KRISTOF RESPONDS…
The Times today carried an op-ed about Darfur that has all of us who have been banging the drums about the genocide there gnashing our teeth. Basically, the essay argues that the slaughter in Darfur is much more complex than it appears, that there are no good guys, and that well-meaning Westerners (like me) are only prolonging the genocide by calling for military intervention.
So let me respond.
First, of course it’s more complicated than it seems at first. There are layers and layers of complexity to Darfur (although it’s not clear to me that the author has ever actually been to Darfur to try to peel them away). Likewise, it’s true that the rebels in Darfur are thugs. But look back at past genocides, and you find that those are precisely the arguments that have always been used to justify inaction. “Christians and Muslims share a hatred that goes back 600 years in the Balkans….You can’t understand the rise of Hitler unless you appreciate the German humiliation at Versailles….The Armenians shouldn’t have challenged the Turks….”
So, yes, there are layers of complexity: There are tribes, for examples, that do not neatly fit into the Arab/non-Arab division. And while skin color is a motivation in the slaughter, it’s not as clearcut as if white-skinned Arabs are killing black-skinned tribespeople – many of the Arabs are quite black, too.
And, yes, the rebels have been attacking rival tribes and sometimes killing civilians (though they have never engaged in the genocidal furies of the Sudanese government). And certainly the rebels are recalcitrant and seem to be enjoying their hotel rooms in Abuja too much to try hard to reach a peace.
But all that said, the essential truth is that Sudan’s government is slaughtering hundreds of thousands of people on the basis of their tribe and skin color – and that is genocide, and the rest is detail.
The author of today’s op-ed claims that it would be better if Westerners didn’t demand military intervention, because that just bolsters the rebels. That is absurd. First, far and away the biggest problem in Darfur is the Sudanese government – both its attacks on villages and its refusal to allow aid workers into remote areas. And there’s plenty of history to show that the only time Sudan bends is when it’s under great pressure.
After all, Darfur is in many ways a replay of a movie we saw in southern Sudan. First, Khartoum mobilized irregular militias to wipe out villages and kill civilians. And then it supported a proxy rebel movement to invade a neighboring country (then Uganda, now Chad). In the absence of demands for intervention, that war in the south went on for 20 years. In part because of the possibility of a UN security force, Sudan agreed to this tentative peace settlement in Darfur after only a few years. Otherwise, Darfur would have lingered for 20 years – and then Sudan would have started all over again in its east, on the border with Eritrea.
You can see a pattern: Whenever the international community focuses attention on Darfur, the slaughter subsides a bit. Then the world gets distracted, and Sudan steps up the killing. Besides, what about Chad? The discussion usually focuses only on Darfur, but there is a real risk that the entire nation of Chad will collapse into chaos, provoking a new civil war that will duplicate Darfur but on a much larger scale.
The bottom line is that genocide is the worst thing that humans can do to each other. It tears at the fabric of humanity. And the only way that we here, in the US, can assert our own humanity is to stand up to genocide, even a distant one. To look the other way as babies are tossed onto bonfires, because of their skin color and tribe, is an abdication of our own citizenship in our species.
Sad to think of all the pain and hardship these people are facing. Thank you for reminding us that we are all part of the same human race.
If this genocide was happening in a white nation there would be a willing intervention or if they had something we want.