About
Saving Darfur: Reflections On The Carrot And The Stick
By Stephen Eric Bronner
30 May,2007
Logos
"Who wills the end
wills the means thereto."
-Immanuel Kant
Revulsion
has gripped the world over the continuing tragedy in Darfur. Terrible
civil wars between Northern and Southern Sudan have been taking place
since independence was achieved more than fifty years ago. Nearly 300,000
people have died due to illness, violence, and starvation while 2.5
million have been driven from their homes over the last four years,
and the UN Integrated Regional Information Network reported on March
19, 2007 that 4.5 million are "conflict affected" and in need
of humanitarian relief. The ongoing conflict ravaging the Sudan has
produced more than 80,000 new refugees in the six months since February
2007 even while the government in Khartoum has shut down 52 humanitarian
relief agencies that have been caring for the "internally displaced
people" living in 153 camps. As the crisis of the Sudan spills
over into Chad and the Central African Republic, where more than 450,000
hapless refugees linger without adequate sustenance or health care,
international resolutions are greeted with indifference, and peace agreements
already reached between the national government in Khartoum and the
Southern rebels seem near collapse.
Governments throughout the
world led by Britain and the United States have inveighed against the
Khartoum government led by Omar al-Bashir calling for various punitive
measures including travel bans, freezing assets, economic sanctions,
a "no-fly zone," and perhaps even military intervention. Letters
of protest have been signed by leading progressive intellectuals, celebrities
have entered the fray, divestment campaigns have begun at various campuses
and state legislatures in the United States, and progressive organizations
like "Save Darfur" and "Enough" have sprung into
existence. Frustration has become ever more palpable and, everywhere,
the cry is heard: "Let's do something."
No less than representatives
of the political mainstream, however, Western progressives apparently
lack any innovative ideas concerning what is to be done. Most of their
proposals blend calls for cooperation with threats of coercion and,
usually, the contradictions are glaring. The idea is to provide a sliding
scale of options or, in more sophisticated terms, a "Rubik's Cube"
of responses in which it is assumed that no single policy will work
but that hope resides in the prospect of having these disparate ideas
lined up correctly.[1] Little is articulated in the way of material
incentives for cooperation, however, and too much reliance is placed
on the use of sanctions and the type of military bluster favored by
the Right. Thus, the integrity of the Left has been compromised along
with its ability to frame the issues of war and refugees in its own
terms.
Western military intervention
in the Sudan is simply not a viable option. It will confront almost
unimaginable obstacles, divide those seeking to save Darfur, generate
international opposition, and create even greater animus against the
West in the Arab world. Economic sanctions have rarely had much success
and, other than the military option, they constitute the next to last
resort: leverage and influence diminish once sanctions are instituted
and divestment can only prove a minor irritant in the Sudan. To insist
that the Sudanese government does not "want" to cooperate
is to miss the point. Genuine diplomacy will articulate proposals that
focus on the economic, political, and symbolic incentives -- rather
than the threats -- that might bring about cooperation.
Clear commitments and promises
of sustained western investment in the Sudan can be linked to the repatriation
of refugees in Darfur. A genuinely national investment plan would offer
economic and political incentives for all parties engaged in the old
civil war between North and South to adhere to the peace agreements
already signed. Such an approach would also fit logically with the call
made by many progressive organizations for heightened diplomatic engagement
between the Western states and the Khartoum regime. China has material
interests in the stability of Africa. That country might be enticed
actually to develop positive policies for the Sudan –- rather
than simply exert "pressure" -- if given a leading role in
efforts to deal with what is rapidly becoming a transnational refugee
problem and growing conditions of regional instability. Thinking about
the Sudan and China in this way would give the grassroots actions favored
by the Left -- concerts, conferences, demonstrations, and the like --
a clearer focus and sense of purpose. Especially because military intervention
is unrealistic, and sanctions won't work, current ways of thinking need
to be reversed. Even banning arms sales to the Sudan does not change
the existing political reality: it is time to privilege the carrot over
the stick.
