That's simply obvious, right? Why, we must persuade the French, because that is the key to internationalization, which is the cure for all problems; it removes American arrogance and imperialism from the equation, gets us contributions from around the world, and global support.
(Hint for the slow: this is the trope called "sarcasm.")
France opposes UN Sudan sanctionsMeanwhile, in more literal nibbling around the edges:
Refugee from Darfur
The humanitarian situation is worseningFrance says it does not support US plans for international sanctions on Sudan if violence continues in Darfur.
The UN Security Council is debating a US draft resolution imposing sanctions on militias accused of "ethnic cleansing" against non-Arabs.
The US also hinted that the sanctions could be extended to the government.
Meanwhile, African leaders have urged Khartoum to stop bombing Darfur and say their proposed 300-strong force will have a mandate to protect civilians.[...]
"In Darfur, it would be better to help the Sudanese get over the crisis so their country is pacified rather than sanctions which would push them back to their misdeeds of old," junior Foreign Minister Renaud Muselier told French radio.
France led opposition to US moves at the UN over Iraq. As was the case in Iraq, France also has significant oil interests in Sudan.
Mr Muselier also dismissed claims of "ethnic cleansing" or genocide in Darfur.
"I firmly believe it is a civil war and as they are little villages of 30, 40, 50, there is nothing easier than for a few armed horsemen to burn things down, to kill the men and drive out the women," he said.[...]
Chairman of the African Union Commission Alpha Oumar Konare said that the 300 troops would arrive in Sudan by the end of July. He said they would intervene if they saw civilians being killed.
[...]
Analysts say that at least 15,000 troops would be needed to bring peace to the vast area of Darfur.
The BBC's Barnaby Phillips says the African Union is determined to be taken seriously as a body devoted to solving the continent's problems, but is severely hampered by a lack of resources.
African leaders say they hope richer countries will also do their bit to help.
A draft UN resolution proposed by the US envisages travel and arms sanctions on Janjaweed.
A previous Security Council statement on Darfur failed to criticise Khartoum directly, after resistance from Pakistan and China, instead urging cooperation and the disarming of the Janjaweed.[...]
Council members disagree over how long the Sudanese government should be given to resolve the situation itself, says the BBC's Stephen Gibbs in New York.
The 'Janjaweed' militia are accused of ethnic cleansing
Some countries, including Pakistan, say that Sudan should be allowed sufficient time to demonstrate that it means what it says.But the US remains sceptical over Sudan's commitment to act.
The US draft resolution threatens to escalate the sanctions within 30 days if results are not evident.
But diplomats hope that tough talking will force Sudan to act, our correspondent says.
Chadian Radio said President Omar al-Bashir of Sudan and President Idriss Deby of Chad had agreed to set up joint patrols along the border. They will also set up a commission to assess the damage caused by raids into Chad by pro-Khartoum Arab militiamen.Warren Hoge reminds us of the virtues of the non-political arms of the UN:[...]
Earlier, President Bashir said the pro-government militias were no longer operating in western Darfur, although a BBC correspondent in the region says this is not the view of local people, who speak of continuing atrocities at their hands.
[...]
Hundreds of thousands of refugees are estimated to have fled to Chad from Darfur.
Correspondents say the Chadian government is anxious to prevent the unrest spreading across the border too.
Occasional clashes have been reported between Chadian troops and Sudanese militiamen.
Paul A. Volcker, the former Federal Reserve chairman and head of an inquiry into the oil-for-food program in Iraq, sat waiting his turn to brief reporters one recent morning as a United Nations spokesman recited the daily litany of field reports from the world's most blighted spots.Something not to be forgotten. Non-sarcasm; the wrangling about the foolish politics of the UN, and the fact that many members are oligarchic despotisms, obscures the fact that the agencies do unsung heroic work in areas of health, crisis relief, coordination of international standards, and so on; spots of corruption and inefficiency don't obviate that."Wow," he said, looking up in surprise. "I'm really impressed by the range of activities of this organization."
His comment reflected the fact that closely observed subjects like the oil-for-food scandal, General Assembly resolutions on the Middle East or Security Council debates over Iraq can screen out the broader but less eye-catching involvement of the United Nations in places that others neglect.
It is in those places that Jan Egeland, the United Nations' emergency relief coordinator and under secretary general for humanitarian affairs, can be found.
It was he who first sounded the alarm on the present situation in the Darfur region of Sudan. Arab militias there have been killing black Muslim villagers, polluting water and destroying crops. Boyish-looking with a shock of chestnut hair, a Nordic outdoorsman's spring in his step and the methodical delivery of a graduate student taking his orals, Mr. Egeland, a 46-year-old Norwegian, is an improbable doomsayer.
