Darfur a Quagmire to Avoid ... Peter Wortihington

Toronto Sun ^ | May 9, 2006 | Peter Worthington

[NorthOf45]

Darfur a Quagmire to Avoid

Toronto Sun
By Peter Worthington
May 9, 2006

What should be done about Darfur, that tortured region of southern Sudan where genocide reigns?

A peace accord (of sorts) mediated by outsiders and signed by the Khartoum government and the Sudanese Liberation Army (SLA) likely means nothing.

It seems inevitable that Canada will become involved in whatever Darfur's immediate future is -- a future that has become increasingly murky since John Garang, the charismatic rebel leader of the SLA, died in a helicopter crash last August.

UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan has repeatedly vowed (as have many world leaders) not to passively let another Rwanda genocide happen.

Empty vows. Conferences, concerts, speeches and visits on behalf of Darfur do little to deter bloodshed.

One individual emotionally determined not to let another Rwanda happen is retired Lt.-Gen. Romeo Dallaire, under whose command in Rwanda the UN's greatest human rights catastrophe happened -- and which he had warned about, but couldn't prevent.

Significantly, Dallaire doesn't know the answer to Darfur. Or rather at various times he advocates contradictory solutions.

That's Africa, that's Dallaire.

A couple of years ago Dallaire urged an intervention force of 44,000 troops to impose peace. Last June he revised this thinking and urged only troops from African countries, given weaponry, helicopters, equipment by developed countries, stressing that the days of colonial interventions should not be repeated.

This year his tune has changed again. After visiting Darfur as a member of Canada's Special Advisory Team on Sudan (SATS) -- since disbanded by the Harper government -- Dallaire proposes a UN multinational force, including a "battle group" of 1,500 Canadian soldiers, to work with troops of the African Union, who generally are hopeless.

Dallaire's apparent vacillation and changing of gears on Darfur is frustrating and honest but not necessarily realistic, considering Sudan's history.

Rebellion in Sudan extends over the years but came to a head after 1983 when a 38-year-old army officer from the Dinka people was sent to quell the rebels -- Col. John Garang, with a PhD in agricultural economics from an American university. He was a graduate of military training at Fort Benning, Ga.

Garang identified with the rebels, switched sides and for the next 22 years was the dominant personality who kept the SLA cohesive.

REBEL ARMY SWELLED

His rebel army expanded from 10,000 in the mid-1980s to 60,000.

When I interviewed Prime Minister Sadiq al-Mahdi in Khartoum in 1988, before he was deposed, he fretted about Garang and the civil war.

Although related to the Mahdi of the siege of Gen. Charles "Chinese" Gordon in 1884, Prime Minister Mahdi seemed moderate and unhappy about the imposition of sharia law (amputations, public floggings and stoning deaths for crimes) that provoked the rebellion in the south.

No international objections were forthcoming.

Looked at dispassionately, John Garang, charismatic and ruthless, was a leader seeking better conditions in Sudan and was a foe of sharia.

The pastoral and oil-rich south Sudan (administered separately when Sudan was a British colony until 1955) always resented Arab-dominated Khartoum's discrimination and exploitation.

Over the past 25 years, two million have been killed and 500,000 people displaced, with the most atrocities carried out by the government side -- including slavery.

African Union troops are not up to imposing peace on Sudan, home of the legendary Fuzzy Wuzzies of Rudyard Kipling's poem: "You're a pore benighted 'eathen but a first-class fightin' man ... for you broke a British square."

DEPLOYMENT FOOLHARDY

Few African troops have the reputation as warriors like the Sudanese. Realistically, only soldiers under European command are likely to bring peace to Darfur.

Is this what Canada wants?

It's foolhardy to send troops there. Waste money, if you like, by supplying equipment for African peacekeepers but don't involve our troops.

Sudan is a quagmire best left for African interlopers to solve.

Either that or declare war on the Khartoum government and back the rebels of the south.

[NorthOf45]

While I hate to see the suffering in Africa, the Canadian (and American) government needs to think long and hard before gettign involved in any way.

Another interesting point ... as per the article, southern Sudan is described as "oil-rich". The NDP in Canada are screaming for us to take a stand and some action. Let's say we go in and get stuck there for an extended period of time ... like Canada and the US in A'stan and the US in Iraq. Will the lefties suddenly say that we're there for the oil? They may not, simply because it will be under the UN ... like that, as we know, really matters.

[NorthOf45]

Peter Worthington Ping

[Mo1]

What should be done about Darfur, that tortured region of southern Sudan where genocide reigns?

Isn't Sudan the same place that Clinton and his Administration completely ignored

[Ron in Acreage]

The last time we intervened in a conflict involving muslims killing Christians, Clinton bombed the Serbs and sided with the muslim Albanians.

[CPOSharky]

Aren't some hollyweirdos saying we should jump into the middle of this quagmire?

[SR 50]

Yes they are, but they want to do it on someone else's dollar, not theirs.

[neutrino]

Sudan is a quagmire best left for African interlopers to solve.

Exactly. We have no business wasting blood and treasure in that cesspool.

[Stirner]

"Darfur, that tortured region of southern Sudan"

Isn't Darfur Northwestern Sudan?

I usually like Worthington, but he's mixing a long-term struggle in Southern Sudan between Muslims and non-Muslims with a separate struggle in Western Sudan between Muslims and Muslims. Both are the subject of shaky internationally-brokered treaties, but they present different problems. Dafur is the hotter situation right now, but the North/South conflict has been going on much longer and may prove more important in the long run (IMHO).