* * *
None of the plans currently
on the table will "save" Darfur because none of them, either
alone or in combination, establishes a plausible connection between
ends and means. Seeking cooperation while calling for punitive measures
can only produce a contradictory enterprise. But that this embrace of
mutually exclusive policy options is precisely what has been offered
by organizations ranging from the International Human Rights Council
to grassroots groups like "Save Darfur" and "Enough."
All of them either explicitly or implicitly call for extending the sanctions
placed by the United States upon the Sudan into a multi-national enterprise.
Few of these organizations are willing to rule out force against the
Sudan in spite of the ominous risks. Mixed with all this is a legitimate
call for grassroots organizations throughout the world to express their
outrage against the Sudan (as well as China), for the United States
to engage the Sudan diplomatically, for the rebels in the South to unify
their efforts against the North, and for the completion of the peace
process. Calling for increased diplomatic recognition of the Sudan by
the West -– i.e. the installation of an ambassador by the United
States -– while pushing for punitive economic and military measures
makes no sense and how symbolic protest will translate into policy remains
unclear. There is no reason why the Sudan should believe, let alone
seriously engage, those wielding the weapons of economic and military
coercion while calling for peace.
Wrangling between the Sudan
and the international community is currently taking place over the implementation
of a policy that would introduce a force of 22,000 troops under the
"hybrid" command of the United Nations and the African Union
to patrol the IDP camps. Three thousand troops are already in place
but the last phase of the operation is proceeding at a snail's pace.
Various neo-conservatives like Robert Kagan as well as important US
State Department Officials like Susan Rice and President Bill Clinton's
former National Security Advisor, Tony Lake, have already called for
unilateral military action by the United States against the Sudan. Some
voices on the left are now echoing these suggestions. Others are calling
for a "quartet" of outside nations to mediate the crisis in
Darfur. In order to make sure that its "bark" will not prove
bigger than its "bite," however, many progressives seem willing
to entertain the dangerous suggestion that mediation by such a quartet
"must be prepared to push ideas based on their assessment of what
is required, not only what the parties state that they are willing to
accept."[2]
How this is to be accomplished,
of course, is another matter. It is ludicrous to believe that 22,000
troops will produce stability for the 153 IDP camps in Darfur, which
is as large as France, or prove capable of dealing with the complexities
of the Sudan whose size is roughly that of Western Europe. Or, to put
it in slightly different terms, this nation is 30 times the size of
Rwanda and 100 times the size of Sierra Leone. Aside from its own military
force, moreover, the Sudan has eighty different tribal militias and
its peoples speak hundreds of different languages. Indeed, tragically,
it is as if interventionist liberals have learned nothing from Iraq.
They are, once again, ignoring obvious constraints on effective military
action. They are, again, underestimating the potential for resistance.
Better that these luminaries should have highlighted the need for an
arms ban on the Sudan and the importance of regional conferences dealing
with arms sales. In any event, as things now stand, hardly a whisper
can be heard about an "exit strategy." Nor has much time been
spent worrying about how military intervention might destabilize any
or all of the nine states bordering the Sudan or that "regime change"
in Khartoum could generate a new set of civil wars from which the refugees
would undoubtedly suffer the most. Interesting is how the assumptions
regarding military intervention, as surely as the demands by Tony Blair
for the introduction of "no-fly zones,"[3] have been carried
over from those that spawned the disaster in Iraq.
On the European Union's 50th
Birthday (March 25 2007) Bob Geldof -- the singer/ songwriter/mogul/activist
and organizer of the fabulous Live-Aid Concert in 1985 that raised more
than $100 million for famine relief in Africa -- brought together a
remarkable set of progressive artists and intellectuals to protest the
murderous events taking place in Darfur. Dario Fo, Umberto Eco, Jurgen
Habermas, Vaclav Havel, Seamus Heaney, Bernard Henri-Levy, Harold Pinter,
Franca Rame and Tom Stoppard signed a letter calling for international
economic sanctions against the Sudan that would also include travel
bans and the freezing of individual assets in western banks. "Forbid
them our shores and our health service and luxury goods," according
to Geldof, and the crisis can be ended in three weeks. Unfortunately,
however, he and his friends didn't bother to consider that international
economic sanctions are virtually impossible to coordinate, Arab nations
will never agree to restrictions on travel, banks and health services
exist outside the West, and conversion of currency is a simple maneuver.
