Sudan: death by designation

[gottaB]

Let the lawyers debate whether the situation in Darfur is legally 'genocide.' It's past time to bandy words, says JERRY FOWLER of the Holocaust Memorial Museum

I went to the African country of Chad in May on behalf of the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum to investigate the threat of genocide in the Darfur region of Sudan, right across the border. What I saw and heard haunts me still.

I talked to dozens of Sudanese refugees spread over hundreds of kilometres and heard remarkably consistent stories of people who fled their homes in terror. I heard stories of murder and pillage and chilling references to rape and sexual violence. Almost everyone told me that they believed they were attacked because of their ethnic identity as members of African, non-Arab tribes. They said that the perpetrators were the Sudanese government and its Arab janjaweed militia allies.

I also saw the harsh desert environment into which they'd been driven, where lack of food and water very soon can be fatal. I've since heard of obstacles placed by the Sudanese government in the way of international assistance for the more than one million refugees who have been driven from their homes and are still in Darfur. And I know that those obstacles amount to a death warrant.

People ask me, is this genocide? My answer: It doesn't matter.

Sudan: death by designation....

[reorg]

1. Mr. Fowler

... has apparently been a member of the CSIS Task Force on U.S.-Sudan Policy, "launched in July 2000 with the aim of revitalizing debate on Sudan and generating pragmatic recommendations for the new administration."

The Task Force compiled a report in February 2001, outlining their findings and recommendations for the Bush administration with respect to US involvement in the Sudan conflict:

http://www.csis.org/africa/sudan.pdf


Some quotes from their findings (emphasis mine):

"(...) In the future, as Sudan becomes a medium-scale oil exporter, ... Eventually, Sudan might provide to the United States an additional source of energy supply.

(...) Since 1998, oil has flowed in Sudan, generating for Khartoum 200,000 barrels per day and an estimated $500 million in 2000. Production will double in the next two years, exceeding 400,000 barrels per day. Proven reserves, widely thought to exceed 1 billion barrels, could double or triple in the period of the Bush administration. Under this scenario, Sudan will emerge as a new medium-scale oil exporter.

(...) The United States today possesses significant leverage in regard to the Sudan crisis. Among major powers, the United States is the lone holdout in renewing a dialogue with Khartoum. It is also the principal external backer, in humanitarian and diplomatic terms, of the southern Sudanese opposition. In combination, these create considerable inherent leverage.

(...) Southern Sudanese rely on over $100 million per annum in U.S. humanitarian transfers. Opposition leaders have cultivated ties with key members of Congress and will not countenance serious reentry into negotiations unless confident of international protection and guarantees.

The central questions for the Bush administration are how to use its leverage, ..."


From the conclusions:

"(...) Resume full operations of the U.S. embassy in Khartoum, including assignment of a senior talent as U.S. ambassador. This will require making the case forcefully that embassies exist to advance U.S. national interests, in friendly and unfriendly environments. All efforts should be made to strengthen embassy staff and Washington line officers. In addition, the Bush administration should see the compelling need to appoint a special envoy to conduct roving consultations in Europe, Africa, and the Middle East and sustain consultations with Capitol Hill and interest groups in Washington. That person should be high level and provided with the necessary authority, access, and financial support to make an effective difference (à la Northern Ireland, Bosnia, and Kosovo)."

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So this was well thought out for years? First they heavily support insurgent groups, oversee a peace process - never losing sight, of course, of their well-defined self-interest, the long planned diversification of their energy supply.

And when, oops, due to some unforeseen twist in the script (I'm not into conspiracy theories here), some insurgents just carry on, the enlightened Western power simply waits for the next government crackdown, duly followed by righteous denouncements in the Western press, invades - if their forces are not already stretched too thin - and perhaps never leaves?

[gottaB]

2. Thanks for that report

It's a little dated, but insightful.

A few points regarding your misreading of it.

The civil war, even this particular incarnation of it, significantly predates the discovery of oil reserves. Therefore, it makes no sense to argue that the conflict emerged from a dispute about oil, or that the US created the insurgencies in order to advance its strategic energy interests. Nevertheless, oil has become a factor in the conflict, and the US has become involved in advancing the cause of a just peace, and providing humanitarian assistance and political support to the southerners, if not to the insurgency.

We have debated this already, so I won't rehash. So I'll turn to the report, focusing on some passages you may have missed, since I don't think the report supports either your reading of it or your view of the situation in general.

Oil.

From page 4

Oil is fundamentally changing Sudan's war. It is shifting the balance of military power in favor of Khartoum. It has prompted Khartoum to focus its military efforts, including forced mass displacements of civilians, on oil fields and the pipeline. Oil has also become an integral element of Khartoum's external partnerships with states and corporations.

