Saturday, November 27, 2004

The Sudan Peace Accord: Why It Doesn't Stand a Chance

Christopher Johnson at Mayflower Hill says it should be abundantly clear at this point there is no way to resolve this conflict without military intervention. And he says:

"It should also be clear that the failure of the international community to live up to the commitments it made in the wake of the Second World War, and reiterated time and again throughout the last 50 years, is an embarrassment on a scale we will only begin to understand when the results of Bashir's policy towards Darfur is exposed as the holocaust that it is."

[Thanks to Christopher and Duncan - and for the handy map now showing in the sidebar here]
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Darfur, Sudan: The dying is only just beginning

Once again, Prof Eric Reeves in his latest post argues for outright military intervention. Here is an excerpt:

" ... The US-convened Security Council meeting in Nairobi has made painfully clear that nothing will be done to change the fundamental dynamics of insecurity in Darfur---and thus the genocide will continue remorselessly. 300,000 have already died; as many as 2.5 million have been displaced; and 3 million are conflict-affected and in need of humanitarian assistance. But we know now that this assistance will not be adequate, and thus we may be sure that at least 30,000 human beings will continue to die monthly for the foreseeable future.

We have seen precisely this ghastly indifference and obfuscation in Africa before, and no one speaks more authoritatively of international failure in Rwanda than Romeo Dallaire, the general in charge of the UN peacekeeping force during the 1994 genocide. General Dallaire has recently found a more articulate voice on Darfur, but his first public utterances were among his most powerful:

"'What should be done is an outright intervention,' he said. 'When I compare it to Rwanda, there are so many similarities it makes you sick.' Khartoum, he said, is 'getting away with slaughter and genocide,' while the world reacts, much as it did then, with embargos and restrictions, [Dallaire said]."

Disgracefully, a complacent international community can't bring itself even to impose "embargoes and restrictions." On the contrary, as UN Security Council Resolution 1574 of November 19, 2004 proves beyond reasonable doubt, there will be no actions of consequence to compel Khartoum to halt genocide in Darfur. We are as far today from humanitarian intervention as we were when the genocide became apparent a year ago. The dying is only just beginning. ..."

2 comments:

Mayflower said...

Firstly, thanks for all the good work you're doing here, and thanks for linking to my site.

I was wondering if you knew where Eric Reeves got the numbers he uses for the dead and displaced of Darfur.

They are larger than any I've seen yet.

Christopher

Ingrid J. Jones said...

Hello Christopher. Nice to meet you here. Thanks for your kind words. My last two posts are especially for you. I hope they help with your question re Eric Reeves' figures. To understand more fully, you'll have to read his archived posts at Darfur Genocide. I've pointed out they explain mortality figures. The reports are probably dated July or August 2004. Bye for now. Hope to see you here more often. Now that I've put you in the sidebar, I'll aim to visit on a regular basis and look forward to communicating more.