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Is There a Crisis in Darfur?
This is a serious question. I don't know.
I wrote, recently, about seeing the film, Darfur Now and attending the Q&A event afterward. I didn't talk much about the areas in which the film made me profoundly uncomfortable.
First, the film talked at great length about the role that the UN was playing in bringing war crimes charges against Ahmed Haroun. There are also a lot of abstract statements in the film about how people need to do something. For me, these two things together lead me to think about the UN's Responsibility to Protect doctrine, a doctrine which I'm extremely suspicious of. Some countries get to decide that other countries are screwed up, and therefore they have a responsibility to prevent, react, and rebuild (ooo, rebuilding contracts!).
And I can see how that feels good when we remember the accepted narrative of Rwanda. If only we'd really embraced our responsibility to protect, we wouldn't have just stood by and let the Rwandan genocide take place. (Let's just not talk about UN and French involvement in Rwanda from 1990 to 1994 -- that gets in the way of the official narrative that we western countries failed to notice what was going on).
Haiti is a classic case of how the responsibility to protect can be abused. A few weeks before Aristide was kidnapped from Haiti in February 2004, Canadian Ambassador Kenneth Cook sent a confidential memo to the Canadian privy council explicitly invoking the Responsibility to Protect w.r.t. Aristide:
President Aristide is clearly a serious aggravating factor in the current crisis and unless he gives dramatic early signs that he is implementing the CARICOM road map then the OAS, CARICOM and possibly UN will have to consider the options including whether a case can be made for the duty to protect.
And I can see how North American media representations of what was going on in Haiti in 2004 really supported an interventionist doctrine. That creeps me out.
So, I hear about what's going on in Darfur. From those same North American media outlets. And it looks like an interventionist doctrine might be a good thing, there. How skeptical should I be?
There were other points that came up during Darfur Now. There's a brief mention that one of the thorny aspects of "dealing with" Darfur is that Sudan has a relationship with China. Sudan has oil deposits, and because they lack the ability to process the oil, they sell drilling rights to China. Since access to cheap energy (i.e. oil) is essential to economic growth, China doesn't want change in Sudan. This stuff came up during Q&A's. But nobody asked the follow-on question: isn't it a bit worrisome that there's a big discussion about how fine, upstanding western countries like the United States need to Do Something in a country with oil resources? Who's going to watch the watchmen in this scenario? Or is it all really all right: the US has learned its lesson from Iraq. No more invasions for oil. (But we still gotta get the nukes out of Iran).
One of the lines of argument used by a Sudanese government official working at the UN was that the genocide is being exaggerated, and that the only country making these claims of genocide is the United States. One reading of the situation is to say, "well of course the Sudanese government is going to downplay the genocide". But what if what he's saying is true? Could the Darfurian crisis be another WMD shell game, but one that exploits those lingering Rwanda guilt feelings? And has this ventured into the realm of nutbar conspiracy theory? (Insert Theresa Nielsen-Hayden quotation, here).
When Darfur Now shows interviews with average Darfurians, traumatized at the effects of genocide, I don't doubt that they're talking about something real. People are being killed. I'm just not sure that I'm sold on the official narrative of who is responsible.
So. Who should I believe? I don't know. And I'm asking. What's going on in Darfur? Help.
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do i understand it? no. do i think i know what's going on and who is responsible for what? no. do i have any solid idea of what to do about it? no.
but we, the world, promised never again after world war two.
and i don't think that being afraid of fucking things up is a good enough reason to not try to keep that promise.
i hear you and agree about capitalistic reasons to invade and rebuilding contracts and etcetera.
but there are a lot of people dying, and i want that to stop. and i'm not convinced that not doing anything because we can't be sure of doing it right is the way to go.
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I guess, you could use their coverage of Haiti for your baseline.
Re: Is There a Crisis in Darfur?
yes, there is definitely a crisis in darfur. but what to do about it is rather less clear than that there is a crisis. i have no idea. i just write letters and donate a few $$ to help refugees.
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We've had some coverage for quite a time now, but it's not particularly from the US.
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As human beings, we should and do care about our fellow human beings. International law has evolved over time to try to find ways to minimize the harm nations do to each other. The principle of sovereignty is intended to prevent nations from harming people in other countries. Egregious violations occur, but overall, the situation post-1945 is vastly improved over the situation from 1800-1945.
The right to protect people within a country is the next logical step and was forseen in the creation of the United Nations. Under international law, the United Nations Security Council is supposed to be the approving body for actions of this kind.
Other than the UN charter, which is not very clear on this point, the international community has not agreed to a set of minimum human rights standards that countries must follow or face military intervention. Certainly the notion of a unilateral "duty to protect" is not supported in international law.
Nations make mistakes. I am of the position that nations should not be discouraged from doing the right thing in the present just because they have made mistakes in the past.
It is clear that there is an armed conflict in western Sudan, where the Janjaweed militia are attacking civilians with the support (money and weapons) of the Sudanese government. The African Union is already organizing a (small) UN-sponsored force to help stabilize the region (i.e. to protect civilians). If the West would take action to support the AU force, that would save lives.
We all have a moral compass in considering the acts and responsibilities of nations. Mine is the same as Thomas Jefferson's: lives first, freedom second, prosperity third.
If you don't like North American media, there are plenty of other sources. I follow BBC and Al-Jazeera, among others. Sometimes media gets clogged with propaganda, but if you follow a wide range of sources, truths still emerge.
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I think that the responsibility to protect doctrine is codified over here.
To me, this is coming off as a little bit lecture-y. Which is pushing my buttons a bit.
I guess the key point that I want to say in response is that this all sounds well and good in theory. It even sounds familiar as it's one of the arguments that the Bush administration used to justify the invasion of Iraq. "Oh, Saddam's a bad, bad guy who's terrible to his people and good, upright citizens of the US need to go in to protect those people who are being hurt."
In theory, it all sounds noble, but in practice, it's exceptionally clear to all but the most blinkered that this was a house of cards intended to distract people from the real agenda which was controlling oil resources.
That's the part that I'm concerned about.
Um. I think there's a difference between an accidental mistake and a calculated deception. I'm concerned about governments using an invasion of a foreign nation to further an economic agenda. I believe that's what happened in Iraq, and I'd like to see more discussion about whether or not that's a risk in Darfur. Note that I am not saying, "we should do nothing." I am saying that we need public debate and we need to be clear that certain actions are not okay. And taking over Sudanese oil resources while an intervention force is there should not be okay.
Just because it's okay for fire fighters to break down your door to fight fires in your house doesn't mean it's okay for them to go through you valuables while they're there. There was a time that I wanted to think that that went without saying, but the last few years have made it clear that it doesn't go without saying.
Jefferson also had opinions about which lives came before prosperity. His attitude toward the Haitian revolution, for example, does not speak well to his moral compass in my opinion.