NYT: Darfur Trembles as Peacekeepers’ Exit Looms

[leftchick]

:cry:

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/09/10/world/africa/10darfur.html?hp&ex=1157860800&en=de6591ccdb144071&ei=5094&partner=homepage

<snip>

Today it is a tangle of sewage-choked lanes snaking among thousands of squalid shacks, an endless sprawl that dwarfs the base at its heart. Pounding rainstorms gather fetid pools that swarm with mosquitoes and flies spreading death in their filthy wake. All but one of the aid groups working here have pulled out.

Many who live here say the camp is named for the Rwandan soldiers based here as monitors of a tattered cease-fire. But the camp’s sheiks say the name has a darker meaning, one that reveals their deepest fears.

“What happened in Rwanda, it will happen here,” said Sheik Abdullah Muhammad Ali, who fled here from a nearby village seeking the safety that he hoped the presence of about 200 African Union peacekeepers would bring. But the Sudanese government has asked the African Union to quit Darfur rather than hand over its mission to the United Nations. “If these soldiers leave,” Sheik Ali said, “we will all be slaughtered.”

Tawila and the sprawling, makeshift camp of displaced people at its edge sit astride a deadly fault line in Darfur. This small but strategic town has been the front line of some of the deadliest battles in a conflict that has killed hundreds of thousands of people and sent 2.5 million fleeing.

It is a place where a grim struggle between the government and its Arab allies, and non-Arab rebel factions, has given way to a fractured struggle that pits non-Arab tribes against one another, fanning centuries-old rivalries and setting the scene for a bloodbath of score-settling vengeance should the African Union soldiers withdraw, as demanded, at the end of this month.



The edge of the Rwanda camp in Tawila, Sudan, a precarious refuge for uprooted villagers in Darfur.

[scarletwoman]

1. I don't understand how this situation has been allowed to go on like this

for all these years. The whole world knows about this -- how is it that NO one seems to be able to do ANYTHING to help these people?

And what happens after the inevitable slaughter of all these human beings? More sorrowful speeches about what a terrible thing it is?

I don't know what to say, this is just too horrific and disgusting... There is too much evil in the world, and it just grows and grows. We are a failed species...

sw

[Kagemusha]

2. Where are the soldiers to defend them going to come from?

How will they be supported? Who will support them and bury them when they get killed in a war where the only reward is saving a few lives with no direct benefit to the home countries involved in an ongoing war on terror that they believe DOES have a direct benefit, at least in the minds of government leaders?

That's how the situation has been allowed to go on. Western countries don't have a lot of free means available, but more importantly, don't have a cause strong enough here to justify their troops dying for it.

[scarletwoman]

4. I understand all that. I don't know what the solution is, I just find it

difficult to accept that there is NO solution.

The whole world is awash in weapons, rebel groups all over the world seem to have no problem arming themselves -- why not find a way to get arms to the refugees so they can protect themselves? If the Darfur villagers had had their own Kalishnikovs and RPGs, they would not so easily have been slaughtered and driven out of their homes. And if they at least had some weapons now, they would not be sitting ducks for mass murder.

I totally understand that no other country wants to see its soldiers die to defend another country's people -- so give the Darfurans the means to defend themselves. Air drop the weapons in, in a covert op. Of course the Sudanese government would scream bloody murder, but what could they actually do?

Yeah, it's a totally crazy idea, and maybe there's no possible way anything like that could be done. But the looming prospect of leaving hundreds of people defenseless in the face of certain genocide ought to call for *some* sort of drastic measures, imho.

sw

[Kagemusha]

7. "But what could they actually do?" Oh, that's always the question.

No one seems to think that an entity like the Sudanese government can get nastier or dirtier and that somehow this situation is the worst it can get and at least making the slaughter two-sided rather than one-sided is an improvement.

I fear you wouldn't like the results if anyone put that to the test... not that I expect it, but it's not such a simple solution.

[scarletwoman]

8. Well, it's just a bit of fantasizing that I know won't happen.

It's a thought that occured to me in response to your absolutely true statement that no country is going to want their own soldiers dying to defend another country's people. Like: Okay, if no one else (understandably, but regretably) wants to defend them, what if they were given the means to defend themselves?

I'm sure that there could be unforseen consequences that would be less than salutary, but the probable consequences of these people having NO defense is unquestionably awful.

So, we just accept that these people are ultimately doomed? Is this really the only choice? What a terrible, horrible world...

:cry:
sw

[Kagemusha]

9. It sucks but, doing this would actually endanger them more.

Arguably their situation has taken a turn for the worse since the US and UK insisted on a resolution that they said Sudan would buckle under and accept a larger troop deployment. Instead they're saying a) no, b) all you African troops already here, go. Now.

But let's say we armed them like those Somali groups that an LBN thread that just started indicates is against the UN arms embargo there...

Sudan would start telling anyone within earshot that the Darfur refugees were agents of Western colonialist apostates attempting to overthrow a righteous Moslem government and replace it with an atheistic dictatorship which would oppress Moslems throughout the country. They'd use the arming of civilians by the West as justification to kill (even) more of them, with (even) less discrimination. Besides that, it'd be an invitation for hardcore militias to go in, do whatever dirty means they have to use, and seize the arms shipments for themselves. If the shipments aren't handed over, one child loses a limb, another loses a head. Oh and if you fight back, they'll do like the Romans - slaughter to the last man, woman and child. Or threaten it at least.

Now of course at some point the sheer evil of this exceeds its physical limits but, over that kind of territory, against militias and government troops fighting on home turf, making the forces allied with Sudan's government hurt enough for them to cry uncle, when they have charges of religious oppression, nationalism, self-defense (!), and so on, to rebut foreign involvement with, well, bottom line is, only a committed force with real political and logistical backing could do it over a prolonged period of time.

And it would be expensive.

Very expensive.

It can be done, but the nations of the West look at it and see both the absolute cost, and the opportunity cost, i.e. taking troops away from Iraq and Afghanistan, and say to themselves, no, we've got to rely on making Sudan play ball here. It's the only cost effective way.

And what if Sudan doesn't play ball?

Well, we're finding out as I write this.

[scarletwoman]

10. Well, since every man, woman and child is going to end up slaughtered

anyway, your point seems rather moot to me. Not that I'm disagreeing with your analysis, it just seems like the end result is going to be the same no matter what. These people are doomed.

What keeps going through my mind is the old saying; It's better to die on your feet than live on your knees. But if you're going to die anyway... :shrug:

sw

[cali]

3. It is is horrifying that

that the genocide in Darfur keeps going and going going.

[scarletwoman]

5. Arm the refugees so they can defend themselves - see my post above. (nt)

[breakaleg]

6. I agree. You would think with all of these such tragedies we've

seen we would have learned by now that we have to step in and help before it's too late.