Yet he regularly returns to United Nations headquarters from his trips to conflict zones with unflinching testimony of full-scale villainy and an appeal to conscience that in effect holds the world accountable for not halting the barbarity, in blunt terms not commonly heard in the corridors of diplomacy.
On Wednesday, he told the members of the Security Council that financing for his plan to feed and shelter 1.2 million displaced people in Darfur was only at 40 percent, and he warned them of the stark consequences of failing to raise the full amount. "We will not have enough food, and people will starve," he said. "Now is the moment of truth."
He also unapologetically deals with the groups considered responsible for these attacks, trekking through jungles to meet guerrilla leaders and paramilitary gunmen in places like Colombia and Sri Lanka. "As a humanitarian worker and especially as a peace broker, you learn that if you are there to help the victims from the depths of hell, you have to speak to the devil," he said.
"You have to shake a lot of hands with people who you know that they know that one day you will actually campaign to put them in jail. But at the moment that you are actually there to strike a pragmatic deal with them, you talk with them - to save lives."[...]
The greatest challenge facing aid workers today is avoiding armed attacks and bureaucratic restrictions aimed at keeping them from reaching people. Mr. Egeland said that in the 20 conflicts around the world, access by aid groups to the victims is either denied or obstructed, and that 10 million people who need basic means for survival are beyond contact.
[...]
He said he was gratified that the world had woken up to the crisis in Darfur, but worried about other places that escape notice.
"I don't know why one place gets attention and another not," he said. "It's like a lottery, where there are 50 victimized groups always trying to get the winning ticket, and they play every night and they lose every night. I myself have said that the biggest race against the clock is Darfur, but in terms of numbers of people displaced, there are already more in Uganda and the eastern Congo."
His trade has become a sophisticated one, he said, with the essential tools being experience, planning and professionalism. "You aren't allowed to be amateurish if you are in the game of saving lives,'' he said. "One phrase that has stayed with me since the time I joined the Red Cross as an aid worker was that the one human right that the poor and the vulnerable should have at the very least is to be protected from incompetence."
MR. Egeland said that the United Nations relief operation with its participating private aid organizations had become a highly efficient network and that he could now field an emergency team within 24 hours anywhere in the world and quickly have it dispensing food, water, sanitation, shelter, health care and human rights protection.
"What we lack, though, is the corresponding ethical and moral revolution," he said. "We are ahead of the technical revolution now logistically. But in terms of the moral climate in which we operate, we are still in the medieval ages."
In the 1980's he wrote a book called "Impotent Superpower - Potent Small State" in which he portrayed Norway, which devotes the highest percentage of its money to development of any country in the world, as a "moral entrepreneur." His hypothesis was that in human rights, the effectiveness of a superpower is overrated and the potential of the small state is underrated.
He said if he were writing such a book today, he would still celebrate the power of the small state, but he would recognize the need to have the backing of the superpower.
"Norway is very quick and bold and entrepreneurial in international work, and that is why it is playing such a role in conflict areas and in so much humanitarian work," he said.
"But it has to be said that the superpower is totally needed for things to work. If the European Union and the U.S. ignore something, we're just lost."
Can there be hakamah for good? Music, pro and anti-war has often had a profound effect.
Before they head out to battle, the militiamen who have been rampaging through the Darfur region in Sudan sit down together on straw mats and listen to songs of war.Until recently, Fatima Mohamed Sanusi was one of those who used her melodious voice to stir up ferocity in the Arab militiamen. She is a hakamah, a traditional Sudanese singer, and war songs are just a small part of a repertory that includes songs of love, mourning and celebration.
But there has been plenty of fighting lately in this harsh area near the border with Chad, and Ms. Sanusi, like so many other hakamah, has been belting out war song after war song.
Making up the lyrics as she goes along, she has sung of bravery and strength. She has sung of the need to stick up for the tribe. She has sung of the courageousness of past generations.
Her songs, and those of other hakamah, have had their intended effect.
The Arab militias, full of pride and fury, have driven more than one million black Africans from their homes since early 2003, causing a crisis for civilians that the United Nations says is without parallel anywhere in the world.
The fighting is partly a result of a rivalry over resources between groups of Muslims in Darfur. The Arabs are nomads who have long competed for land with black African farmers, also Muslim.
A rebel movement started last year by black Africans here brought the situation to a boil. The rebels say black residents of Darfur have been marginalized by the federal government in Khartoum, which is dominated by Arabs.
Eager to crush the rebels, government soldiers have joined forces with the Arab militias, which are known as Janjaweed. The result has been fierce fighting that has left Darfur in tatters. Most of the victims have been black African villagers caught in the cross-fire.
After so much bloodshed, Ms. Sanusi and some of the other hakamah in Darfur say they have been wishing they could take back their songs. Mostly elderly women, hakamah play an essential role in maintaining the traditions of Sudan's many Arab tribes. They are regarded as wise women who have special insight into the world.
