NYTimes suggests limp response to Sudan crisis

Nicholas D. Kristof of the NY Times writes an op-ed (registration required) about the situation in Darfur today. In it, he starts off well with the story of a missionary named Carl Wilkens, who stood against the genocidal mobs in Rwanda armed only with his will and reputation, and saved hundreds of lives. It's a great story, but now there's a similar nightmare happening in the Sudan against the Fur, the blacks living in the south of that country. What can be done about it?

Kristof (rightly) complains about the Bush administration's weak response to the crisis, but his proposed solution isn't going to help anyone:

The U.S. needs to send massive aid shipments and take much tougher steps, like issuing an ultimatum that will lead to a no-flight zone over most of Darfur until the Sudanese government disarms the genocidal Janjaweed militia. That would get Khartoum's attention.

A no-fly zone and more aid packages? And this is going to stop roving bands of genocidal killers how? This is a low-tech atrocity. Sure, there have been some occasions where military aircraft have been used in this campaign, but for the most part this is just the latest instance of the ancient art of ethnic cleansing. The War Nerd explains how it works:

1. Arm the nomad militias so they outgun the farmers. The Sudan government sent 50,000 automatic rifles and machine guns to the Arab militias in Darfur. Also provide them with Army advisors and air support, and force them into effective cross-tribal alliances.

2. Block off entry for the foreign aid agencies, so nobody'll see what's about to happen. This is something the Sudan government has learned to do REAL well. They managed to almost wipe out the Dinka without a word from our democracy-loving government.It helps that southern and western Sudan are so hard to reach. Like I've said before, inland peoples are out of luck. Ask the Kurds.

3. Send the nomad militias in to burn the villages. Tell them they can have whatever they can grab, and rape anybody they happen to like the look of. Tell them to be sure to burn the village real thoroughly, so nobody can live there again. (Lots of Fur villages have been burned two, three, four times.)

4. Once the Fur are pushed off their land, squeeze them into concentration camps, with the militias coming in to rape and kill the inmates every few hours, just to keep them scared.

5. Keep all food away from them. This is the key technique. It's not an "atrocity" or an "excess," it's the whole point. Read up on ancient warfare if you need to see how sieges work. Even if you don't wipe out the whole tribe, you'll have killed or stunted the children, so you're changing the balance in your favor in the next round of fighting.

There is a way to stop this, but it's quite clear no one in the Western World has the will of Carl Wilkens. A military force would have to go in and protect what remains of the Fur and ensure that supply routes for aid are protected. But this would involve breaking the sovereignty illusion -- that the Sudan is a country like all others and it's borders must not be violated. Mark Steyn puts it bluntly:

One day, historians will wonder why the most militarily advanced nations could do nothing to halt men with machetes and a few rusting rifles. After Kitchener's victory over the dervishes at Omdurman, Belloc wrote:

"Whatever happens/ We have got/ The Maxim gun/ and they have not."

We've tossed out the Maxim gun for daisycutters and cruise missiles. In Darfur, meanwhile, the Janjaweed on their horses are no better armed than the dervishes were. But we're powerless against them because we've fetishised poseur-multilateralism as the only legitimate form of intervention.

I'd like to believe that President Bush would have been willing to use American military power to prevent what has happened and is going to happen in the Sudan. However, with the extrordinary opposition he's faced in freeing people in Afghanistan and Iraq, he has no room to maneuver on this. We'll never know what he would have been done. Diplomats expressing 'concern', 'serious concern', and perhaps tabling a motion or two is all the Fur can expect from the West. It's really quite hard to believe, but it's true.

UPDATE: Actually, they'll be lucky if they get that: Sudan Militia Still Attack, UN Sanctions Unlikely.

Posted by Bruce Gottfred at July 21, 2004 04:27 PM | TrackBack