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Sudan and Chad: Bad to Worse |
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The conclusion of open rebellion in Chad has brought no calm to the Darfur region and the Chad/Sudan conflict. On the contrary, matters are growing worse.
Sudan and its militia allies are stepping up their attacks on civilians in Darfur, burning towns and even killing aid workers.
A U.N. assessment mission to Abu Surouj and Sirba found buildings burned to the ground and reports of sustained air and ground assaults.
The director of Human Rights Watch Africa, Georgette Gagnon, is predicting catastrophe.
According to HRW, the attacks have cut off about 160,000 civilians from aid.
“People in West Darfur are completely at the mercy of the armed groups,” Gagnon said. “The Sudanese government’s own police pulled out in December because of the fighting, and the UN force simply doesn’t have the capacity to protect them.”
The entire region is feeling the impact of the conflict’s escalation. 12,000 refugees from Darfur fled into Chad this weekend, but Chad says it’s reached the limit of what it can absorb.
“We are simply demanding that they be moved, otherwise we will do it,” [Prime Minister] Koumakoye said.
He accuses Sudan of being behind last week’s failed coup attempt by rebels.
Mr Koumakoye, told reporters in the capital, N’Djamena, the international community should return the refugees to Sudan or move them elsewhere.
Sudan denies being behind the rebel assault on the capital last week, which Chadian forces repulsed.
Mr Koumakoye said: “We are being attacked by Sudan because of these refugees.”
Sudan, of course, promptly condemned the move as a political ploy.
With tensions between the two countries rising, the UN peacekeeping force in Darfur (with only 9,000 troops on the ground out of a planned 26,000) faces serious threats. In the worst case scenario, UN officials fear, war would break out both within Sudan and/or between Sudan and Chad - with the peacekeepers caught in the middle. With the size of the air and ground operation mounted by the Sudanese government in the last few days, this possibility is starting to seem very real.
The international community needs to ask itself how much longer we will permit the violence and destabilization in Darfur to continue. For aid workers and peacekeepers to be murdered while genocide continues unabated is a shocking demonstration of the impotence of international intervention thus far.
Where is the pressure point? Is it Steven Spielberg’s decision to drop his adviser status to China out of concern over their stance on Sudan? Is it a buildup of more UN forces? Greater US involvement? Greater EU involvement? It seems to me that we need more boots on the ground, to intimidate Sudan’s government into backing off. But in any case, we need to do some quick thinking, because people are dying and the situation is only getting worse.
Thanks for keeping us up on this. Its falling too far by the wayside for most Americans.
The rebellion in Chad is part of long-term attempt to oust a colonial French puppet government. It has been long-simmering, and is a complicated story. The govt of Sudan is simply acting in it’s own interests in this case.
The US has little leverage in this region. Sudan doesn’t need us. Had the Clinton administration been a little more adept in the region, we might have had a foothold. But when the decision was made to bomb the Sudanese “pharmaceutical” factory rather than strengthen ties with the Sudanese administration, Sudan simply turned to China and other countries for assistance to exploit it’s oil reserves.
The Bush administration has blundered about, first adopting the “we won’t work with terrorists” line, then trying to come up with a negotiating position without any teeth, and ultimately, it has only been successful in marginalizing US influence in the region.
Europe, closer, with more direct ties to the region, has been equally ineffectual because of a) it’s colonial legacy in the region and b) it current conflicted interests in the area. It’s primary export partner are the Netherlands, China and Japan. It’s primary import partners are South Korea, China, Saudi Arabia, UAE, Egypt, Germany and India.
China and the Netherlands have a lock on the oil infrastructure in Sudan. China won’t back down substantially here: the situation in Sudan works to it’s benefit. It gets to run its operations under cover of war, and as long as it’s operations aren’t targeted (and they won’t be) it can continue to build Sudan’s nascent infrastructure, and extract the oil it needs to continue it’s own expansion.
As for the rather inflamatory “even killing aid workers” statement: A substantial number of aid worker deaths in the region aren’t political, they are the result of poorly organized and supported aid operations, and many (if not most) are the result of criminal activities. Most of the reported injuries and deaths are local employees of aid organizations who make easy targets because a) they’re rich in comparison with other refugees and b) killing expats is considered to be a huge political statement with big consequences.
The only way to deal with the situation in Darfur is to have a comprehensive approach to the problem, backed up with coordinated actions with allies. This will take a back seat to events in Iraq, Afghanistan, China, Russia and the global economy. The only way to achieve this is to a) get a new US administration willing to restructure the apparatus of US foreign and national security policy, b) developing popular support for restructuring US foreign and national security policy agencies and c) taking a long-term view of events while bearing witness to current suffering. Sudan is one of many hellholes on this planet, with no easy solutions to is myriad problems.
The US will have to pursuade many of its allies and enemies to forgo pursuing their short-term profitable interests, in the hope of achieving some long-term, unknowable interest, in order to bring some stability to the region. A tough row to hoe even if you are a competent farmer….
The popular support is key. As you say, I personally don’t see the U.S. or the UN having too much leverage. The real power to move things lies with Sudan’s main partners, China chief among them. Until there is either popular political will in China to fix the situation, or international pressure on China, nothing seems like it will move.