Darfur needs peace, not peacekeepers

Why sending foreign troops to stop genocide in Sudan won't save lives.
By Robert Ménard and Stephen Smith
Los Angeles Times
April 14, 2007

DO YOU THINK the United States was wrong to invade Iraq even if it did so with the intention of bringing freedom to the victims of Saddam Hussein? Do you believe that long-standing conflicts in faraway countries cannot be solved with military solutions that fail to address the underlying causes of the crisis?

If so, how can you imagine that deploying thousands, or more likely tens of thousands, of foreign soldiers in Darfur, a Sudanese province bigger than Iraq, is all it would take to stop the massacre there? When we went to Darfur in March, we were as desperate as anybody about the killings — and we still are. But what we learned in Sudan makes us wary of do-gooders in body armor — and of the double-think of balkanized minds branding as disaster in Iraq what they recommend for Darfur's salvation. We ought to have serious doubts about this new mission to civilize, done up in the latest colors. Without a political solution brokered by the international community, there will be no peace to keep and even less to impose.

In Khartoum and in North Darfur, we met Sudanese who were traumatized by their country's tragedy, but also much better informed than us. Their views differed, but none of them perceived the conflict as one between "victims" and "butchers." Yet, Manichaeism prevails in the West, where the cause is assumed to be simple: An Islamist Arab regime has decided to exterminate Darfur's black population and is carrying out genocide with the help of the Riders of the Apocalypse, the infamous janjaweed militia. There is hardly any mention in the U.S. or European media of how humanitarian aid organizations — and Darfur's civilians — are also fleeing from atrocities committed by rebels in Darfur opposed to Khartoum.

For example, in Gereida, in South Darfur, more than 100,000 displaced people have been cut off from humanitarian aid since mid-December after a rebel attack on relief groups that still dare not return.

The simplistic narrative may make for a readable plot line to explain a confusing African country, but unfortunately most Americans are not informed that there are up to 15 rebel factions fighting the government — and increasingly, each other. President Bush's special envoy on Sudan, Andrew Natsios, told the Senate on Wednesday that although the scope of the rebels' atrocities pales in comparison with Khartoum's, rebel attacks on civilians have markedly increased, and some rebels have begun raping women from their own tribes.

On Thursday, Senegal threatened to withdraw its 500 peacekeepers from Darfur after five of them guarding a water hole in the desert were slain by rebels earlier this month. Have the rebels lost their moral compass? Wouldn't the West have made a big mistake if it had intervened on their side less than a year ago, as Save Darfur advocated at the time?

Let's face facts: Going to war against the Sudanese would not save lives, it would cost lives.

Most of the bloodshed in Darfur took place between the end of 2003 and the beginning of 2005. The same international community that is being urged to intervene in western Sudan was, at that time, helping negotiate peace between the government in the north and rebels in the south to put an end to the longest-running civil war in independent Africa — 21 years — that left an estimated 1.5 million dead. Was it the right policy, back then, to deal with a murderous junta (the government of Sudan) in the interests of ending bloodshed? And would it be right today to attempt to overthrow a government of national union in which the former southern rebels are participating? An affirmative answer would sound the death knell not only for the peace agreement signed in January 2005 but also for the nation's first free elections, which are supposed to take place within less than two years.

If indeed the regime in Khartoum is engaging in genocide, then there can be no compromising with it — and regime change must be the order of the day. But myriad independent investigations indicate that about 40,000 Darfurians were killed from March 2003 to December 2004 in atrocious circumstances, and 90,000 more people died of hunger or disease, the indirect victims of the civil war. Since then, the violence has been abating. The United Nations put the number of victims of attacks last year at about 1,300. The African Union mission in the Sudan, which has deployed 7,000 peacekeepers in Darfur, estimates a monthly average of 200 dead during the last six months. These figures are uncertain because there are often no witnesses to tragic events. But they tend to support a toll of 200,000 dead from all causes since the start of the fighting in February 2003 — the figure used by the media in most parts of the world, rather than the 450,000 dead often cited by groups urging action to save Darfur.

