Daily Darfur: Do you want peace, or do you want war?

by Michelle

Published January 07, 2009 @ 06:36AM PT

Two things, before we get started:

1. Thanks to Martha for blogging for me yesterday while I was out of town.
2. Thanks to Stop Genocide Now and the Genocide Intervention Network for helping to get the word out on the Ideas for Changing America campaign. And thanks to you, in advance, for participating in the campaign by voting to end the genocide in Darfur.

And now for the news...

In another episode of flip-flopping outrageous enough to make John Kerry blush, the Vice President of Sudan reiterated a commitment to implementing the 2006 Darfur Peace Agreement---which, having been signed by only one rebel faction, was essentially "dead on arrival" before it was even signed. The VP remarked on the need to bring in other rebel groups into the process, which would be a nice sentiment if his own president wasn't so busy posturing for all out war in the region.

As noted in a previous post, and as the comments on that post reveal, President Bush's decision on Monday to provide American airlifting of equipment for UNAMID produced a both a mixed and heated exchange among advocates (notably, Nick Kristof) and the administration---the advocates being both grateful of the decision but critical of the administration's overall record, and the administration being unusually defensive of that record. Jerry Fowler, president of the Save Darfur Coalition, weighed in (very diplomatically) on the matter in the Washington Post yesterday:

"I think the president has had a sincere personal commitment to ending the genocide in Darfur, and in many ways has done more than other countries, but the bottom line is that it's still going on," Fowler said.

Both Fowler and Kristof (who also made a similar statement) are right on this---give credit where credit is due for the efforts that were made, but the fact remains that the denunciations of the genocide where not backed with appropriate and available action to bring the killings to an end. But even if Bush is using Darfur in a last-ditch effort to improve his legacy before leaving office, I think that the ultimate impact of such efforts---regardless of their motivation---should be the focus of our attention. Along those lines, the Sudan Tribune reports that representatives of the rebel Justice and Equality Movement will visit Washington this week. (And I'm tempted to prowl around the city looking for them.)

Interestingly, the Sudanese government hailed the airlift as a "positive step" for the deployment of UNAMID. The thing about the government, though, is that you can't take anything they say at face value: Khartoum as actively imposed hurdle after hurdle to UNAMID's deployment, and repeatedly threatened to kick the force out of the country all together.

(For a brief bit more on the airlift and U.S. military involvement in peacekeeping in Africa, see this interesting article at eMillitary.com.)

The Chinese special representative for Darfur arrived yesterday for his sixth visit to Khartoum since being appointed in May 2007, to "exchanging ideas and views with the Sudanese leadership on the Darfur issue" as the expected ICC-indictment of the Sudanese President looms ever-closer on the horizon. Oh, to be a fly on the wall...