[dubyawhoiluv]

not one drop of blood,money or resources NOT ONE MILITARY MAN or WOMEN in that region,I love Dubya but if he panders to this crowd I am thru. The other day msnbc showed the video clip of our men being dragged thru the streets with the animals cheering,kicking,spitting and hitting on their bodies.We will be the evil ones after a few months, no make that weeks!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[canuck_conservative]

I thought the African Union wanted to put together a multinational force from their own countries, and enforce the peace without help from outside "colonial" nations.

Oops, I forgot, this is Africa - all talk, no action, all the time.

[walford]

As with all problems in Africa, much of them are legacies of Western colonialism -- more specifically European colonialism. Thus, if any Westerners must become involved there, let them be from that hemisphere.

Here's a nice little map of colonial Africa to give us an idea of whose troops should go where:

[Kakaze]

It's time africa solved africa's problems period.

The only way I'd support any action there would be to block the chineese from the oil, thats it.

[ishabibble]

Let George Clooney and his dad save them. All the Dafur commentary in the last week or so has been a kneejerk reaction to the Clooney's propaganda filming of the camps. When I watched the interview Shep Smith did with father and son, my first thought was that they decided to stir this pot because the war in Iraq is not going to fail, and they had to point out some other American failure.

The U.N. announced last Friday afternoon that they were going to cut the food rations to the Dafur camps by half. In other words, make the Americans pay more. Sickening to the point of puking...Dafur didn't just happen last week, and why must we pay up when we constantly have to go it alone in this war? There is a vast difference between compassion and getting hosed. Let the U.N. move their operations on site over there, and help those people. Make them do their jobs. And they can take the Clooneys and the rest of Commie Hollywood with them.

[syriacus]

WHERE has Geo. Clooney been for ALL the years that Franklin Graham has been helping the Sudanese?

Graham visits a patient at a Samaritan's Purse hospital
in Lui, Sudan in 1998.

[syriacus]

my first thought was that they decided to stir this pot because the war in Iraq is not going to fail, and they had to point out some other American failure.

There's a huge supply of misery around the world to blame on George Bush.

BTW, Samaritan's Purse has been helping the Sudanese for almost a decade.
Sudan

Decades of vicious internal fighting have cost millions of people their lives and created instability throughout Sudan, the largest country in Africa. Since 1997, Samaritan’s Purse has developed programs throughout the country to operate and upgrade hospitals, rebuild churches and schools, re-establish farms, distribute food, promote peace, and lift up the Name of Jesus Christ.

Where have the Clooneys been for these 10 years?

[Holicheese]

Maybe George Clooney and the like can all fly to Durfur and make a human chain to bring peace to the region. Like Sharon Stoned said, " Peace is only a kiss away."

[Peter Libra]

Some insightful commentary by Peter Worthington- food for thought. Kudos to walford for that excellent map. How easy it all is with such a primer.

I had often thought and berated the hapless, helpless UN for utterly betraying the original principles. After all, it was the horrible mass murder of the Jewish people, that spurred all those platitudes about wicked genocide. Never again.

It was only yesterday that the incredible films were shown of a near lynching. The camera was mounted inside a vehicle, with officials trying to gain knowledge of one of the camp conditions. Unfortunately,I did not get the precise details. It was in a refugee camp,I presume in Darfur.

Someone in the group of refugees, claimed an interpreter was a spy. Hands smashed and clutched at an unfortunate man. They started to smash windows in the vehicle. Hatred was written in the faces. A very British voice kept saying- "what is happening?" Then he kept saying "drive, drive".

These innocent people would have been torn apart- no mistake. I thought that had these refugee people been armed and trained, the cowardly thugs of Jangaweed militia, would have been toast. What a close thing that was- horrific. They made it out. Reports conflicted- either the interpreter was lynched or escaped.

[walford]

...I had often thought and berated the hapless, helpless UN for utterly betraying the original principles...

Whatever 'original principles' that the UN may have had were doomed from the start. That is because it includes dictatorships in its membership. As I noted in an article on the subject, there is no way that an international body that is dedicated to peace can accomplish this if it allows an equal voice to regimes that declare war upon their own citizenry. There is no way that an international body can confer legitimacy if it is composed of regimes that are not legitimated by a popular mandate.

...After all, it was the horrible mass murder of the Jewish people, that spurred all those platitudes about wicked genocide. Never again...

And yet, after the UN was founded -- again IMO due to its inclusion of tyrannies -- the international community remained silent while millions died at the hands of their own govennments -- particularly in the USSR and PRC. Meanwhile, Israel remains the most UN condemned state -- more so than all other governments combined. Indeed even today, the Left whines about how terrible it was to remove Saddam as if Iraq was at peace under his rule. 

Ever since statism [fascism, communism, socialism, etc.] was put into practice in the early 20th century, most people are put at risk by their own governments more than anything else. But to listen to the internationalists, it is resisting tyranny and national sovereignty instead that perpetuate war, poverty and oppression.

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WRAlford
http://the-big-pic.org

[rusty millet]

Nice map.

[walford]

Nice map.

Thank you. Did you notice that no countries from the Western hemisphere are in any way indicated therein? As was the case in the Balkans a dozen years earlier, this is a European problem. Let them sort this one out -- and take the blame. Because blame is all that can be earned by intervening in this no-win situation.

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