The intentions of these signatories
were surely honorable. But their stance was neither brave nor innovative.
It was instead thoroughly establishmentarian and totally conformist.
There has been enthusiastic praise for the use of economic sanctions
against the Sudan not only from Republicans, but all across the American
political spectrum. The United States has now, in fact, made an official
part of policy the sanctions already in place. More than 130 firms currently
trading with the Sudan, including the two leading oil companies, are
already prevented from doing business with the United States, using
its financial institutions, or employing the dollar as currency for
their transactions. The impact of these sanctions on the policy decisions
made in Khartoum has been negligible. What good the new approach will
achieve remains unclear. The Sudan is among the top 20 least trade dependent
states in the world and, of particular importance insofar as sanctions
impact mostly on the poor, it ranks 139th -- or among the lowest nations
-- on the UN Human Misery Index.
Embracing right-wing foreign
policy assumptions has created a situation for Western progressives
in which their completely legitimate moral outrage has been combined
with -- as in Iraq -- a completely naïve and hence illegitimate
pseudo-realism. Liberal foreign policy analysts and organizations of
the Left have thus been unable to develop any diplomatic alternatives,
or initiatives of their own. The media has given enormous attention
to the United Nations Children's Fund goodwill ambassador, actress Mia
Farrow, for condemning the "genocide Olympics" planned for
Beijing in 2008 and getting Steven Spielberg (who is currently serving
as an artistic advisor for the televised event) to write a letter to
President of China, Hu Jintao, expressing his dismay for China's support
of the Sudan. "Credit goes to Hollywood," wrote Helene Cooper,
on April 13, 2007 in The New York Times. And, in a way, that is fair
enough. But, then, Spielberg's letter never received a response. China
did dispatch Mr. Zhai Jun, a senior foreign policy advisor, to the Sudan
-- he visited three refugee camps, discussed the crisis, and then returned
home. On May 9, 2007 The Daily Telegraph in London reported that China
and Russia would sell new helicopters and military equipment to the
Sudanese.
There is nothing wrong with
attempting to mobilize world opinion and express outrage at what is
taking place in Darfur. But such celebrity diplomacy is ultimately a
tactic based on little more than an opportunity for the Sudanese government
-- or its allies --- to avoid being shamed. If these nations were so
concerned about being shamed, of course, they would not have pursued
the policies that they pursued in the first place. The idea that the
shame wrought by a group of celebrities and the western media will somehow
outweigh the massive material interests that China derives from buying
more than 60% of the Sudan's oil, while serving as a prime supplier
of its military needs, is simply ludicrous. Attempts by Hollywood celebrities
to exert Western media pressure on the Sudan, a nation concerned with
very different priorities, is similarly no substitute for meaningful
policies. As things now stand: Western intellectuals and celebrities
make their demands, the Sudanese should accept, and if they don't ...
better not to think about it. Their idea of diplomacy essentially rests
on the belief that either Khartoum will capitulate to their demands
or it will face more drastic alternatives. This approach has not only
proven unsuccessful, but counter-productive. It has helped drive the
Sudan into the arms of Russia and, especially, China.
* * *
Striking is the lack of reflection,
the mixture of desperation and incoherence, and the inability on the
part of both the mainstream and most of its progressive critics to specify
the end that the tactics they propose should realize in Dafur and the
Sudan. Some are content to emphasize the need to "patrol"
the IDP camps and guarantee security for humanitarian relief efforts.
