This House Believes That the US should have done more for Darfur

The violence that occurred in the Darfur region of Western Sudan since 2003, approached genocide proportions with the death toll estimated between 300,000 and 500,000 out of a population of a little over a million and a half.

Not only was this a human tragedy. It was also a political crisis. The West invested enormous political capital in the idea that genocide, whether deliberate or through governmental negligence, is unacceptable, and George Bush even termed the events in Darfur a genocide in 2007.[1]

By having called the events a genocide and then failed the West discredited itself, both as a moral force(showing it cared more about SE Europe than it did Africa) and indicated to dictators that they have no reason to fear a Western response in the future.

[1] ‘Bush blasts Darfur 'genocide'’, MailOnline, 29 May 2007, http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-458389/Bush-blasts-Darfur-genocide.html

The events in Darfur were first and foremost a Civil War, even if their consequences included a major humanitarian crisis.

Darfur rose in rebellion against the central government first, and even the local conflict was a civil war, the Abbala tribe from which the janjaweed are drawn has a long history of conflict with settled Darfur tribes, which drove them off their land centuries ago.

That the death toll in these conflicts was raised by the introduction of modern armaments is clear. What is not clear is how Western intervention would have solved either the underlying problems, or created a deterrent. The most likely outcome would have been genocide of the Abbala, as the West already demonstrated in Kosovo that it is unable to protect the “perpetrators” of genocide from its “victims” even with large military forces present.

Perhaps as damaging as the humanitarian consequences of the failure to intervene is the message it sent to other leaders considering solving their political and ethnic problems in a similar manner to Khartoum.

Rather than deterring them from following in Bashir’s footsteps, the West by doing nothing, gave the impression that Bashir survived not through his own efforts, but because China protected him.

Given the rapid expansion of Chinese influence around in Africa, this makes accepting Chinese investment instead of western investment vastly more attractive because in addition to the economic benefits, it is now perceived as buying Chinese political cover.

In turn, this increasing interest in seeking out Chinese political cover will lead to more states being willing to imitate Bashir in the future, safe the knowledge that they will not be bombed.

An ineffective message in this case might well have been worse than no message. Had the West attempted to intervene, either by setting up a no-fly zone or even sending in ground troops, and the killings not stopped, it would have sent a message that Western threats and Western power are a paper tiger.

Worse, if the genocide had reversed itself after Western intervention, the West would have found itself with both the moral and the political responsibility for the violence, and accusations of Western bias and even complicity would spread rapidly.

The Sudanese government’s unsavoury behaviour goes beyond its actions in Darfur. Its campaign against the southern rebels was replete with atrocities, and it has a long history of supporting terrorism including hosting Osama Bin Ladin in the early  1990s.[1]

While Sudan has been more cooperative in recent years against Al-Quada, it continues to harbour Islamic extremist groups responsible for attacks in Egypt and Saudi Arabia.

Combined with the conflict in Darfur there was a pressing case for regime change, and reason to think Sudan’s neighbours would be open and supportive of the idea as well.

[1] Bhattacharji, Preeti, ‘State Sponsors: Sudan’, Council on Foreign Relations, 2 April 2008, http://www.cfr.org/sudan/state-sponsors-sudan/p9367

Past experience in Iraq and Afghanistan indicates that terrorism tends to flourish when states are weak. An Invasion of Sudan, especially if it had led to a collapse of the Sudanese state, would have create a vacuum terrorists could kill, especially when the very invasion would provide the resentment and motivation for thousands of jihadi volunteers to fight the Western “crusaders”

Sudan’s internal problems actively destabilized the entire region. More than a million refugees fled Darfur, many travelling to refugee camps in Chad and Southern Sudan. This in turn has placed stresses on local resources.[1]

Furthermore, the tendency for resistance forces to base themselves in these refugee camps, threatened and continues to threaten to spread the war into these regions, either igniting the north-south Civil War in Sudan, or destabilizing Chad’s government.

[1] Polgreen, Lydia, ‘Attacks Pushing Darfur Refugees Into Chad’, The New York Times, 11 February 2008, http://www.nytimes.com/2008/02/11/world/africa/11darfur.html

There was and continues to be a compelling case for a humanitarian response to the crises, but this does not suggest that military intervention would have solved the situation.

Military intervention and the collapse of the Sudanese state would have quite possibly led to far greater destabilization. Rather than only one group of refugees, it would likely have led to the Abbala fleeing over the border into Chad as well. Potentially this could have meant the development of a situation akin to that in the Democratic Republic of Congo, were the refugees refought the Civil War among themselves.