And down the page

The advent of oil has widened the strategic imbalance between the government and the opposition and made ever clearer that the prospects of military victory by southern insurgents and their northern allies are slim. In the past two years, Khartoum's defense expenditures have doubled. The south's moral cause and its ability to sustain a low-grade guerilla war will persist and enable it to deny Khartoum any full, final military victory. However, over time the south's threat to
the government's core interests will steadily weaken. If the south negotiates now, in earnest, with adequate external backing, it will be in a stronger position to secure its political and economic interests than if it delays taking that step for several years.

At the same time, although Khartoum's strategic position may be stronger, and may only increase in time, Khartoum cannot win definitively on the battlefield.

The widening military asymmetry may tempt Khartoum to reject negotiations and instead take full advantage of the south's military weakness.

And on page 5

Sudan's exploitation of oil assets has created forced mass displacements and other gross human rights abuses that have drawn intense international criticism. If war persists, future exploitation of other promising energy fields in populated areas of the south will almost certainly involve more forced displacement and abuses. This will in turn trigger intensified media scrutiny and increased interventions by advocacy groups to disrupt access to capital markets by Sudan's principal corporate partners, most notably Chinese, Malaysian and Canadian energy corporations, as well as newly arriving energy corporations from Sweden, France, Austria, and Qatar.

If one subscribes to the view that wars waged to exploit oil reserves are unjust, or that the massacre of civilians as a matter of energy policy is deplorable, then the report clearly makes the case that Sudan's military subjugation of the south is unjust and deplorable. The US support of the southerners and the peace process doesn't even approach Sudan's level of opprobrium.

US Support for Insurgents.

The report claims that US backing of the south is diplomatic and humanitarian, and explicitly states that US policy is and should be to discourage armed conflict. Since you highlighted one passage to that effect, presumably you would agree with that assessment. Yet that doesn't seem to match your conclusions. Really, I think that's a matter of how one makes sense of the world.

Does the following passage, for instance, make sense to you?

Realistically, any external power(s) committed to promoting peace in Sudan will confront two stark challenges: first, to convince Khartoum that it is in its enlightened self-interest to exercise restraint and negotiate a stable peace; second, to persuade the south that negotiating now versus at some point in the future can best advance core southern interests.

I see the US position as one based on a combination of pragmatic interests and moral values. I assume that peace is a reasonable and just pursuit, that everybody stands to benefit from a lasting peace, including, of course, the US.

I'm curious as to which if any of the following things you find morally objectionable or at a minimum worthy of international concern.

• Military overthrow of an elected government
  
• Use of chemical weapons against civilians
  
• Aerial bombardment of civilians
  
• Shooting civilians
  
• Destruction of food stores
  
• Pillaging
  
• Hindering the delivery of food to starving people
  
• Hindering the delivery of medicine to sick people
  
• Abeting the traffic in slaves
  
• Burning houses
  
• Poisoning wells
  
• Systematic rape
  
• Destroying churches and mosques
  
• Concentration camps
  

I value Jerry Fowler's opinions because I share his concern for preventing genocide. His views of the US energy policy or strategic interests in diversifying energy suppliers are less interesting to me. For those who are unfamiliar with his work, here are some links to his own words regarding the Sudan conflict:

• Bearing Witness for Darfur: Can we Prevent Genocide in Sudan? From the US Holocaust Memorial Museum.
  
  
• Government Action Sparks Genocide Warning for Sudan, from the Crimes of War project.
  
  
• The World is Obligated to Prevent Genocide in Darfur, an interview with Maria Nghidinwa.
  
  
• In Sudan, Staring Genocide in the Face, from the Washington Times.
  
  
• Sudan Genocide Fears, an online discussion from the Washington Times.
  
  
• The Latest from Darfur, The Connection, a radio show that had Fowler as a guest.
  
  
• Comparing Definitions of Genocide, from npr.
  
  

[reorg]

3. answer

"The civil war, even this particular incarnation of it, significantly predates the discovery of oil reserves."

Wrong. The oil was discovered in the seventies, the latest civil war among government and southern insurgents began 83, according to numerous sources.

The apparently long-standing conflict between North and South is not so unusual. Hardly in any country that is now a nation state did people live in peace and without regional tensions for a very long time.



" ... the view that wars waged to exploit oil reserves are unjust, ..."

I'm not into discussing a "just war" theory. I highlighted a few sentences of the CSIS "findings" in order to point out that the US have a stake in this conflict.



"... The report claims that US backing of the south is diplomatic and humanitarian, ..."

Any involvement in the interior affairs of foreign countries is couched in humanitarian language, of course -- what other avenue of meddling were at their disposal then -- before the ingeniously conceived declaration of war "on terror" and the subsequent, less ingenious doctrine of "preemptive war"?



PS:
I was wondering why a high profile member of the US establishment would publish his articles in the Washingtin Times; I then noticed with relief that, of course, he doesn't, the link is actually to the Washington POST.

[gottaB]

4. Times/Post --thanks for catching that, n/t