But this view is short sighted. Closing these nightmare IDP camps and
repatriating the refugees is the only goal worth talking about and this
means keeping the eyes on the prize. It will undoubtedly rest on strengthening
the UN arms embargo already in place and the United States is to be
praised for finally implementing its own laws against arms brokering
rather than, as in the immediate past, waiting for other nations to
do likewise. But this is only a step in the right direction. Unless
repatriation is understood as the end that progressive policy should
serve, its framers will be culpable for the creation of a new refugee
population in Darfur and neighboring states that will make the lingering
tragedy of the Palestinian or Iraqi refugees seem minor in comparison.
Repatriation policies will
require over the long haul not only a great deal of money, which the
United Nations lacks, but security and access to the villages in which
the refugees used to live. This latter concern requires -- as a prerequisite
-- peace between the rebels in Darfur and the government in Khartoum.
Negotiation between the parties makes some form of meaningful cooperation
between Khartoum and concerned parties in the rest of the world indispensable.
For that negotiation to be successful, however, incentives must be articulated
that speak to the interests not merely of those languishing in the camps
but, ironically, the politicians sitting in their offices in Khartoum.
If punitive measures can only prove reckless, divisive, and ineffective
-- so that the "bite" of interventionists will inevitably
be weaker than the "bark" -- talking about them as serious
policy options will undermine the trust necessary to create the kind
of cooperation that is sought by other policy options.
The reality is that the Sudan
simply does not know what to do with the refugees in Darfur: it has
become the prisoner of its own policies. The costs of relocating them
are higher than leaving them to rot in this western part of the Sudan,
or terrorizing them through the use of nomadic tribesmen known as the
Janjaweed. More refugees are thereby generated and more violence. Regional
insecurity is also heightened and tent communities have been created
-- comprising tens of thousands of IDPs -- that now encircle Khartoum.
It is a vicious cycle that is draining the resources of the Sudan even
as it seemingly allows for no exit. Complicating matters further is
the possibility of a new civil war between the government in Khartoum
and the provinces of the South. An election is coming up in 2009 --
agreed upon in the Comprehensive Peace Agreement signed in January 2006--
that will allow the Southern provinces, which retain most of the country's
oil and resources, to decide whether their citizens wish to secede from
the Sudan. This prospect provides a possible incentive for the Khartoum
government to resume the old civil war, prevent unity among the rebels,
and maintain the numerous tribal militias. Should that take place, of
course, more refugees will spill over into Darfur.
Amid this mess, then, a real
issue of sovereignty is at stake for the government of Omar Bashir and
dealing with the situation requires more than calls for unity among
the rebels and support for their cause. It is also not as if the rebels
were all angels committed to democratic government. Fifteen rebel factions
from rival tribes with very different customs and languages are currently
fighting the government in Khartoum under the rubric of the Sudanese
Liberation Movement. The Comprehensive Peace Agreement is near collapse
and only one faction has signed the Darfur Peace Agreement of May 2006.
Tribal and religious loyalties still outweigh commitments to democracy
and nationalism, and even rebel leaders in Darfur are more concerned
about shares from oil revenues and investment for their clienteles than
solving the problems of the IDPs in Darfur. The Los Angeles Times reported
on April 14, in fact, that humanitarian organizations as well as refugees
have been subject to violence and atrocities by the rebels. Therefore,
it is not merely a matter of calling upon the Sudan to bring about "peace."
Even while insisting that China and Russia diminish their arms sales
to the Sudan, which would still leave the North with a strong military
advantage, western progressives must also highlight in their propaganda,
and mobilizing efforts, the importance of having all rebel factions
sign and adhere to –- whatever their flaws -- the peace agreements
on the table.
Given the likelihood that
the Southern provinces will vote in favor of secession, and that the
composition of the rebel opposition is in flux, it doesn't help to speculate
about the future make-up of a genuinely representative government for
the Sudan. Even were a temporary alliance achieved between previously
hostile Arab and non-Arab factions in Darfur, (and the South), the stage
might be set for a new round of civil wars. The real issue involves
bringing together these rebel factions in hope of having them sign the
Darfur Peace Agreement. Conscience International put forward a plan
for regional conflict resolution conferences in El-Fasher, El-Geneina,
and Nyjala during a visit by its members to Khartoum in March 2007.