The conflict in Sudan took on racial overtones. The inhabitants of Darfur are largely black, the government forces of Arab descent. Much of their treatment, including kidnapping and slavery, is a legacy of centuries of racist mistreatment and conflict between “white” and “dark” Muslims.[1]

As a strong opponent of Racism, the West had a duty to act, given that the conflict was reinforcing negative views in the Arab world against those of darker skin.[2]

[1] Mutua, Makau, ‘Racism at root of Sudan’s Darfur crisis’, The Christian Science Monitor, 14 July 2004, http://www.csmonitor.com/2004/0714/p09s02-coop.html

[2] Fatah, Tarek, ‘From Bangladesh to Darfur: Racism among Muslims’, http://mukto-mona.com, 24 April 2009, http://mukto-mona.com/wordpress/?p=275

The Sudanese government has long been integrated, and black Sudanese as well as Arabs serving in the cabinet and Army. The rebellion in Darfur is primarily political and was launched by former supporters of the government. There is no clear evidence it is based on race.

The violence that occurred in the Darfur region of Western Sudan since 2003, approached genocide proportions with the death toll estimated between 300,000 and 500,000 out of a population of a little over a million and a half.

Not only was this a human tragedy. It was also a political crisis. The West invested enormous political capital in the idea that genocide, whether deliberate or through governmental negligence, is unacceptable, and George Bush even termed the events in Darfur a genocide in 2007.[1]

By having called the events a genocide and then failed the West discredited itself, both as a moral force(showing it cared more about SE Europe than it did Africa) and indicated to dictators that they have no reason to fear a Western response in the future.

[1] ‘Bush blasts Darfur 'genocide'’, MailOnline, 29 May 2007, http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-458389/Bush-blasts-Darfur-genocide.html

The events in Darfur were first and foremost a Civil War, even if their consequences included a major humanitarian crisis.

Darfur rose in rebellion against the central government first, and even the local conflict was a civil war, the Abbala tribe from which the janjaweed are drawn has a long history of conflict with settled Darfur tribes, which drove them off their land centuries ago.

That the death toll in these conflicts was raised by the introduction of modern armaments is clear. What is not clear is how Western intervention would have solved either the underlying problems, or created a deterrent. The most likely outcome would have been genocide of the Abbala, as the West already demonstrated in Kosovo that it is unable to protect the “perpetrators” of genocide from its “victims” even with large military forces present.

Perhaps as damaging as the humanitarian consequences of the failure to intervene is the message it sent to other leaders considering solving their political and ethnic problems in a similar manner to Khartoum.

Rather than deterring them from following in Bashir’s footsteps, the West by doing nothing, gave the impression that Bashir survived not through his own efforts, but because China protected him.

Given the rapid expansion of Chinese influence around in Africa, this makes accepting Chinese investment instead of western investment vastly more attractive because in addition to the economic benefits, it is now perceived as buying Chinese political cover.

In turn, this increasing interest in seeking out Chinese political cover will lead to more states being willing to imitate Bashir in the future, safe the knowledge that they will not be bombed.

An ineffective message in this case might well have been worse than no message. Had the West attempted to intervene, either by setting up a no-fly zone or even sending in ground troops, and the killings not stopped, it would have sent a message that Western threats and Western power are a paper tiger.

Worse, if the genocide had reversed itself after Western intervention, the West would have found itself with both the moral and the political responsibility for the violence, and accusations of Western bias and even complicity would spread rapidly.

The Sudanese government’s unsavoury behaviour goes beyond its actions in Darfur. Its campaign against the southern rebels was replete with atrocities, and it has a long history of supporting terrorism including hosting Osama Bin Ladin in the early  1990s.[1]

While Sudan has been more cooperative in recent years against Al-Quada, it continues to harbour Islamic extremist groups responsible for attacks in Egypt and Saudi Arabia.

Combined with the conflict in Darfur there was a pressing case for regime change, and reason to think Sudan’s neighbours would be open and supportive of the idea as well.

[1] Bhattacharji, Preeti, ‘State Sponsors: Sudan’, Council on Foreign Relations, 2 April 2008, http://www.cfr.org/sudan/state-sponsors-sudan/p9367

Past experience in Iraq and Afghanistan indicates that terrorism tends to flourish when states are weak. An Invasion of Sudan, especially if it had led to a collapse of the Sudanese state, would have create a vacuum terrorists could kill, especially when the very invasion would provide the resentment and motivation for thousands of jihadi volunteers to fight the Western “crusaders”

Sudan’s internal problems actively destabilized the entire region. More than a million refugees fled Darfur, many travelling to refugee camps in Chad and Southern Sudan. This in turn has placed stresses on local resources.[1]

Furthermore, the tendency for resistance forces to base themselves in these refugee camps, threatened and continues to threaten to spread the war into these regions, either igniting the north-south Civil War in Sudan, or destabilizing Chad’s government.

