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Saturday, Sep 11, 2004

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SUDAN ON THE BRINK

IN NOT INITIATING steps to improve the situation in Darfur, the regime of Omar al-Bashir in Sudan is bringing on itself tough international measures. A United Nations Security Council resolution adopted on July 30 gave Khartoum a month to take steps to disarm the Janjaweed Arab militias in order to prevent them from wreaking violence on the non-Arab population of Darfur, improve security in the region and address the humanitarian crisis — or else face unspecified "measures". Sudan agreed to comply with the resolution but has evidently failed to deliver on its commitment. To the contrary, there are reports of a fresh outbreak of violence in the region. Described by the U.N. as the world's "worst" humanitarian crisis, the violence in Darfur has thus far taken an estimated toll of 50,000 lives and left over a million homeless and at least two million more without adequate access to food or water. The world cannot stand by and watch the crisis worsen, as it did in the case of the genocide in Rwanda a decade ago. The first of the U.N. reports on Sudanese compliance with the resolution has faulted the Government for doing nothing to rein in the marauders, raising the prospect of firmer action by the international community. The United States has circulated a draft resolution that proposes the imposition of penalties on Sudan's oil industry, the expansion of the African Union force monitoring violence in the Darfur region, and the creation of an international commission to determine whether genocide occurred. Strongly worded resolutions of a similar nature were contemplated earlier but shelved because of opposition from President Al-Bashir. If punitive measures are now to be thrust on him, he will have no one to blame except himself.

In fact, Mr. Al-Bashir must consider himself relatively fortunate since western governments had urged the imposition of sanctions but the U.N. was understandably reluctant to use this weapon. Sanctions lost much of their legitimacy after becoming an instrument of U.S. foreign policy in the 1990s. The humanitarian crisis that the coercive U.N. sanctions triggered in Iraq raised serious questions about the efficacy and morality of sanctions, and suspicion — in most cases justified — that they were used mainly to punish weak nations that refused to fall in line with the U.S. Evidence of just how allergic the international community is to the word came with the July resolution in which "sanctions" was replaced with the more general "measures under Article 41 of the U.N. Charter." But sanctions have on occasion worked powerfully. They worked to end apartheid in South Africa, even though it took nearly two decades for the results to show. If Sudan does not put its house in order soon, it will leave the international community with no option other than using this weapon, unpleasant though this may be. There is no question of looking away while millions of homeless, hungry and frightened people wait for help.

It is also disheartening that there is little progress in the peace talks between the Sudan Government and the two militant groups operating in Darfur, the Justice and Equality Movement and the Sudan Liberation Army. It was to crush this rebellion that Khartoum first unleashed the Janjaweed. A ceasefire between the Government and the two groups has not worked. Negotiations between the two sides, arranged by the African Union, have gone on for the last three weeks without any breakthrough in sight. The African Union must intensify its efforts to find peace quickly in western Sudan, as this will certainly help avert an escalation of the humanitarian disaster in Darfur without a resort to sanctions.

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