Their change of heart was not accidental though.
In an effort to calm tensions here, the Peace Studies Center at the University of Nyala recently invited Ms. Sanusi and 29 other hakamah to a special two-day workshop for influential community leaders. There were lectures on the history of the conflict and pleas to the hakamah to use their considerable power for good.
Initially, organizers of the workshop said, the hakamah denied that they were to blame for the violence. But as the discussions progressed, one of the hakamah eventually broke down in tears and acknowledged her role in the fighting.
By the end, all the participants agreed that they could do far more than they had been doing to spread nonviolent messages in their songs.
"They are very respected," said Ashwag Elnour, director of the government-financed peace center. "People listen to their songs and follow what they say."
Ms. Sanusi, now well into her 70's, said that "when I was very small, I took care of the cows," and that the training to become a hakamah "began back then."
She learned to sing and dance, waving her hair in the air and gyrating her neck. As she grew, she polished her ability to come up with poetry on the fly, singing words to help babies enter the world, to honor those who had died and to mark community celebrations.
Eventually, after years of training, community elders tapped Ms. Sanusi as a full-fledged hakamah.
She now rewards generosity, bravery and other acts of virtue with songs of praise. Dishonorable acts are denounced through lyrics that send shame to the perpetrators and their kin.
Hakamah are more than poets and singers. They are community judges, of sorts, admired and feared by those who join them around the straw mat.
The songs of the hakamah reach every tribe member's ears, and who would not want one's name lauded in lyrics that float from the throat of the hakamah into the desert night?
"My authority in the tribe is indirect," said Ms. Sanusi, her weathered face peering out of a long yellow robe decorated with brown flowers. "I sit in the tribe and watch the people. If someone does something wrong, I say a poem about it. I change his attitude. If someone is not generous, if he keeps all his money to himself, I'll say something. If someone is not brave in war, I'll say something about him."
These days, however, Ms. Sanusi and the other hakamah who attended the peace workshop devote much of their attention to one topic.
Ms. Sanusi and four other hakamah from South Darfur gave a demonstration the other day. They sat on a straw mat outside the peace center in Nyala, all dressed in bright multicolored robes. Their fingers and toes were tattooed with elaborate designs. It was their voices, though, that were most arresting.
Singing and chanting in Arabic, one after another they showed how hakamah can sing as persuasively about peace as they can of war.
"May the children grow with no fighting in their lives," sang Shara Muhammad Farah-Aldoor.
"What happened to you, Sudan?" sang out another, Zaida Hamad Jabro. "We mourn the deaths. We long for an end to war."
Where have all the young men gone?
Long time ago
Where have all the young men gone?
Gone for soldiers every one
When will they ever learn?
When will they ever learn?
Read The Rest Scale: 1.5 out of 5.
Thanks for the links, but is there an argument here?
"Thanks for the links, but is there an argument here?"
No. Many posts here don't have arguments. Some are informational. (And Joe specifically asked me to post anything that updates Darfur.)
Thanks for the commentary, but I am so ticked off by France and China putting oil contracts ahead of saving the lifes of innocent people. I appreciate humor like the next person, but its hard to find humor in the needless suffering and dying,
I commend Colin Powell, for which this matter is among his finest moments. He is shaming Kofi into doing something, but even that appears remote given the UNSC.
To say that Powell is "shaming Kofi" is false.
The UN cannot get out in front of the Security Council. It's a bad system, but it's the only one we have right now for this kind of problem.
Kofi needs Powell's help, and only recently has he been released to do something. Now we have several hundred people from the AU and a last chance for the wolves, er, the Sudanese government, to save the henhouse, er, black Muslim population of Darfur, from destruction.
As for France, they're uber-realists dressed up as moralists. Sometime between 1956 and 1967 they decided to throw their lot in with the Arabs because it was in their interest to do so. There's nothing "evil" about it, any more so than our decision to let the Uighers be slaughtered at the whim of the Chinese is evil.
Songs do influence.
...
How many years can some people exist
Before they're allowed to be free?
Yes, and how many times can a man turn his head, pretending he just doesn't see?
The answer my friend, is blowing in the wind.
The answer is blowing in the wind.
I grew up with those songs. I still like them. They were for things as much as against things. I miss that.
I believe that Kofi Annan has been speaking out against the burgeoning genocide in the Sudan. But his hands are tied.
Any moral victory that France thought it had claimed, in being right about WMD in Iraq, simply erases now. Even given an "uber-realist" stance, unless I'm misunderstanding something, blocking action in the Sudan is somewhat unforgiveable.
Of course, I don't know what is at stake for France in terms of their oil interests. Here is in the U.S., we do the same thing in "coddling" Saudi Arabia - not speaking out about public beheadings, as an example, not to mention so many other things - and it is mainly about the oil (keeping it flowing in the world economy, not appropriating it for ourselves). So, don't be selective with your outrage.
