Global indifference fosters Sudan crisis
BY MORTON ABRAMOWITZ AND SAMANTHA POWER
Morton Abramowitz is a senior fellow at the Century Foundation and former president of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. Samantha Power is author of "'A Problem From Hell':
September 15, 2004
What has all the attention on the suffering in Darfur achieved? It has helped persuade governments to feed the starving refugees, but it has not improved the security of the people of Darfur.
When the flurry of interest was aroused four months ago, some 100,000 people were refugees in Chad and more than a million were displaced inside Darfur, unable to escape Sudan. Today those numbers are thought to have increased to 200,000 and 1.5 million, respectively. The estimate of 30,000 dead has risen to 50,000. Villages in Darfur are still being attacked by Sudanese planes and Janjaweed militia forces, and women in refugee camps who fetch firewood are still assaulted daily. The uprooted are destined to remain wards of the international community.
Why has the world, with all its outpourings and Security Council deliberations, failed to tackle the Darfur problem?
The main answer is straightforward enough: Major and minor powers alike are committed only to stopping killing that harms their national interests. Why take political, financial and potential military risks when there is no strategic or domestic cost to remaining on the sidelines?
Why is there no such cost? First, because not enough people are dying. Recent history has set the bar extremely high for concern in Africa. In Congo, where an estimated 3 million people have died over the past six years, the media and Congress have largely stayed home, and other governments have gladly taken their cue of indifference. Although the previous civil war in Sudan took some 2 million lives, it was allowed to continue for almost 20 years. And in Rwanda, of course, where about 800,000 were murdered, nothing was done.
Second, because the delivery of humanitarian aid lets us off the hook. After an unpardonable delay, the world overcame Sudan's obstructionism to get food, medicine and plastic sheeting into Darfur. This has helped reduce the death toll, but it is a stopgap solution that keeps the media at bay and allows lawmakers and policy-makers to do good deeds while avoiding the political problem at the heart of Darfur's destruction: Khartoum's sins and, to a lesser degree, a rebel movement emboldened by the belief that the United States is on its side.
Third, the existence of the UN Security Council hides the crux of the problem: Countries do not want to do what is necessary to prevent large-scale loss of life in messy, complex Africa. Crises such as Darfur require urgent action, and states are well aware that the Security Council cannot act urgently. It is not by accident that they throw the problem into the labyrinth of UN deliberations, which allows them to play the role of good international citizens while the Security Council, with its built-in vetoes from Russia and China and its built-in opposition from rotating members such as Pakistan and Algeria, prevents any serious action against sovereign nations.
The international system is broken, at least when it comes to Africa. There is a moral and political void when it comes to coping with catastrophes in Africa.
Darfur shows that dedicated advocacy can move democracies to denounce atrocities and provide generous humanitarian help. What the earnest advocacy rarely does is propel the powerful to stop the killing. Righteous clamor must reach a high enough pitch that politicians in democratic states are persuaded to do a difficult thing: Take domestic political risks in pursuit of policies that do not serve their immediate interests, that can be financially costly and that provide no clear-cut exit strategies.
- Newsday
BY MORTON ABRAMOWITZ AND SAMANTHA POWER
Morton Abramowitz is a senior fellow at the Century Foundation and former president of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. Samantha Power is author of "'A Problem From Hell':
September 15, 2004
What has all the attention on the suffering in Darfur achieved? It has helped persuade governments to feed the starving refugees, but it has not improved the security of the people of Darfur.
When the flurry of interest was aroused four months ago, some 100,000 people were refugees in Chad and more than a million were displaced inside Darfur, unable to escape Sudan. Today those numbers are thought to have increased to 200,000 and 1.5 million, respectively. The estimate of 30,000 dead has risen to 50,000. Villages in Darfur are still being attacked by Sudanese planes and Janjaweed militia forces, and women in refugee camps who fetch firewood are still assaulted daily. The uprooted are destined to remain wards of the international community.
Why has the world, with all its outpourings and Security Council deliberations, failed to tackle the Darfur problem?
The main answer is straightforward enough: Major and minor powers alike are committed only to stopping killing that harms their national interests. Why take political, financial and potential military risks when there is no strategic or domestic cost to remaining on the sidelines?
Why is there no such cost? First, because not enough people are dying. Recent history has set the bar extremely high for concern in Africa. In Congo, where an estimated 3 million people have died over the past six years, the media and Congress have largely stayed home, and other governments have gladly taken their cue of indifference. Although the previous civil war in Sudan took some 2 million lives, it was allowed to continue for almost 20 years. And in Rwanda, of course, where about 800,000 were murdered, nothing was done.
Second, because the delivery of humanitarian aid lets us off the hook. After an unpardonable delay, the world overcame Sudan's obstructionism to get food, medicine and plastic sheeting into Darfur. This has helped reduce the death toll, but it is a stopgap solution that keeps the media at bay and allows lawmakers and policy-makers to do good deeds while avoiding the political problem at the heart of Darfur's destruction: Khartoum's sins and, to a lesser degree, a rebel movement emboldened by the belief that the United States is on its side.
Third, the existence of the UN Security Council hides the crux of the problem: Countries do not want to do what is necessary to prevent large-scale loss of life in messy, complex Africa. Crises such as Darfur require urgent action, and states are well aware that the Security Council cannot act urgently. It is not by accident that they throw the problem into the labyrinth of UN deliberations, which allows them to play the role of good international citizens while the Security Council, with its built-in vetoes from Russia and China and its built-in opposition from rotating members such as Pakistan and Algeria, prevents any serious action against sovereign nations.
The international system is broken, at least when it comes to Africa. There is a moral and political void when it comes to coping with catastrophes in Africa.
Darfur shows that dedicated advocacy can move democracies to denounce atrocities and provide generous humanitarian help. What the earnest advocacy rarely does is propel the powerful to stop the killing. Righteous clamor must reach a high enough pitch that politicians in democratic states are persuaded to do a difficult thing: Take domestic political risks in pursuit of policies that do not serve their immediate interests, that can be financially costly and that provide no clear-cut exit strategies.
- Newsday
publicado por MP às 21:25