Don't get us wrong: We also believe that Darfur needs our help. But our support should be realistic and honest — and not, in the end, helpless posturing. A united international community needs to pressure the Sudanese government and the rebels into a meaningful peace process — and if necessary, publicly challenge China to veto a U.N. sanctions resolution against any intransigent parties. In the absence of a peace agreement to monitor, what right do we have to demand that anyone — be they our children or U.N. blue helmets from the Third World — go and die in Darfur?

ROBERT MéNARD is secretary-general of Reporters Without Borders, an organization that defends press freedoms. STEPHEN SMITH writes on African affairs from Paris.

Will Iraq Be the Next Rwanda?

By Stuart Gottlieb
The Washington Post
Sunday, April 15, 2007

Remember Rwanda? The history books have not treated kindly America's inaction while more than 800,000 Tutsis were slaughtered by their Hutu compatriots in the spring of 1994 after a plane crash killed the presidents of Rwanda and Burundi.

Now consider a scenario in which the decisions and actions of the United States were the primary reasons for a country's descent into chaos and sectarian violence, yet instead of doing everything possible to avert a humanitarian catastrophe, America chose to walk away. What would the history books say about that?

Should the Democratic leadership in Congress succeed in forcing the hasty withdrawal of American forces from Iraq, we may well find out.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid point to escalating sectarian violence between Iraqi Shiites and Sunnis as the primary justification for pulling out U.S. troops. In a joint letter to President Bush last month urging him not to veto legislation that includes timelines for withdrawal, Pelosi and Reid said that they have come to the "inescapable conclusion that U.S. forces should not be trying to contain an Iraqi civil war" and that "a phased redeployment of U.S. forces should commence."

Democrats try to soften this message by arguing that a date certain for withdrawal will force Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki to, as Pelosi and Reid put it in a January statement, "find the political resolution required to stabilize Iraq."

But these arguments are as falsely optimistic as the White House's claim four years ago that our troops would be greeted as liberators. According to the bipartisan Iraq Study Group, "A premature American departure from Iraq would almost certainly produce greater sectarian violence and further deterioration of conditions." And the National Intelligence Estimate released in January warned that rapid U.S. withdrawal would probably lead to the collapse of Iraqi security forces, along with "massive civilian casualties and forced population displacement."

Americans are understandably frustrated with the administration's mismanagement of this war. And stabilizing Iraq has proved to be a tremendous challenge. But Democrats elected in November on promises to end the war need to be careful.

History will note that the same Democrats who supported America's interventions to help end civil wars in Bosnia and Kosovo in the 1990s now favor a withdrawal policy in Iraq that is likely to cause even greater human suffering. While the toll in Iraq has been tremendous -- at least 75,000 civilians have been killed since the war began in March 2003, the Brookings Institution estimates -- this number could increase tenfold or more should all-out civil war emerge. Such a development would signal the death knell of the main Democratic foreign policy legacy of the 1990s: the principle of "no more Rwandas."

History will also note that while primary blame lies with the White House, in October 2002 overwhelming, bipartisan majorities in the House and Senate voted to authorize this war. That there is a growing consensus in both parties that the war was a mistake does not free the United States from its responsibility for creating the power vacuum in Iraq. Withdrawal in the face of a nearly certain humanitarian catastrophe would leave a black mark on America's reputation and diminish its role in the world for generations.

Those calling for swift withdrawal say that the war has lasted too long and taken too great a toll in American blood and treasure. But these considerations must be weighed against all our interests in the region.

Beyond the humanitarian reasons to find a viable exit strategy, vital strategic concerns include preventing a failed state in the heart of the Middle East, an al-Qaeda safe haven in western Iraq and oil prices that top $100 per barrel.

