ugnet_: Re: NYTimes.com Article: Remember Rwanda, but Take Action in Sudan

[Rehema Mukooza]

Members:

 

Whenever I hear Ugandans calling on the "international community" to help resolve the situation in the North, I think these Ugandans are simply dreaming!  The International Community (UN) is not in position to help our brothers and sisters in concentration camps. 

 

What we need is for Kony to stop his guerilla war, flee to Sudan and let Northerners and Eastern "sleep".  Whenever I hear some people excited whenever Kony kills a UPDF soldier, I get the feeling that these people do not want peace.  This dictator is going to keep the blood flowing in Northern/Eastern Uganda for quite sometime, before he dies.

What we need is strategies for the North/East to have peace.  One of these strategies would be for Kony to leave the bush.

 

Zakoomu M.

 

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J Ssemakula <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:

Op-Ed Contributor: Remember Rwanda, but Take Action in Sudan

April 6, 2004

  By SAMANTHA POWER

Ten years ago this week, Rwandan Hutu extremists embarked

on a genocidal campaign in which they murdered some 800,000

Tutsis and moderate Hutus - a genocide more efficient than

that of the Nazis.

On this anniversary, Western and United Nations leaders are

expressing their remorse and pledging their resolve to

prevent future humanitarian catastrophes. But as they do

so, the Sudanese government is teaming up with Arab Muslim

militias in a campaign of ethnic slaughter and deportation

that has already left nearly a million Africans displaced

and more than 30,000 dead. Again, the United States and its

allies are bystanders to slaughter, seemingly no more

prepared to prevent genocide than they were a decade ago.

The horrors in the Darfur region of Sudan are not "like"

Rwanda, any more than those in Rwanda were "like" those

ordered by Hitler. The Arab-dominated government in

Khartoum has armed nomadic Arab herdsmen, or Janjaweed,

against rival African tribes. The government is using

aerial bombardment to strafe villages and terrorize

civilians into flight. And it is denying humanitarian

access to some 700,000 people who are trapped in Darfur.

The Arab Muslim marauders and their government sponsors do

not yet seem intent on exterminating every last African

Muslim in their midst. But they do seem determined to wipe

out black life in the region. The only difference between

Rwanda and Darfur, said Mukesh Kapila, the former United

Nations' humanitarian coordinator for Sudan, "is the

numbers of dead, murdered, tortured, raped."

A radio exchange between a Sudanese ground commander and a

pilot overhead (taped by a British journalist in February)

captures the aims of the attackers:

Commander: We've found people still in the village.

Pilot: Are they with us or against us?

Commander: They say they will work with us.

Pilot:

They're liars. Don't trust them. Get rid of them.

And later:

Pilot: Now the village is empty and secure for

you. Any village you pass through you must burn. That way,

when the villagers come back they'll have a surprise

waiting for them.

The lessons of Rwanda are many. The first is that those

intent on wiping out an inconvenient minority have a habit

of denying journalists and aid workers access and of

pursuing bad-faith negotiations. Thus far the Sudanese

government has pursued both approaches, and Western

officials have been far too trusting of their assurances.

A second lesson is that outside powers cannot wait for

confirmation of genocide before they act. In 1994 the

Clinton administration spent more time maneuvering to avoid

using the term "genocide" than it did using its resources

to save lives. In May 1994, an internal Pentagon memo

warned against using the term "genocide" because it could

commit the United States "to actually do something." In the

case of Sudan, American officials need not focus on whether

the killings meet the definition of genocide set by the

1948 Genocide Convention; they should focus instead on

trying to stop them.

A third lesson is that even when the United States decides

not to respond militarily, American leadership is

indispensable. This is especially true because Europe

continues to avoid intervening in violent humanitarian

crises. And it remains true despite the Bush

administration's unpopularity abroad. The United States

often takes an all-or-nothing approach: if it doesn't send

troops, it tends to foreclose other policy options.

In Sudan, this tendency has been compounded by the

administration's reluctance to risk undermining the peace

process it has spearheaded between Sudan's government and

the rebels in the south. While President Bush is

understandably eager to show he can make peace as well as

war, he must stand up to Sudan's government during these

difficult negotiations.

After all, regimes that resort to ethnic killing and

deportation as a tool of statecraft rarely keep their word.

An important predictor of Sudan's reliability as an ally in

the war on terrorism and as a party to the

American-brokered peace accord is its treatment of African

Muslims in Darfur.

What would standing up to Sudan entail? The administration

has several options.

On the economic and diplomatic front, the United States has

already demonstrated its clout in Sudan, which is desperate

to see American sanctions lifted. So far, Secretary of

State Colin Powell has rightly described the humanitarian

crisis as a "catastrophe." But the White House and the

Pentagon have been mostly mute. President Bush must use

American leverage to demand that the government in Khartoum

cease its aerial attacks, terminate its arms supplies to

the Janjaweed and punish those militia accused of looting,

rape and murder. The president made a phone call last week

to Sudan's president, Omar Hassan Ahmed al-Bashir, but one

ritual conversation hardly counts as pressure. Mr. Bush

should keep calling until humanitarian workers and

investigators are permitted free movement in the region, a

no-fly zone is declared and the killings are stopped, and

he should dispatch Mr. Powell to the Chad-Sudan border to

signal America's resolve.

The Bush administration can't do this alone. Ten thousand

international peacekeepers are needed in Darfur. President

Bush will have to press Sudan to agree to a United Nations

mission - and he will also need United Nations member

states to sign on. The Europeans can help by urging the

Security Council to refer the killings to the newly created

International Criminal Court. Though the United States has

been hostile to the court, this is one move it should not

veto, as an investigation by the court could deter future

massacres.

President Clinton has said that one of the greatest

mistakes of his presidency was not doing more to prevent

the Rwandan genocide. When he visited Rwanda in 1998, he

tried to explain America's failure to respond: "It may seem

strange to you here, especially the many of you who lost

members of your family, but all over the world there were

people like me sitting in offices, day after day after day,

who did not fully appreciate the depth and the speed with

which you were being engulfed by this unimaginable terror."

Today, roughly 1,000 miles north of Rwanda, tens of

thousands of Africans are herded onto death marches, and

Western leaders are again sitting in offices. How sad it is

that it doesn't even seem strange.

Samantha Power is the author of "A Problem From Hell:

America and the Age of Genocide," which won the 2003

Pulitzer Prize for general nonfiction.

 

http://www.nytimes.com/2004/04/06/opinion/06POWE.html?ex=1082354574&ei=1&en=ca36499a9404f11d

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