Thinking “out of the box” about how to stop the Sudanese genocide
Here are some ruminations that I started on
htttp://passionofthepresent.org earlier today. We really need to
think more aggressively, creatively, and realistically if we are to
stop the genocide in Sudan.
Raise the costs of ethnic cleansing
For those who think I’m going a bit off the deep end by comparing
Sudanese government leaders to Nazis, and their victims to Jews, here
is an excerpt from Nicholas Kristof’s editorial in the New York Times yesterday:
Sudan’s leaders are not Taliban-style fanatics. They are
pragmatists who engaged in genocide because they thought it was the
simplest way to end unrest among tribal peoples in Darfur. If
we raise the costs of ethnic cleansing with a no-fly zone, an arms
embargo, travel restrictions on senior officials and other targeted
sanctions, then I think they can be persuaded to negotiate seriously
toward peace.The history of genocide in the last century is one in which
well-meaning Americans were distressed as Turks slaughtered Armenians,
Nazis rounded up Jews and Gypsies, and Serbs wiped out Bosnians – but
because there were no good or easy options, they did nothing.
I emphatically agree that the world needs to “raise the costs of ethnic cleansing.”
I would do it with a no-fly zone and air strikes on military aircraft
and Janjaweed militia bases, Kristof would do it with a no-fly zone and
sanctions. I think we need to move faster and harder to make an impact,
after months of sham diplomacy with no real consequences to the
Sudanese government, but I’d take Kristof’s solution over the current
sham.
Raise the costs of complicity at home
WE ALSO have a personal responsibilty here at home, as Jay
emphasizes. Here at home we can raise the costs of complicity and
inaction. Here at home, as “well-meaning
Americans..distressed..” we have a duty to act,. We have the power to
intervene in our own political landscape.
We can raise the costs of complicity and inaction.
What can we do? Many creative things. Here are a three ideas:
1. Remind each other of the moral equivalence of the
Sudanese government and the Nazis. Appreciate the equivalence of the
mass killing of innocent victims in Darfur and the systematic slaughter
of Jews in Nazi Germany. We must escalate the intensity of our protests
appropriate to the seriousness of the situation: we are living through
the world’s longest public genocide, and no action is being taken.
Why is this shift in perspective helpful? Because it helps us experience the personal stakes. We live in a time of genocide. Who are we? What are we choosing to do about it?
At the institutional level, we witness the complete ineffectiveness
and probable corruption of the United Nations. We tolerate the
complicity of the Chinese, Indian, Malaysian, Pakistani, Egyptian, and
Saudi governments.
At the personal level, we must join together and increase
our protests, as if we were protesting the rise of Nazi Germany and the
extermination of millions of Jews.
Are the lives of poor farmers in Darfur worth less? No!
Could the Nazis have been stopped if the world had been willing to take
early and strong action? If many of the world’s major financial leaders
and industrialists, including Henry Ford, had not been willing to fund
the buildup of Hitler’s Germany? Yes!
Would we tolerate this sort of support for the Nazis today? No!
So how is it that we tolerate China’s buildup of the Sudanese economy?
How is it we tolerate China using Sudan and its support for Sudan as
an anchor of a strategy of systematic support for authoritarian regimes
in Africa and the middle east? How is it we tolerate China doing this
with our money, sent to China when we purchase Chinese-made personal
computers, clothing, and consumer products at Wal-Mart? How is it we
tolerate China using its seat on the UN Security Council as a base for
showing support for authoritarian regimes, and thus cementing its image
as the best alternative trading partner when these regimes have trouble
with the west? I’m not making this stuff up! Please
read this article by Howard French of the New York Times. China is
altering the political landscape of the middle east and Africa.
How is it that the Sudanese embassy in New York can continue to function?
How is it that the Chinese embassy can function?
How is it that Kofi Annan can go anywhere in public without being disrupted by protests?
How is it that we have not yet developed the equivalent of what “Act Up!” did for AIDS?
2. Be clear in our own minds that the Sudanese government
has been given an attractive choice by the international community, and
has rejected it. There is absolutely no reason to give the Sudanese
government more time to carry out its genocide.
Why is this helpful? Because it helps to immunize us against the
arguments that counsel further delay, and that seek a “balanced” view
of the Sudanese government’s position.
The choice the Sudanese government has rejected is to allow in
African Union peacekeepers in large numbers, with a broad mandate, who
will damp down the fighting and support humanitarian aid and
reconstruction.
The Sudanese government has fought against this solution in every
way available to it–including by lying and “accepting” this solution,
only to delay, diminish, and undercut the power of the peacekeepers.
The Sudanese government is not acting like a government that
honestly wants help. The Sudanese government is carrying out a genocide
and knows that the longer it can delay, the more death and trauma it
can inflict on the Darfurians. In the minds of the Nazi-like Sudanese
government leaders, this action will “put the people in their place”
and quiet the population long into the future. This is their objective.
The genocide in Darfur is complemented by killing and torture of
dissidents and independent members of the press in Khartoum, as well as
the arrest of most of the “opposition” leaders in parlaiment–including
scores of former members of the current government who have objected to
the genocide.
