Don’t be fooled by Darfur’s disappearance from the front pages
An ominous calm has fallen over Darfur. The guns of the militias are mostly silent, and the roving bands of village raiders have all but disappeared from the western Sudanese province. But these developments are far from signs of peace or security. Seven years into the conflict, over 2.7 million Sudanese remain crowded into disease-ridden refugee camps. The war has left Darfur a barren wasteland with little left to plunder.
Despite this devastation, the militias, rebel groups, and Sudanese military remain trapped in stalemate, with little indication that any side will reach out for negotiations. International organizations might have been expected to step in, but China has blocked any efforts at intervention, and seems likely to continue to do so even as the intractable tensions remain. While the international community turns its attention to other crises, the crisis in Darfur remains unsolved and will likely continue to deteriorate.
The Origins of Genocide
Since its independence in 1956, Sudan has been wracked by internal violence between the country’s Arab north and semi-autonomous African south. These conflicts entered a new phase in 2003 when African rebel groups in Darfur orchestrated raids on government centers in Gulu, the capital of the Jebel Mara district in western Sudan. The rebels were motivated by the perception that President Omar al-Bashir’s government in Khartoum was favoring Sudanese Arabs over Darfur’s African population.
The two major groups in the rebellion remain the Justice for Equality Movement and the Sudan Liberation Army. Although SLA and JEM fight government forces together, the two groups have differing ideologies and conduct negotiations separately. SLA aims to unify Sudan under one democratic government, whereas JEM consists of African Muslims who seek to establish an Islamic government.
The rebel attacks were effective at first. Eric Reeves, an English professor at Smith College and an anti-genocide activist, told the HPR that the initial success of the rebellion prompted an extreme reaction from the government of Sudan. “The Khartoum government had to turn to the use of militias and genocidal tactics in order to pacify the rebel forces,” Reeves explained.
The government-backed Arab militias soon began a systematic genocide against the people of Darfur. These forces, the most prominent and notorious of which is the Janjaweed, slaughtered the populations of entire villages before burning their dwellings to the ground. The violence led to rapid emigration. The United Nations reports that two million refugees fled to the relative safety of the camps, while countless others died on their journey. U.N. estimates point to a death toll of 300,000, but many experts consider that figure much too conservative. “The death tolls reported by the media are vastly understated,” Reeves argued, noting “there is no way of recording the deaths that occurred outside the villages or camps.”
Great Wall of China
With no signs of an incipient peace agreement between rebels and the Sudanese government, the responsibility for establishing long-term peace rests on the shoulders of the international community. As Reeves explained, “Peace will require massive international intervention, mediation, and diplomacy.” But despite several years of negotiations, the U.N. Security Council has failed to settle upon a response to the crisis.
There are a number of dynamics that prevent the United Nations from taking swifter action, but the primary one remains a lack of political incentive. Colin Thomas- Jensen, policy advisor at the antigenocide Enough Project, told the HPR, “No one cares enough about Sudan to apply political pressure. It’s on the laundry list of political problems for the international community. Sudan doesn’t have the geopolitical significance of other places.”
Most countries have little to gain politically or economically from supporting peace measures in Darfur. And even if the international community were to muster the necessary will for substantial intervention in Darfur, one insurmountable obstacle remains: China. As Princeton Lyman, former U.S. Ambassador to Nigeria, told the HPR, “China has played a major role in holding back the Security Council and shielding the Khartoum government from criticism.”
Since the beginning of the conflict, China has often abstained from voting on resolutions proposed by the United Nations and has threatened to veto any substantial sanctions or deployments of peacekeeping forces. China remains one of the Sudanese government’s top arms suppliers, despite a U.N. embargo on arms-trading with the regime. The energy-hungry People’s Republic is also one of Sudan’s most important trade partners in general, thanks to Chinese investment in Sudanese oil reserves.
Over the past two years, the Chinese government has taken some small steps towards supporting an end to the conflict. But these were largely face-saving efforts, Lyman argued. China had been worried about international opinion leading up to the Olympics. There have been glimpses of hope, Lyman acknowledged: “China appointed a special envoy on Sudan and has been marginally helpful in getting U.N. aid off the ground.”
However, these meager contributions to the peace process remain overshadowed by China’s support for al-Bashir’s government. “The Chinese don’t care about human rights in Darfur,” said Thomas-Jensen. “The Chinese don’t care about the human rights of Chinese people. How we can expect them to care about human rights in Darfur is beyond me.”
The Eye of the Storm?
Despite the lack of major peace negotiations, violence in Darfur has declined to relatively low levels. In 2009, the United Nations estimated that between 130 and 150 people were dying each month as a result of the conflict, compared with 10,000 per month at the height of the conflict.
However, this brief hiatus is not a sign of long-term peace. According to Lyman, the low level of current violence “reflects the fact that most people have been displaced from their villages that the government wanted displaced, and the rebels are divided and thus less of a direct threat.”
All efforts on the part of the United Nations to find a peaceful solution have failed due to the threat of a Chinese veto, making a resurgence of violence an open possibility, perhaps with even greater consequences than the last bout of intense conflict. “We’re probably heading toward another round of war in Sudan between the North and South. It will probably be bloodier than the last war,” predicted Thomas-Jensen.
Southern rebel groups, led by JEM, are fighting to take control of the region’s oil industry because they claim that China’s oil purchases fund the Sudanese government, but the violence may spill over and engulf the country. Thus, Darfur may be out of the headlines for now, but it is far from a settled issue.
Given Sudan’s long history of internal violence and China’s ongoing efforts to scuttle the possibility of peace, it seems almost certain that the conflict in Darfur will continue, in one form or another, for many years to come.
Tyrell Dixon ‘13 is a Contributing Writer. Mason Pesek ‘12 is a Staff Writer.
Photo Credit: Flickr Stream of hdptcar