Does this mean the United States should endure endless sacrifice for what may be a lost cause? Of course not. But Democrats should not oversimplify the prospects of painless withdrawal the way the White House once exaggerated the prospects of easy victory. The stakes, both moral and strategic, are simply too high.

This moment calls for congressional leadership that is united toward bringing stability to Iraq. At a minimum, the president's new counterinsurgency strategy needs to be given every opportunity to succeed, if only to permit a more deliberative discussion of all withdrawal options.

In 1998, President Bill Clinton apologized to the people of Rwanda for America's failure to help stem the killing that occurred on his watch.

Should Iraq descend into all-out civil war, there will be far more to apologize for in the decades to come.

The writer, a Democratic foreign policy adviser and speechwriter in the Senate from 1999 to 2003, directs the policy studies program at Yale University.

Worse Than Apartheid?

By Robert D. Novak
The Washington Post
Monday, April 9, 2007

BETHLEHEM, West Bank -- Hani Hayek, an accountant who is the Christian mayor of the tiny majority-Christian Palestinian village of Beit Sahour, was angry last week as he drove me along the Israeli security wall. "They are taking our communal lands," he said, pointing to the massive Israeli settlement of Har Homa. "They don't want us to live here. They want us to leave."

Har Homa, dwarfing nearby dwellings of Beit Sahour, seemed larger than when I saw it at Holy Week a year ago. It is. The Israeli government has steadily enlarged settlements on the occupied West Bank, and I could see both the construction at Har Homa and road building for a dual transportation system for Israelis and Palestinians.

Jimmy Carter raised hackles by titling his book about the Palestinian question "Peace Not Apartheid." But Palestinians allege this is worse than the former South African racial separation. Nearing the 40th anniversary of the Israeli military occupation of the West Bank, the territory has been so fragmented that a genuine Palestinian state and a "two-state solution" seem increasingly difficult.

The security wall has led to virtual elimination of suicide bombings and short-term peace. But life is hard for Palestinians, whose deaths because of conflict increased 272 percent in 2006 while Israeli casualties declined. In a minor incident last week of the type that goes unnoticed internationally, Israel Defense Forces (IDF) troopers killed a Palestinian man accused of illegally entering a firing zone while collecting metal scraps to sell. The Britain-based organization Save the Children estimates that half the children in the occupied territories are psychologically traumatized.

Palestinians argue that things have gotten worse because of pervasive feelings of hopelessness. Students at Bethlehem University (run by the Catholic Brothers of De La Salle, with an enrollment that is 70 percent Muslim) sounded more pessimistic and radicalized than a year ago. Ahmad al Issa, a fourth-year journalism student, was held for a year in an Israeli prison on charges of throwing stones at Israeli troops. Now he has bought into the libel that Jewish employees at the World Trade Center were warned in advance of the Sept. 11 attacks.

The U.S.-backed boycott following the election victory of the extremist group Hamas in early 2006 has made the Palestinian Authority destitute, crippling government services. Deprived of help from the authority, with the economy in a shambles, city governments are bankrupt. Bethlehem's mayor, Victor Batarseh, has a special problem because tourists and pilgrims no longer stay overnight in the city of Christ's birth. Out of money and credit, he is ready to lay off the city's 165 staffers.

Batarseh, a U.S. citizen who practiced thoracic surgery in Sacramento, is pinned down in Bethlehem. A Christian and political independent who calls himself a private-enterprise democrat, Batarseh is on the Israeli blacklist because he contributed to the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP), which the State Department has designated a terrorist organization. Denied permits for Jerusalem, the mayor must drive to Amman, Jordan, to get to meetings in Europe.

Contact with the PFLP is not a requirement for being holed up by the Israel Defense Forces. Bethlehem University students cannot get to Jerusalem, a few minutes' drive away, unless they sneak in illegally. The students from the separated Gaza enclave have to take classes from Bethlehem via the Internet.

Republican Rep. Chris Smith of New Jersey was at the university the same day I was, and faculty members could hardly believe a real live member of Congress was there. Smith later was given a tour of Jerusalem to see with his own eyes that the separation barrier in most places is a big, ugly and intimidating wall, not merely a fence.

