathianne

UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan said he wasn't ready to describe the situation in Darfur "as genocide or ethnic cleansing yet," but he called it "a tragic humanitarian situation". He plans to visit Sudan soon to make a first-hand assessment of the situation in the province.

This guy is really a piece of work. He does not have the guts to send in UN troops to Iraq, Sudan, anywhere. Does not have the guts to back up resolutions. When is this guy going to leave or get kicked out of office.

BTW, I tried to find term limits on the UN secretary general and was unsuccessful. seems, like he stays until a vote to remove him is put before the body. Anyone know?

 

[NATO AIR]

I have seen articles suggesting a possible 7,000 strong African Union peacekeeping force to be deployed to this region, although I doubt it would actually happen, especially with the crisis in the Congo going the way it is now, the Africans can understandably handle about one crisis at a time for now. That is until Mr. Bush's training regimen for over 100,000 Third World troops is put into existence (an extension of Clinton's idea for training African troops to stop genocide and tryanny) and the troops are turned out.

The African Union is sending military observers right now.

The UN and US are actually caught in a nearly forgiveable situation... they've just negoatiated a peace treaty to end the 20 year civil war that cost over 2 million Sudanese their lives. They at first hesitated on condemning the Sudanese gov't, fearing risking the peace treaty's survival. The US and UK have at least rethought this position and are close to considering this exercise in mass murder a genocide, which of course it is.

Anyone, liberal or conservative, who has been reading Nick Kristof's columns on Darfur in the NY Times should not be surprised at the possible military intervention of the US, possibly even NATO. There are villages where children as young as 5 were rounded up with other males, tied up and shot, while the women were gang raped. The maruaders then throw bodies into the wells of these villages to poison the wells and of course burn all the homes and crops.

Here is one of Kristof's articles to explain more about the situation:

OP-ED COLUMNIST
Sudan's Final Solution
By NICHOLAS D. KRISTOF

Published: June 19, 2004
ALONG THE SUDAN-CHAD BORDER - In my last column, I wrote about Magboula Muhammad Khattar, a 24-year-old woman whose world began to collapse in March, when the Janjaweed Arab militia burned her village and slaughtered her parents.
Similar atrocities were happening all over Darfur, in western Sudan, leaving 1.2 million people homeless. Refugees tell consistent tales of murder, pillage and rape against the Zaghawa, Fur and Masalit tribes by the Arabs driving them away.

As this genocide unfolded, the West largely ignored it. That was not an option for Ms. Khattar and her husband, Ali Daoud.
The night after the village massacre, survivors slipped out of the forest to salvage any belongings and bury their dead. They found the bodies of Ms. Khattar's mother and father; her father's corpse had been thrown in a well to poison the water supply. Ms. Khattar was now responsible for her 3-year-old sister as well as her own two children.
Then, as they prepared the bodies, one moved. Hussein Bashir Abakr, 19, had been shot in the neck and mouth and left for dead, but he was still alive. His parents had both been killed, along with all his siblings except for one brother, who had been shot in the foot but escaped.
That brother, Nuradin, gave up his duty to bury their parents, choosing instead to carry Hussein into the forest and to try to nurse him with traditional medicines. Nuradin's bullet wound made every step agonizing, but he was determined to save the only member of his family left. Over the next 46 nights, Nuradin dragged himself and his brother toward Chad.
Finally, they staggered over the dry riverbed marking the border, where I found them. Hussein has lost part of his tongue and many of his teeth and cannot eat solid food. He is sick and inconsolable; his wife and baby were carried off by the Janjaweed and haven't been seen since. As I interviewed him, he bent over to retch every couple of minutes, Nuradin still cradling him tenderly.
Ms. Khattar and most of the other villagers decided they could not make the long trek to Chad. So they inched forward at night to find refuge on a nearby mountain.
Every other night, she crept down the mountain to fetch water, risking kidnapping by the Janjaweed. "It was so hard in the mountains," Ms. Khattar recalled. "There were snakes and scorpions, and a constant fear of the Janjaweed." Six-foot cobras have killed some of the refugees. To feed her children, Ms. Khattar boiled leaves and plants normally eaten only by camels. Even so, her mother-in-law died.
Officially, Sudan had agreed to a cease-fire in Darfur. But at the end of May, a Sudanese military plane spotted the villagers' hideout, and soon after, the Janjaweed attacked.
"Ali had told me: `If the Janjaweed attack, don't try to save me. You can't help. Don't get angry. Just keep the children and run away to Bahai [in Chad]. Don't shout or say anything,' " Ms. Khattar said. So she hid in a hollow with the children, peeking out occasionally. She saw the Janjaweed round up all the villagers, including her husband and his three young brothers: Moussa, 8, Mochtar, 6, and Muhammad, 4. "Even the boys," she remembers. "They tied their hands like this" - she motioned with her arms in front of her - "and then forced them to lie on the ground." Then, she says, the males were all shot to death, while women were taken away to be raped.
There were 45 corpses, all killed because of the color of their skin, part of an officially sanctioned drive by Sudan's Arab government to purge the western Sudanese countryside of black-skinned non-Arabs.
The Sudanese authorities, much like the Turks in 1915 and the Nazis in the 1930's, apparently calculated that genocide offered considerable domestic benefits - like the long-term stability to be achieved by a "final solution" of conflicts between Arabs and non-Arabs - and that the world would not really care very much. It looks as if the Sudanese bet correctly.
Perhaps Americans truly don't care about the hundreds of thousands of lives at stake - we have other problems, and Darfur is far away. But my hunch is that if we could just meet the victims, we would not be willing to acquiesce in genocide.
After two Janjaweed attacks, Ms. Khattar was left a widow, responsible for three small, starving children in a land where showing her face would mean rape or death. I'll continue her saga in Wednesday's column.