3. Demand our governments to seriously consider and prepare for immediate military action in Sudan.
Given that the Sudanese goverrnment has rejected a peaceful
international solution, and continues a strategy of mass murder and
ethnic cleansing affecting two million people, the world must act to
stop the carnage. This requires the projection of outside police and
military power into Sudan. There is no other plausible way to protect
the victims. All other courses of action have been tried and have
failed, over almost a year of trying.
In the south of Sudan all peaceful options were tried for almost two
decades and failed. The reason the south has achieved a preliminary
peace agreement with the north is that it achieved political autonomy,
proved unconquerable by the north, and had the support at the
bargaining table to the United States government–who had earlier
demonstrated a willingness to project power into Sudan by bombing a
pharmaceutica plant in Khartoum and forcing the government to exile
Osama bin Laden.
There are five effective military options available to the world to
protect victims in Darfur (of course there are many many ineffective
options, as we are now experiencing):
A. Provide armed protection for the humanitarian initiatives in Sudan,
including protection from air strikes and formal government assaults,
and essentially build a “rescure bridge” into Darfur and create a
“secure zone” around the state.
Option #A would require substantial numbers of ground troops, as
well as air support. It is the least controversial with those who favor
non-violent solutions, but it is also very expensive and could easily
lead to a hotter war with the Sudanese government, thus forcing one of
the next options.
B. Project international military power into Darfur and
Sudan to impose a no-fly-zone, and to destroy the Sudanese government’s
capacity for controlling its airspace by eliminating radars,
anti-aircraft weapons, and military aircraft.
C. Project international military power into Darfur and destroy government-supported militia bases.
D. Project international military power into Darfur and perhaps Sudan, and destroy government military bases and garrisons.
Options #B, C, and D require no western ground troops, almost no
risk to western pilots, and relatively little financial cost. 50 cruise
missiles and two days of air strikes might cost $200 million dollars at
the outside–which is less than the US has already budgeted for Sudan.
If successful, such an intervention would quickly change the
equation on the ground in Sudan. If the current Sudanese government is
either brought to heel or caused to split apart and fail, Sudan could
become a much easier place to mount a humanitarian rescue. Stopping the
government military campaign against citizens in Darfur could vastly
reduce the subsequent cost of African Union peacekeeping and relief
aid.
This form of military intervention would demonstrate concretely the
willingness of outside parties to pierce the veil of Sudaneses national
sovereignty to impose a higher standard of worldwide moral sovereignty
in order to protect innocents. This would impose a rapidly increasing
cost on the Sudanese government, changing their cost-benefit
calculation with regard to ethnic cleansing as a tool of domestic
political control. Such an action could have a restraining effect on
other governments like the Sudanase that think it cost-effective
counter-insurgency to commit ethnic cleansing and genocide.
Finally, my own sense is that the Sudanese government would be
likely to back down in the face of the threat of the above options, if
that threat seemed serious and/or initial imposition of a no-fly-zone
consistent with the threat were begun.
E. Arm the most established of the opposition groups, the
south Sudan-based MPLA/M of John Garang. Help this group extend its
power into Darfur, effectively splitting Sudan. Garang is
already the defacto president of south Sudan, he is western educated
with a doctorate from Iowa State University, and he has long and close
relations with members of the US Congress.
The result of option #E might be either to break up Sudan into two
nations–or might force the implementation of the “government of
national unity” that has already been signed onto by both the
government and Garang’s group.
The grave risk of option #E is that it will prolong the internal
fighting in Darfur, harming more Darfurians. In addition, it depends
almost completely on the goodwill, skill, willingness to fight, and
wisdom of the rebel groups. Splits in leadership, unwillingness of the
south to take on the challenge of the north, ect. could all cause
option #E to fail.
Because of the risks of failure in both #A and #E, I
personally favor that western powers rapidly implement options #B, C
and D in sequence. Given that the UN will not act, the US will probably
have to act by itself. Morally, this appears the only course given the
dire need on the ground.
In combination with the projection of power, the US should
work closely with the African Union leadership to support it in
negotiating with the Sudanese leaders for immediate access for AU
troops–with unlimited mandates and numbers. The actual
arrival of AU troops on the ground and demonstrated unfettered ability
to address the problems they find should be the conditions demanded for
slowing US imposition of the sequence of options #B, C and D.
Discussion and delay by the Sudanese government should be officially
recognized for what it is: a continuation of the active genocide.
Finally, the US will need to communicate closely with the Chinese
leadership both before and during the imposition of force on Sudan. The
Chinese could be given a few days to see if they can exercise decisive
influence over the regime in Sudan.
If not, the Chinese must recognize that the world must take action. The
Chinese can be given assurances that the west will not intentionally
destroy Chinese oil bases in Sudan or the Chinese-built pipeline from
the oil fields in south Sudan and Darfur to the Red Sea. On the other
hand, the Chinese must recognise that the projection of military power
is not a precise science, and that collateral damage can arise. In
addition, it is possible that during a period of instability rebel
groups might turns to sabotague of Chinese oil facilities. The northern
leg of the oil pipeline has already been a target of rebels.
Military moves are crude, but they do alter situations. When
the US demonstrates willingness to bomb Sudan, China will immediately
recognize its economic interest in impressing the Sudanese government
on the need to avoid military escalation, and to allow AU troops to
save lives in Darfur.
October 17, 2004 | Permalink
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