7-22-05, 9:36 am
After a scuffle between Sudanese government security officers and US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice’s entourage overshadowed Rice’s visit to the violence-torn country, human rights organizations criticized the Bush administration and the international media for failing to address the serious situation in Darfur, a southern state of the Sudan.
This failing is all the more glaring as in September 2004 the administration described mass killings of Darfurian farmers and their families as genocide.
Human rights organizations believe that up to 400,000 Darfurians were killed in late 2003 to mid-2004 by Sudanese government security forces and government-backed militia known as the Janjaweed. As many as 1.2 million refugees have been displaced and have lost property due to the violence. The primary motivations for mass killings were to eliminate political opposition to the government of the Sudan which had grown roots in Darfur and to mobilize support for this repression by confiscating land held by Darfurian farmers and handing over to members of the militia.
Because the violence was committed by Sudanese Arab government loyalists and directed at ethnically so-called Black African tribes, many observers, including former Secretary of State Colin Powell, called the killings ethnic cleansing or genocide.
Many human rights organization such as Human Rights Watch, Doctors without Borders, and the Sudan Organization Against Torture have provided evidence that government security forces and the Janjaweed militia are continuing to commit mass killings, sexual violence, attacks on villages, assaults on refugees, arbitrary arrests and torture among other atrocities in Darfur and other parts of the Sudan.
Meanwhile, just months after the administration’s genocide declaration and a resolution by the UN Security Council to bring war criminals before the International Criminal Court (over a US abstention), the US reestablished friendly relations with the Khartoum government and restored aid, intelligence collaboration and other ties.
Additionally, the US refused to adopt sanctions against the Sudanese government and has failed to provide assistance to the small African Union peacekeeping mission called into Darfur to protect refugees.
Yesterday’s scuffle between Sudanese security officers and Rice’s team generated 'greater attention and indignation from US officials and international media' than has the ongoing genocide in that country read a press statement from Africa Action.
According to Africa Action, Dr. Rice’s visit to Sudan should be assessed in the context of three competing US foreign policy priorities - (1) support for the newly formed government of national unity as part of the North-South peace process, (2) ending the genocide in Darfur, and (3) collaboration and intelligence-sharing with the Sudanese government as part of the so-called 'war on terror.'
Salih Booker, Executive Director of Africa Action, said, 'Dr. Rice’s juggling of these three US interests reveals that, for Washington, stopping genocide is the least important issue, promoting the North-South peace process ranks higher, while the most important, but least discussed, US priority in Sudan is collaboration with the genocidal regime for larger geo-strategic purposes.'
On the failure of the administration to aid substantively the African Union mission, Ann-Louise Colgan, Director of Policy Analysis and Communications at Africa Action added, 'The US persists in passing the buck to the African Union (AU) in Darfur, even as Dr. Rice expresses frustration at the slow pace of the AU’s expansion of its mission.' Colgan urged the administration to take steps to directly aid the AU’s limited mission and focus primarily on the protection of civilians.
Africa Action also chided Rice for showing a 'dangerous naivete in relying upon the authors of genocide to protect their own victims.' The group insisted that Rice’s call for changed behavior from Khartoum be matched by concrete measures that would cause the Sudanese government to follow through.
At the very least, the US government has the responsibility to help mobilize world opinion against the continuing atrocities in the Sudan, to continue to condemn genocide, to aid actively and aggressively the effort to bring criminals before the International Criminal Court (despite whatever reservations it has about the court), to provide adequate, direct and immediate aid to victims of the humanitarian crisis and atrocities in Darfur (not to Khartoum which will use the money for its own political purposes), and to withhold non-humanitarian aid until the Khartoum government complies.
The administration’s failure to address the question of genocide seriously in the Sudan shows that it will deal with governments that adopt its foreign policy goals regardless of the crimes they commit.
--Joel Wendland may be reached at jwendland@politicalaffairs.net.