If followed, the glare of national and international politics would
be dimmed; more people might become involved in the process; and perhaps
even a bit of pressure could be brought to bear on leaders of the factions
from below. Attempts at conflict resolution in the provinces might thus
prove useful. Nevertheless, national policies must supplement such local
initiatives.
To be sure, the Sudanese
government must be convinced of the need for implementing its three-stage
agreement with the UN. The completed first phase introduced hundreds
of UN police advisors and civilian staff into Darfur while the second,
which is basically in place, calls for a heavier support package comprising
six helicopters and 3,000 troops; the third phase, which will bring
in another 20,000 troops, is what remains the bone of contention. Amenable
to a force under the control of the African Union,[4] which would then
coordinate efforts by the UN and the Sudan, Khartoum has a legitimate
point in demanding that senior officers for this "hybrid"
operation should come from its own continent. This would allow for an
African solution to an African problem, which is important given the
memories of colonialism, and provide further recognition for both regional
and Sudanese interests in conjunction with those of the IDPs.
Virtually nothing has been
said either by mainstream politicians or progressives, however, about
the need for a new economic strategy. Such an approach would need to
transcend the current reliance on economic sanctions and instead address
the tripartite interests of Khartoum, the Southern rebels, and the IDPs.
Whether implemented through institutions associated with the nation-state,
or an international economic consortium, such a strategy would basically
rest upon lifting sanctions while using a certain fixed amount from
every dollar invested in the Sudan for sustaining and repatriating the
IDPs. It would be tied to "benchmarks," or demonstrable evidence,
concerning the disarming of the Janjaweed. Western corporations and
states might argue that investment first requires security and that
projects would be subject to the ebbs and flows associated with shifting
tactics by the participants to the crisis in Darfur and the conflict
in the Sudan. Such an objection is legitimate. Investment under unstable
conditions is, indeed, a gamble. Western corporations and states would
have to decide whether, in the case of the Sudan and the crisis in Darfur,
humanitarian convictions might trump the risks involved.
There are also dangers to
be considered. Investment tied to repatriating the refugees would benefit
the government of Omar al-Bashir as well as Darfur and the South. There
is nothing imprudent about such an investment plan, however, and there
are legitimate reasons to hope for positive outcomes. Khartoum might,
first of all, recognize that securing new investment is worth abandoning
the Janjaweed. The Sudanese leaders of the North might also take the
opportunity to lessen the costs generated by their disastrous policy
in Darfur. They surely intuit that, unless investment becomes more diverse,
the Sudan will increasingly become an economic colony of China. The
prospect of Western investment might suggest to the Khartoum government
that its Darfur policy is undermining its geo-political interests, Sustained
investment in the North, even should the South secede, would still allow
it to act as a dominant player in the region and in Africa. That human
rights organizations –-currently so suspect by the government
in Khartoum -- would probably have to administer the funds should not
prove decisive. Were Western corporations and states to offer a new
bold and innovative investment plan there would be a real incentive
for the Khartoum government to adjust their policies appropriately.
Or, putting it another way, an intelligent political investment strategy
could conceivably aid the refugees in Darfur by offering an economic
incentive for peace that would appeal to both parties to the old civil
war that is in danger of being resumed.
But it is also crucial to
understand that the plight of the IDPs has become a transnational problem
that reaches beyond Darfur and into the Central African Republic, Chad,
and other nations bordering the Sudan. Seeking aid for humanitarian
agencies and catering to the needs of the refugees is essential. But
it is a stopgap measure. Far larger funds are required to resuscitate
not merely the African Union, which would play an important role in
dealing with this problem, but the virtually bankrupt Office of the
United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHRC) that has already
successfully repatriated 12,000 IDPs in Darfur. Here a "quartet"
-- or a "quintet" -- could actually do something useful. Important
participants would have to include the Arab League, the European Union,
Russia, and the United States. Any transnational undertaking in Africa,
however, must also include China: it has accounted for nearly 20% of
economic growth in Africa, written off more than $1 billion in debts,
provided loans of nearly $1 billion for 55 projects in two dozen African
nations, and increased its trade with Africa from $6 billion in 2000
to what will probably amount to $100 billion by 2010.
