Global Policy Forum

The Alternative to Armed Intervention in Darfur Is Not Passive Resignation,
but Support for an African Union-led Solution

By Peter Hallward*

What is exceptional about the violence of the government-backed Janjaweed militia in Darfur, is less its scale than the intense - if belated - international attention it has received.

To oppose direct western intervention in Sudan is not to downplay Khartoum's crimes during this latest twist in the catastrophic war that has cost perhaps two million lives since 1983. Over the last 20 years, in order to shore up their exclusive and authoritarian rule, Sudan's succession of military rulers have done everything possible to sustain an often imaginary distinction between "Arabs" and "Africans", pitting Muslims against Christians and herders against farmers.

Before we jump to the conclusion that benevolent invasion, however, is the natural consequence of our new-found humanitarian duties, we should remember that this won't be the first time that either Britain or the US has intervened in Sudan. An earlier moral crusade, the "war against slavery", provided much of the ostensible justification for British colonization of the region at the end of the 19th century. Britain's disastrous southern policy, inaugurated in 1929, made permanent the long-standing division between a relatively prosperous (mainly Muslim) northern territory and a much poorer (mainly animist or Christian) southern territory. The war that began between these two territories even before the British abandoned the colony in 1956 entered its most violent phase shortly after the Americans began backing, in the late 70s, the flagging regime of Sudan's increasingly reactionary General Gaafar Nimeiri.

The resulting chaos created the conditions for the Taliban-style reaction whose effects continue to shape the situation even today. In Sudan, the backlash against US meddling came in the form of Hassan al-Turabi's National Islamic Front, and in 1989 a new regime took over, an unstable combination of Turabi's NIF and another military clique led by general Omar al-Bashir. Bashir and Turabi turned Sudan against its cold war ally, strengthened the divisive enforcement of Islamic law and devoted new resources to the assault on the underdeveloped south.

Despite this history, until the public relations war in Iraq started going so badly a couple of months ago it seemed that Sudan might have done enough to ward off further US hostility. Since 1997, the country has adhered to a strict IMF restructuring plan that has seen foreign investment and oil exports (along with arms imports) soar. Since 9/11, Bashir has provided the US with a steady stream of much-vaunted intelligence. Apparent progress over the last couple of years towards a power-sharing peace accord between Bashir and John Garang in the south allowed George Bush to trumpet a rare foreign policy success, one that finally offered US investors the prospect of access to Sudan's oil.

But Bush's opportunity to adopt an election-season cause that can appeal, simultaneously, to fundamentalist Christians, the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, multilateralist liberals and the altruistic "left" may now be too tempting to pass up.

The crisis in Darfur clearly meets several of the criteria that must apply before Blair and his allies feel morally obliged to put an end to the abuse of "universal" human rights. First of all, the aggressor should be off the payroll: this rules out Turkey, Indonesia, Colombia, Israel. More importantly, the victims to be saved should lack an organized, militant movement. This rules out Palestine. Failing that, these victims should appear as helpless refugees in the wake of such a movement's defeat - this is why we are talking about intervention now rather than during the spring of 2003.

Finally, there should be little prospect of any awkward political issue interfering with the primary purpose of such humanitarian missions, namely the moral validation of western power. This has long been enough to exclude genuine concern about the sale of arms, the spread of Aids, the consequences of structural adjustment policies and the ruinous terms of international trade.

The rest of us should not pretend, though, that another round of "humanitarian intervention" would represent anything other than the soft face of that same imperialism so hard at work today in Gaza, Afghanistan and Iraq. Fresh from an illegal and deceitful war of aggression, Anglo-US forces now have only one moral responsibility: to stay at home.

The alternative is certainly not passive resignation. We should fund the immediate and forceful deployment of African peacekeepers and build on the example recently set by Paul Kagame's Rwanda. We should help the African Union become an effective and independent political actor, capable of brokering equitable political solutions to the long-standing conflicts that western intervention, almost always, has only helped provoke. We should press our governments to reverse the policies that contribute to poverty and violence in Sudan and its neighbors.

Most importantly, we should learn to approach conflicts like the wars in Sudan in terms of actors and principle rather than victims and confusion. Where they exist, we should lend direct political support to movements working for justice and equality.

Had we been serious about the claims of Darfur's farmers for a more equitable distribution of wealth, we should have explored ways of contributing to their non-violent pursuit, or else supported the Sudan Liberation Army when it launched its initially successful rebellion in February 2003 - not simply waited to provide charity to its survivors in the refugee camps of 2004.

And if we are still serious about the SLA's claims now, then we should debate their merits and decide whether, and how, to help those struggling to achieve them. This is a political question before it is a moral or humanitarian one. Today's humanitarian crisis is precisely a result of past political failure.

About the Author: Peter Hallward teaches at King's College London and is the author of Absolutely Postcolonial.

FAIR USE NOTICE: This page contains copyrighted material the use of which has not been specifically authorized by the copyright owner. Global Policy Forum distributes this material without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes. We believe this constitutes a fair use of any such copyrighted material as provided for in 17 U.S.C íŸ 107. If you wish to use copyrighted material from this site for purposes of your own that go beyond fair use, you must obtain permission from the copyright owner.