Squeeze Sudan: To End Darfur’s Agony

Most experts agree that the 21st century’s first full-blown genocide is proceeding unchecked in the nightmare of Darfur. FSM Contributing Editor Peter Brookes explains exactly how half-hearted U.N.meddling in the Sudan have been feckless at best, and at worst, scandalous.
Squeeze Sudan: To End Darfur’s Agony

By Peter Brookes

Despite endless rounds of shadowboxing with the dodgy Sudanese government over the ongoing nightmare in Darfur, United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon is asking us to give appeasement, er, diplomacy, one more chance.

That’s not going to help: It’s going to take some highly credible threats to get Sudan’s President Omar al-Bashir to end what many call the 21st century’s first genocide.

What kind of threats? Before I detail that, let’s review why diplomacy alone is a guaranteed bust.

The U.N. attempts to stop Khartoum’s ethnic cleansing have been feckless. At last count, the campaign by Sudanese government forces and their Arab-Muslim "Janjaweed" henchmen against Muslim Africans in Darfur has left 200,000 dead, 2 million refugees and 4 million needing assistance.

Bashir has made a mockery of U.N. efforts to stem the violence since the Security Council passed its first resolution on Darfur in 2005.

He’s made promise after promise to stop the chaos and carnage, yet it continues unabated. Now the ever-worsening humanitarian disaster is spilling over Sudan’s borders into neighboring Chad and the Central African Republic.

Last week, a "confidential" U.N. report disclosed that Khartoum is still moving weapons into Darfur, in violation of Security Council resolutions. Bashir’s boys are even disguising Sudanese aircraft to look like U.N. planes. (Khartoum denied all the charges.) Read more >>>