Darfur Adrift: A Skeptical Assessment of Resolution 1769 (Part 2 of 2)

More than 75 days after the culminating UN Security Council resolution to provide security for civilians and humanitarians in Darfur, more reasons than ever to doubt it will succeed

Eric Reeves
October 19, 2007

The recent massacre of civilians in Muhajiriya (South Darfur)---by Khartoum’s regular military forces and its Janjaweed militia allies---represents, in its vicious human destruction, the most conspicuous consequence of ongoing international acquiescence before the genocidal ambitions of the National Islamic Front regime. Muhajiriya also represents the kind of organized, regime-sponsored violence that the UN/African Union (“Hybrid”) Mission deploying to Darfur, per UN Security Council Resolution 1769 (July 31, 2007), must be prepared to confront. While it has become fashionable, indeed de rigueur, in reporting on Darfur to emphasize the complexity of the conflict, the fracturing of the rebel movements, and to make ever more insistent comparisons with violence in Somalia, Muhajiriya serves as a sharp reminder that the current chaos isn’t accidental. It is, as a recent Human Rights Watch report emphasizes, “Chaos by Design” (“Darfur 2007: Chaos by Design,” September 2007 at http://hrw.org/reports/2007/sudan0907/). As it has for many years, stretching back to the second north/south conflict (1983-2005), Khartoum has sown division, engaged in divide-and-rule tactics, and exploited ethnic tensions at every moment of opportunity. The regime’s successes are nothing less than stunning.

To be sure, the tactics in Darfur have been accommodated to the particular nature of the counter-insurgency war currently being fought (see especially Human Rights Watch, “Chaos by Design,” pages 6, 22, 34, 38, 41-43, 45, 51, 53-54). But news reporting on the “complexity” of the Darfur crisis would be much more insightful if given an appropriate context, particularly in attending to the largest conclusion reached by Human Rights Watch:

“The government [of Sudan] continues to stoke the chaos [in Darfur] and, in some areas, exploit intercommunal tensions that escalate into open hostilities, apparently in an effort to ‘divide and rule’ and maintain military and political dominance over the region.” (HRW, page 6)Read more >>>>>>>>>>>>