It is again idealistic (and commendable) to urge that the answer to the Darfur situation be sought via the UN. And it is worth it to make the attempt at getting that world body off their butts.
However, as long as the UN as a body or certain members individually believe that what will or will not happen is solely dependent on their approval, resolution of issues such as this will continue to be as tragic as the ones before. So, I would argue that at the same time, the answer ought to also be sought via independent coalition building. The threat of being deemed impotent, useless, and possibly even unnecessary, might cause the UN (or certain memebers) to act more responsibly, fruitfully and in a timely manner. You might say that competition makes for a better political market.
It is wonderful to hear the African Union speak seriously about resolving the issue and that troops are being sent. The AU asks for help; they are asking others to join a coalition. No doubt the US and some others have invested quite a bit of political effort and help in getting the AU to step up to the plate. I believe this nascent coalition building is what is needed to pressure the UN to act. But if some actor with a monkey wrench and a desire to put economic interests ahead of the people of Darfur stops the UN gears from turning, a separate organization will be already developed to take the action the UN ought to have taken but didn't.
Try to use the UN key but do not rely on it to be the one to open the door.
If it "must be the U.N.," I don't have much hope for those people. It's gonna be another Rwanda, unless we do something.
And if we did something, our media would treat it like they have the emancipation of Iraq.
I'm starting to think that the only thing we can do is pray for these poor people. We've had ten years to do something, and it's only now beginning to penetrate our consciousness. I applaud Colin Powell's efforts, but the U.N. has amply demonstrated that it's feckless, except in obstructionism.
"It is again idealistic (and commendable) to urge that the answer to the Darfur situation be sought via the UN."
"If it 'must be the U.N.,' I don't have much hope for those people."
I'll repeat: "(Hint for the slow: this is the trope called 'sarcasm.')"
Incidentally, regarding this: "We've had ten years to do something, and it's only now beginning to penetrate our consciousness."
What's been going on in Darfur began in February, 2003.
Good work, Gary.
Powell CAN describe how dependence on the UN means Darfur people die. I wish he would start giving estimates. I wish Powell would explicitly name Amnesty Int'l and Human Rights Watch as groups who seem unwilling to name genocide when it's happening; to challenge France on whether it's serious about saving black lives in Darfur or only about its oil contracts with Arabs. It's also obvious that the UN does NOT provide protection; and depending on it to come to a solution means lots of folk die.
And Bush could do the same -- I wish he would.
It could also be a time to mock "apologies". The UN recently apologized for Rwanda inaction; I'm not sure they ever apologized for allowing Cambodia's genocide.
But allowing, and especially disallowing, require force to enforce any decision. Those groups who refuse to use the word "genocide" are prolly saving their last weapon, that word. But so what? Saving it for what? If words, or UN SC resolutions, are the last resort -- let's get there soon and see if they work. When they fail, soon, there might still be enough time for something that can really save lives.
The US military. Let's hope, and even pray, that it's used before another 1 000 blacks die in the Darfur genocide.
"I wish Powell would explicitly name Amnesty Int'l and Human Rights Watch as groups who seem unwilling to name genocide when it's happening...."
That would be difficult to do when the US government also does not call it "genocide." This is because we are bound by the Convention On Genocide, which mandates intervention. Meanwhile, however, Human Rights Watch has done valiant work, as has Amnesty International, so I really don't think it's fair to criticize them for something Secretary Powell and President Bush have not done."The US military. Let's hope, and even pray, that it's used before another 1 000 blacks die in the Darfur genocide."
That's more or less physically impossible, as essentially the entire Army is either in Iraq, training to go to Iraq, recovering from Iraq, on other deployment, or otherwise occupied. I suppose we could start bombing Khartoum in the name of human rights, but this might not work out as well as one would like.
I don't know why people "condemn" Human Rights Watch for not condemning what's going on in Darfur. It's inane. It's counterfactual. Where does this talking point develop? Does it make people feel good to bash HRW based on NO evidence?
While you're at it, folks, educate yourself about what, exactly, HRW has been talking about all along.
The UN is supposed to help the darfur problem be solved. Then it has to solve the iraq imbroglio.But i wonder if the UNO really represents the world opinion or only that of the five nuclear club members who have the veto-right. Is it correct that these 5 countries are allowed to steamroll over the world"s poor countries. Where is japan in the security council, where is germany? where is brazil, where is nigeria, where is the billion people-india. How can this small club of five members decide everything for the world. I feel it is high time someone just dismantle this UNO and create a new body which will have one country , one vote democratic body with a 10 or 15 member governing council that will rotate its members and all decisions will be by majority vote without any nation having veto powers. The new body should be located in a neutral territory and not america. only then can the world have an effective body to prevent wars.