[1] Polgreen, Lydia, ‘Attacks Pushing Darfur Refugees Into Chad’, The New York Times, 11 February 2008, http://www.nytimes.com/2008/02/11/world/africa/11darfur.html

There was and continues to be a compelling case for a humanitarian response to the crises, but this does not suggest that military intervention would have solved the situation.

Military intervention and the collapse of the Sudanese state would have quite possibly led to far greater destabilization. Rather than only one group of refugees, it would likely have led to the Abbala fleeing over the border into Chad as well. Potentially this could have meant the development of a situation akin to that in the Democratic Republic of Congo, were the refugees refought the Civil War among themselves.

The conflict in Sudan took on racial overtones. The inhabitants of Darfur are largely black, the government forces of Arab descent. Much of their treatment, including kidnapping and slavery, is a legacy of centuries of racist mistreatment and conflict between “white” and “dark” Muslims.[1]

As a strong opponent of Racism, the West had a duty to act, given that the conflict was reinforcing negative views in the Arab world against those of darker skin.[2]

[1] Mutua, Makau, ‘Racism at root of Sudan’s Darfur crisis’, The Christian Science Monitor, 14 July 2004, http://www.csmonitor.com/2004/0714/p09s02-coop.html

[2] Fatah, Tarek, ‘From Bangladesh to Darfur: Racism among Muslims’, http://mukto-mona.com, 24 April 2009, http://mukto-mona.com/wordpress/?p=275

The Sudanese government has long been integrated, and black Sudanese as well as Arabs serving in the cabinet and Army. The rebellion in Darfur is primarily political and was launched by former supporters of the government. There is no clear evidence it is based on race.

Military intervention, unless launched against the Sudanese state itself, was very unlikely to have been effective.

While a no-fly zone would have limited the participation of the Sudanese air force in Darfur, the Sudanese air force was and is not vital to the continued genocide, as Sudanese ground forces and the Janjaweed would still be able to operate.

Any air operations would furthermore have required over flight rights from Libya, Egypt, Ethiopia and either Somalia or Eritrea. Libya until Gaddaffi’s overthrow was unlikely to work with the West, and the new government is moving closer to Khartoum.[1] Chad would have feared military retaliation, whereas Revolutionary Egypt is in no condition to make major decisions about anything. Both Ethiopia and Eritrea have human rights concerns of their own.

Avoiding overflights would limit NATO to using carrier based aircraft from the Red Sea that would have had to cross more than a 1000 KM of Sudan to reach the area. This would have made it very difficult to supply a force in Darfur and would have limited operational effectiveness even of the air force.

As for the deployment of ground troops, there are few overland supply routes to the Darfur region, and supplying a military force there would have been next to impossible with the opposition of a still existent Sudanese government.

[1] Newman, Alex, ‘Libya Rulers Vow ‘Integration’ with Sudan Terror Regime’, NewAmerican, 26 November 2011, http://thenewamerican.com/world-mainmenu-26/africa-mainmenu-27/9936-libya-rulers-vow-integration-with-sudan-terror-regime

Even eliminating the Sudanese Air Force would have had a major impact, as one rebel group argued that the Air Force was responsible for 60% of the attacks launched by Sudanese forces in the region.[1]

Even if a non-Fly zone did not completely eliminate the Sudanese military forces, it would even the playing field and perhaps persuaded the government to sue for peace.

Furthermore, the difficulty of gaining over-flight rights was also an issue with the air war in Kosovo, eventually forcing the use of German bases and carrier launched planes due to Italian reluctance. Such issues can be overcome, and the Sudanese air force poses little threat with its aged inventory.

[1] Polgreen, Lydia, ‘Attacks Pushing Darfur Refugees Into Chad’, The New York Times, 11 February 2008, http://www.nytimes.com/2008/02/11/world/africa/11darfur.html

The focus on the failure to act in Darfur ignores the real progress that has been achieved in ending decades long violence in Sudan. In 2011 Southern Sudan peacefully voted to secede and all indications are that the process will not be contested by Khartoum.

The United States under George Bush played a key role in the peace accords which ended that part of the Civil War, with Prospect Magazine noting that the President “deserves much of the credit” for the agreement.[1]  While the government in Khartoum has accepted them, it seems likely that if the US were to have participated in a bombing campaign or invasion, that the Sudanese government would have responded by tearing up the accords.