Many are suggesting that
the western economic dominance of Africa is at an end. Whether that
claim is overstated or not, (requirements for building the infrastructure
of Africa by 2010 are put at $17 billion), even a moderately successful
resolution of the refugee problem will depend upon the degree of cooperation
achieved between the China and the West. China has consistently called
for a diplomatic solution to the crisis, and it has recently created
a new cabinet-level position for African diplomacy centering on the
Sudan. But it has also contributed 300 troops to the hybrid undertaking
of the UN and the African Union. China is increasingly becoming a world
actor, not merely a world power, and perhaps this nation should finally
be accorded some responsibility by the West for implementing a concrete
policy rather than for exercising the inherently elusive "influence"
that intoxicates so many progressives.
Perhaps it might even be
appropriate to raise the possibility of a joint effort undertaken by
China and the rest of the quartet to complement a political investment
strategy with direct financing of humanitarian organizations capable
of sustaining and repatriating the refugees across boundaries. This
would obviously benefit Khartoum by giving a genuinely important role
to its most important ally. Western nations and organizations could
share the burdens associated with resolving the crisis while China could
garner some positive publicity for a humanitarian undertaking without
compromising its economic interests in the Sudan and the region. In
any case, there is no sensible option for progressives than to develop
proposals for peaceful intervention that can coordinate the interests
of the refugees with those of the region and the Sudanese.
* * *
As pundits speak about the growth of "compassion fatigue"
concerning Darfur, usually without mentioning the devastating lack of
positive proposals offered by the political mainstream, now is the time
-- echoing an old slogan -- to give up the cant and return to Kant.
He was, after all, the greatest advocate of linking ends and means.
Many of the new strategies advocated here have a speculative character.
They will prove difficult to implement and there are myriad details
to be resolved. But they speak to the need for an authentic policy of
the Left. These proposals also dovetail nicely with progressive calls
for increasing diplomatic contacts, seeking civil peace in the Sudan,
and generating grassroots enthusiasm for dealing with the IDPs. They
offer humane, cosmopolitan, and coherent alternatives to the more traditional
reliance on economic sanctions and military threats that has failed
so miserably in the past. None of them, moreover, is set in stone. Each
is intended merely to spark discussion and provoke use of the critical
intellect. If nothing else, when taken together, these proposals project
a way of thinking about the seemingly intractable crisis in Darfur that
refuses to accept the parameters of the given. Thus, perhaps, they might
just inspire the hard work associated with imagining the possible.
Notes
1. John Prendergast, "The
Answer to Darfur: How to Resolve the World's Hottest War"
for the International Crisis Group and the Center for American Progress,
(2007) pg. 7.
2. Ibid.,
pg. 10.
3. In response to information
that Sudan has been flying arms and heavy military, Reuters
noted: "With Sudan's limited number of fixed wing
aircraft it would be a logistical nightmare maintaining a no-fly zone
in an area the size of Texas." Attesting to the desperation felt
by many students of the Sudan, though he offers a non-fly zone as an
option, Eric Reeves also knows that it won't work; see here.
4. Note the discussion in
Stephen Eric Bronner,
Peace Out of Reach: Middle Eastern Travels and the Search for Reconciliation
(Lexington: University Press of Kentucky, 2007).
STEPHEN ERIC BRONNER is the Senior Editor of Logos.
Currently Distinguished Professor (Professor II) of Political Science
at Rutgers University, his most recent book is Peace Out of Reach: Middle
Eastern Travels and the Search for Reconciliation (University Press
of Kentucky).
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