Smith, an active Catholic layman, was drawn here because of the rapid emigration of the Holy Land's Christian minority. They leave more quickly than Muslims because contacts on the outside make them more mobile. Peter Corlano, a Catholic member of the Bethlehem University faculty, told Smith and me: "We live the same life as Muslims. We are Palestinians."

Concerned by the disappearance of Christians in the land of Christianity's birthplace, Smith could also become (as I did) concerned by the plight of all Palestinians. If so, he will find precious little company in Congress.

Iraqi details 'shocking' U.S. missteps

By CHARLES J. HANLEY
The Associated Press
4/8/07

In a rueful reflection on what might have been, an Iraqi government insider details in 500 pages the U.S. occupation's "shocking" mismanagement of his country — a performance so bad, he writes, that by 2007 Iraqis had "turned their backs on their would-be liberators."

"The corroded and corrupt state of Saddam was replaced by the corroded, inefficient, incompetent and corrupt state of the new order," Ali A. Allawi concludes in "The Occupation of Iraq," newly published by Yale University Press.

Allawi writes with authority as a member of that "new order," having served as Iraq's trade, defense and finance minister at various times since 2003. As a former academic, at Oxford University before the U.S.-British invasion of Iraq, he also writes with unusual detachment.

The U.S.- and British-educated engineer and financier is the first senior Iraqi official to look back at book length on his country's four-year ordeal. It's an unsparing look at failures both American and Iraqi, an account in which the word "ignorance" crops up repeatedly.

First came the "monumental ignorance" of those in Washington pushing for war in 2002 without "the faintest idea" of Iraq's realities. "More perceptive people knew instinctively that the invasion of Iraq would open up the great fissures in Iraqi society," he writes.

What followed was the "rank amateurism and swaggering arrogance" of the occupation, under L. Paul Bremer's Coalition Provisional Authority (CPA), which took big steps with little consultation with Iraqis, steps Allawi and many others see as blunders:

• The Americans disbanded Iraq's army, which Allawi said could have helped quell a rising insurgency in 2003. Instead, hundreds of thousands of demobilized, angry men became a recruiting pool for the resistance.

• Purging tens of thousands of members of toppled President Saddam Hussein's Baath party — from government, school faculties and elsewhere — left Iraq short on experienced hands at a crucial time.

• An order consolidating decentralized bank accounts at the Finance Ministry bogged down operations of Iraq's many state-owned enterprises.

• The CPA's focus on private enterprise allowed the "commercial gangs" of Saddam's day to monopolize business.

• Its free-trade policy allowed looted Iraqi capital equipment to be spirited away across borders.

• The CPA perpetuated Saddam's fuel subsidies, selling gasoline at giveaway prices and draining the budget.

In his 2006 memoir of the occupation, Bremer wrote that senior U.S. generals wanted to recall elements of the old Iraqi army in 2003, but were rebuffed by the Bush administration. Bremer complained generally that his authority was undermined by Washington's "micromanagement."

Although Allawi, a cousin of Ayad Allawi, Iraq's prime minister in 2004, is a member of a secularist Shiite Muslim political grouping, his well-researched book betrays little partisanship.

On U.S. reconstruction failures — in electricity, health care and other areas documented by Washington's own auditors — Allawi writes that the Americans' "insipid retelling of `success' stories" merely hid "the huge black hole that lay underneath."

For their part, U.S. officials have often largely blamed Iraq's explosive violence for the failures of reconstruction and poor governance.

The author has been instrumental since 2005 in publicizing extensive corruption within Iraq's "new order," including an $800-million Defense Ministry scandal. Under Saddam, he writes, the secret police kept would-be plunderers in check better than the U.S. occupiers have done.

As 2007 began, Allawi concludes, "America's only allies in Iraq were those who sought to manipulate the great power to their narrow advantage. It might have been otherwise."