This is especially true as they would have a pressing motive that does not exist in Darfur, namely the Oil reserves that will be leaving the country with the rest of the South.[2]

[1] De Waal, Akex, ‘Sudan’s chance’, Prospect, 28 August 2005, http://www.prospectmagazine.co.uk/2005/08/sudanschance/

[2] ‘South Sudan says agreement reached with Khartoum on oil fees’, Sudan Tribune, 13 December 2011, http://www.sudantribune.com/South-Sudan-says-agreement-reached,40992

It is unclear whether the Northern government has any desire to go back to war with the South even if an excuse existed. The Foreign Minister denied any such interest in December of 2011,[1] and the fact is that Sudan ended the war because it was costing far more to wage than could possible have been recovered. Furthermore, after 20 years government forces were losing, and it is hard to see how they would do better with a war on two fronts.

Secondly, even if it would destabilize the Peace Agreement, that means in effect that the international community is allowing the  South Sudanese to be used as hostages for their “good behaviour” regarding Darfur. If so, that seems less like a triumph of Diplomacy and more like a bad deal. It would incentivise dictators like Mugabe to attempt to make similar deals, say offering to compensate white farmers in exchange for the West ignoring his treatment of black opponents.

[1] ‘Sudan’s FM rules out return to war with South Sudan’, Sudan Tribune, 14 December 2011, http://www.sudantribune.com/Sudan-s-FM-rules-out-return-to-war,40990

The conflict in Darfur has been largely inter-tribal, and even the Sudanese government, lacking the full resources needed to suppress the opposition itself, has resorted to playing on these differences.

Any Western effort to intervene would have been seen as intervening on one side by virtually all of the locals. The Fur, Zaghawa, and Masalit would have seen the West as intervening to support them – the Abbala and the Janjaweed, as intervening to attack them.

In this context intervention would be seen as a pretext to reverse the sides in the war rather than to end it.

If our sole goal was to push for a settlement, it would have made far more sense to attempt to pay off the Janjaweed to turn on the government forces, and then to arm the Darfur tribes. It would have been cheaper, and prevented the Sudanese from playing the sides off against each other.

Even if the conflict was inter-tribal, it had been brought to a boil and allowed to turn genocidal by the Sudanese government. It may well be that the conflict would have continued of its own accord without Sudanese intervention, though the continued air support provided consistently by the Sudanese government to the Janjaweed argues against this.[1]

And all interventions are by nature one-sided – that reconstruction might be difficult is a reason to plan for it, but in and of itself it does not justify allowing thousands to die and for Western opposition to genocide to be left an empty letter.

[1] ‘Sudan: Government and Militias Conspire in Darfur Killings’, Human Rights Watch, 22 April 2004, http://www.hrw.org/news/2004/04/22/sudan-government-and-militias-conspire-darfur-killings

Any intervention by the West in Sudan, following so closely on Iraq and Afghanistan would have been looked upon as a further attack on the Muslim world and therefore act as a recruiting tool for terrorism.

While it is true that the intervention would have been couched in terms of helping oppressed Muslims, so too were the interventions in Iraq and Afghanistan.

An attack, especially if it was air-only, and therefore left Bashir in power in Khartoum might also have strengthened the regime by providing it with religious legitimacy, and might well have as a result inspired volunteers to enlist in order to fight in a jihad to protect it.

The latter would be even more true in the event ground troops were used, in which case volunteers might flood in from around the world to fight the “Crusaders”.

Such an added dimension could not have helped but place the Christian Southern Sudanese in an awkward and very uncomfortable position.

The United States at least had already stepped on various religiously sensitive toes due to its support of the Christian Southern Sudanese. These groups had support and lobbying in Washington from influential evangelical Christian groups,[1] and President Bush mentioned their religion in his speech celebrating the Peace settlement.[2]

If this failed to produce an upsurge in Islamist sentiment, it is hard to see how helping Muslims who are being slaughtered would have, especially if Western intervention was limited to providing air cover.

[1] Phares, Walid, ‘The Sudanese Battle for American Opinion’, The Middle East Quarterly, March 1998, http://www.meforum.org/383/the-sudanese-battle-for-american-opinion

[2] Hamilton, Rebecca, ‘U.S. Played Key Role in Southern Sudan’s Long Journey to Independence’, the Atlantic, 9 July 2011, http://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2011/07/us-played-key-role-in-southern-sudans-long-journey-to-independence/241660/