A "new Rwanda" is happening in Sudan, at the hands of its Muslim strongmen.
There, the government of Sudan and its proxy, the Janjaweed Arab militia, are attempting to crush a rebellion by Muslim Africans with the same vicious tactics they have used for years against Christian and animist opponents in southern Sudan. While negotiating a peace agreement with southern rebel forces, the government and its militia have killed, raped, kidnapped, bombed, enslaved, displaced, starved and burned countless innocent civilians in Darfur. U.N. officials have called this ethnic cleansing the "world's greatest humanitarian catastrophe."Some 10,000 civilians have been killed. At least 130,000 refugees have fled to neighboring Chad. Over a million more have been internally displaced and are trapped by the militia in disease-ridden camps without adequate food or water. They face the imminent threat of starvation. The U.S. Agency for International Development estimates another 300,000 or more could die.
An aid worker writes for the BBC:
As an aid worker specialising in health and nutrition, with experience in emergencies around the world, I came to Sudan prepared for a grim situation. But Darfur is by far one of the worst humanitarian crises I've witnessed.
The Wall Street Journal Europe says today that Darfur is a preview of "a world without U.S. intervention."
Once again the U.S. has been fighting a lonely diplomatic battle, isolated in the United Nations Security Council and considered as too aggressive in most European capitals. Only this time, with its troops already involved in two major military campaigns, America cannot solve the problem "unilaterally."So, as if in a time warp, the African tribes in western Sudan, persecuted by their own government, are trapped in that pre-September 11 world so idealized by many critics of the Bush administration. In this world, nothing gets done unless approved by the U.N. or at least the Franco-German directorate that claims to speak for all of Europe. It's a world where the lowest common denominator dictates international policy. And where hundreds of thousands of refugees will likely die because countries such as Pakistan and Algeria, two current members of the Security Council, refuse to impose sanctions on Sudan, a fellow Muslim regime, even as it is engaged in the mass killing of Muslims. It's a world where Chinese and French business interests override any other considerations and "constructive engagement" is tried until the last refugee is dead.
In short, the horror of Darfur is an example of what the world looks like without America's credible military threat to intervene to preserve the international peace and security and to stop ethnic cleansing.
With the U.S. heavily committed elsewhere, the rest of the "international community" is demonstrably unwilling to end the atrocities. The same high-minded moralists who so decried American force-projection in the liberation of Iraq now prefer to sit on their hands and wait for the American cavalry to ride to the rescue.
While EU leaders saturated the airwaves with their expressions of "shock" over the Iraqi prisoner abuse, one has to turn to page 18 of their recent summit conclusions to find one small paragraph about Darfur. All they could muster was to express their "deep concern" regarding Sudan's "humanitarian crisis," as if what it is happening in Darfur is an act of nature or God rather than murderous, ruthless men.
It is fashionable these days to express distaste for American "unilateralism." But the unfolding catastrophe in Darfur offers a chilling view of what the alternative really looks like.
In other words, the world according to John Kerry, currently our most notable multi-lateralist. What a nightmare.
Posted by Alan at June 23, 2004 12:14 PM