This week’s debate on a draft UN Security Council resolution submitted by the United States last Thursday that, if passed, would increase pressure on the government of Sudan to stop violence in Darfur that has killed at least 50,000 people since last year, is shaping up as a major test of U.S. influence in the world body.
While activist groups characterize the draft as far too weak, particularly in light of Secretary of State Colin Powell’s declaration Thursday that the last 18 months of attacks by government-backed Arab militias, called "Janjaweed," constituted "genocide," Washington still faces an uphill fight to get the resolution approved, according to analysts at the United Nations.
Not only are China and Russia – ever-suspicious of U.S.-backed efforts to intervene in the affairs of sovereign nations – said to favor giving Khartoum more time to comply with the terms of a July resolution, but even U.S. allies, notably Britain and France, are reported to be skeptical of a major new initiative.
At the same time, Algeria and Pakistan are also reported to be opposed to a new resolution at this time, in part due to the growing perception in the Islamic world that the U.S., having ousted governments in Afghanistan and Iraq, is leading a global campaign – if not a "crusade" – against Muslims. Khartoum’s government, which once hosted al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden, is led by the militantly fundamentalist National Islamic Front (NIF).
Washington naturally insists that this is not so and points out that both the Janjaweed militias and their victims, predominantly African peasants in Sudan’s westernmost region, are Muslims.
The draft resolution, which follows up on the one approved nearly unanimously by the Security Council in July, calls for the UN to establish an international commission to investigate whether acts of genocide have occurred in Darfur; a major expansion of an 80-person African Union (AU) observer force that has been deployed to the region; and authorization for international overflights of the area to aid AU observers and peacekeepers accomplish their mission.
It also calls for Khartoum to submit the names of Janjaweed leaders and others reportedly arrested for alleged human rights abuses as proof of its compliance with the July resolution, and holds out the threat of follow-up sanctions, including a possible oil embargo and sanctions against specific members of the Sudanese government if a new resolution is not complied with.
Sudan has so far reacted negatively to the draft and to Powell’s characterization of the violence as amounting to "genocide."
"We don’t think this kind of attitude can help the situation in Darfur," said its deputy foreign minister, Najeeb al-Khair Abel-Wahab, who is in Nigeria, the site of recent peace talks between Khartoum and two African rebel groups from Darfur. "We expect the international community to assist the process that is taking place [here] and not put oil on the fire."
On the other hand, activists who hailed Powell’s decision to label the conflict "genocide," said they didn’t think the draft resolution went nearly far enough.
"You don’t declare genocide and then fail to act," said Salih Booker, executive director of Africa Action, a two-year-old grassroots coalition whose antecedents led the anti-apartheid movement in the U.S. in the 1970s and 1980s.
"A multinational force must be mobilized immediately to protect the people of Darfur from a government intent upon genocide," he said. "What the U.S. is calling for this week at the UN is not consistent with its determination that a genocide is taking place."
Somewhat more positively, John Prendergast, a Sudan specialist at the International Crisis Group (ICG), said Powell’s finding puts more pressure on Washington to get the draft resolution through, even if it should be stronger.
"The existing cleavage between rhetoric and action will hopefully be diminished as the administration takes this first step down the road to a more aggressive policy," he said. "But the finding [by the State Department] of genocide will only be meaningful if it’s backed up by more assertive action at the UN Security Council."
In particular, Prendergast, who served as a top Africa advisor to former President Bill Clinton, stressed that any resolution, to be credible, must include provisions for an expanded peace force not only to protect the AU observers, which was the limited mandate it was given in July, but to protect civilians as well.
The AU so far has deployed a 300-member peacekeeping force to protect its observers, but most analysts believe at least 3,000 troops are needed, a goal that the current force’s main organizers – Nigeria and Rwanda – believe can be met, provided that the U.S. and other wealthy nations provide logistical and other support.
Over the weekend, another proposal was put forward in Washington by the leader of the Sudanese People’s Liberation Movement and Army (SPLM/A), the southern-based group that has carried out a 21-year revolt against Khartoum.
Speaking to the annual meeting of the Congressional Black Caucus (CBC) Foundation, John Garang, who recently negotiated a far-reaching peace accord with Khartoum, called for a peacekeeping force of 30,000 troops divided equally between forces from the government, the SPLA, and the AU. He said the proposal, which has been endorsed by both Republican Majority Leader Bill Frist and the CBC’s top Africa specialist, Rep. Donald Payne (D, N.J.), had gained a sympathetic hearing from top administration officials in meetings last week.
The Khartoum-SPLM/A accord, which aims to stop a war that is believed to have resulted in the deaths of more than two million people, was reached in May but has not yet been finalized, in major part due to the continued violence in Darfur. Members of the SPLM/A, unlike their African Muslim counterparts in Darfur, are mainly Christian or animist.
Progress in the North-South peace talks, which were mediated by Sudan’s East African neighbors, the U.S., Britain, and Norway, helped spark the violence in Darfur, as Africans in that region were worried that the Arab-led Khartoum government would consolidate its hold over their region, ensuring their continued marginalization.
Two rebel groups launched an attack on a government garrison in early 2003. Khartoum responded by arming the Janjaweed – traditional competitors of the African population for the region’s land and water – and launching a "scorched-earth" counter-insurgency campaign which resulted in the forcible displacement of between 1.2 and 1.4 million people, virtually all of them African.
Some 220,000 fled to Chad, where they remain in refugee camps, while the rest have been forced to wander in the harsh landscape of Darfur or herded into camps that have only recently been permitted by Khartoum to receive large amounts of emergency assistance from foreign donors.
The situation has created what the UN has called "the world’s worst humanitarian crisis." While Khartoum has pledged to disarm the Janjaweed, human rights groups continue to report attacks on African settlements and refugees, leading Powell to declare last week that "genocide may still be occurring."
(One World)
