After the Holocaust, the world said “never again.” Never again will we stand by and watch while millions are slaughtered. After the Cambodian genocide of the 1970s, the world said “never again.” After the Rwandan genocide of 1994, the world said “never again.” After the mass killings in Srebenica (in Bosnia) in 1995, the world said “never again.” Probably in 2008 the world will say “never again” after the slow-motion genocide in Sudan is finally brought to its terrible completion.
Of this genocide, no one will be able to say they didn't know. Each day the newspapers report on the ominous developments that threaten the lives of those who live in the western Sudanese region of Darfur. The people of this region, already victimized, murdered by the hundreds of thousands, and displaced by the millions, now face the “final solution” of the political and ethnic problems that have already taken so many of their lives.
The situation is complicated but essentially goes like this: The Sudanese government and its Arab allies, notably the vicious janjaweed militias, attacked the non-Arab peoples of Darfur beginning in 2003 in response to rebel activity based in that westernmost region of Sudan. These attacks were particularly vicious and indiscriminate. The U.S. government declared them to be comprehensive enough to qualify as genocide.
Under international pressure, the Sudanese government entered peace talks with the main rebel group, the Sudanese Liberation Army. However, this rebel group split along tribal lines. One faction (associated with the Zaghawa people) signed a peace accord with the government. The other (associated with the Fur people) did not. The agreement was also rejected by another rebel group. Now these various groups are fighting each other, while some continue to fight the government as well.
A weak African Union peacekeeping force has attempted, with limited success, to protect the innocents of Darfur. However, the mandate of this force expires at the end of September and it appears they will leave. The United Nations Security Council passed a resolution authorizing the insertion of 22,000 peacekeeping troops to replace the African Union forces. But the government of Sudan has refused to allow these troops to deploy, instead saying they would be treated as a hostile force. The Muslim-led Sudanese government says that, instead, it will provide its own security for the Darfur region.
Scant comfort indeed, because it was this same brand of security that led to the slaughter of hundreds of thousands of Sudanese civilians by janjaweed and allied Sudanese Army forces before it was stopped. Now everyone watching this situation seems to agree that once the peacekeepers are removed from the scene, it is quite likely that these same killers will descend on the region to finish the job they started. The unfortunate souls waiting in refugee camps and elsewhere in the region are convinced that their days are numbered.
One community leader told the New York Times, “If these [African Union] soldiers leave, we will all be slaughtered.” He went on to say: “We beg the international community, somebody, come and save us. We have no means to protect ourselves…. We will all die.”
At least in the early stages of the Holocaust, neither the Jews nor anyone else outside of Nazi circles knew what was coming. But in this case the targets know. The United Nations knows. The New York Times knows. The United States knows. NATO knows. The killers know. Everyone knows.
Will anyone act? The UN agreed to act, but Sudan says it won't welcome the troops. Is the UN prepared to shoot its way in? What about NATO or its member countries? Is anyone willing to step forward and fight their way into Sudan to save hundreds of thousands of lives? Well, NATO is tied down in Lebanon, Afghanistan and the former Yugoslavia. Does that rule them out?
What about the United States? We have already declared the situation to be a genocide. We have a powerful Holocaust museum in Washington that has institutionalized the “never again” message. It is just around the corner from the Capitol. Can the witness of that place be heard a few blocks away? Are we also too tied down—in Afghanistan and Iraq—to do anything? Or are we perhaps too weakened politically, or too hated in the Muslim world, to dare intervene?
There are always reasons why genocide happens and no one does anything. But those reasons never look real good when the bodies begin to pile up and we prepare to say “never again” once again. It is time for the United States to lead the world in addressing the Darfur crisis before it is too late.
David P. Gushee
University Fellow & Graves Professor of Moral Philosophy
Union University
www.davidgushee.com