World Affairs
World view - Lindsey Hilsum asks if we should intervene in Sudan
Published 03 May 2004
Thousands of people have been killed and a million displaced in Darfur. So why does our government, which believes in humanitarian intervention, do nothing to stop this crisis?
Again the cry goes up: "Something must be done!" And again the response echoes along the corridors of power: "But what?" A UN human rights team has reported that the government of Sudan and the militias it sponsors are pursuing a policy of "rape, pillage, torture, murder and arson in villages and towns across Darfur". Darfur, in western Sudan, is the worst humanitarian crisis of the moment, with more than a million forced from their homes, starving. The Americans estimate that 30,000 people have been killed.
But what should be done and who should do it?
The idea that armed force can be harnessed to the power of good reached its high water mark with the Nato attacks on Serbia over Kosovo. Liberals suddenly found themselves arguing in favour of bombing, and getting what they wanted. After the war, as I filmed Albanian Kosovars expelling elderly Serbian villagers, I realised how complex this concept was: you intervene to save one group, only to find it behaving exactly like the other.
None the less, the idea of "humanitarian intervention" became so deeply lodged that armed force by a foreign nation or coalition has become a first resort for many advocating action to restore human rights.
The decision of UN forces in Rwanda to withdraw at the height of the 1994 genocide was a notorious failure. In Kigali, I watched in horror as Blue Beret troops retreated in the face of thugs armed with clubs and machetes.
"If Rwanda happened again today, when a million people were slaughtered in cold blood, we would have a moral duty to act there," said Tony Blair at the 2001 Labour Party conference.
So why even think of sending an extra 1,500 British troops to Iraq, not Sudan? The answer is obvious: Iraq matters politically in a way Sudan does not. Blair has hitched British foreign policy to that of George W Bush - when the two men stood side by side in the Rose Garden in mid-April, it was clear that both had staked their political future on what happens in Iraq. Abandoning Iraq now might well be the worst possible course of action for the Iraqis as well as the politicians. But the Prime Minister suggests that this, too, is humanitarian intervention. In retrospect, rescuing the people from persecution at the hands of Saddam Hussein has rocketed up the list of justifications for the war, as the threat of weapons of mass destruction has seemed ever less convincing.
Kenneth Roth, executive director of Human Rights Watch, has come up with a formula which may help us judge this argument. He maintains that armed intervention is justified on humanitarian grounds if it can stop genocide or systematic slaughter; if criminal prosecution has already been tried and failed; and if it is reasonable to believe the people whom it is meant to benefit really will be better off afterwards. He adds that it is preferable, but not essential, that the intervention have UN Security Council approval; any armed assault should also follow the laws of war.
The war in Iraq falls at his first hurdle: the excesses of Saddam's cruelty occurred in 1988 when he gassed the Kurds, and after the 1991 Gulf war, when the Iraqi regime slaughtered both Kurds and Shias because they had rebelled. According to Human Rights Watch, "By the time of the March 2003 invasion, Saddam Hussein's killing had ebbed." As for whether the war could reasonably have been expected to improve Iraqis' lives, the group of 52 retired British diplomats who wrote an open letter on 26 April to Blair, criticising his policy on Iraq, complained that there was no plan at all for what would happen afterwards.
The criteria can be tested again in Sudan. The slaughter continues; the need is urgent. The Khartoum government's claims that the Arab militia are out of control are not credible - the Sudanese air force provides air cover as bands of Arab horsemen rampage through African villages, looting and killing.
Strong diplomatic pressure might prove effective: the Sudanese government is expecting a "peace dividend" of aid and investment if it signs a deal with rebels in the south. Stopping the slaughter in Darfur could be part of the deal, and countries such as France, which would like to rush back to Sudan to exploit oil reserves, could use more leverage. Fear of negative publicity has forced Khartoum to let UN aid workers and human rights observers into Darfur - sustained pressure might persuade it that the international team charged with monitoring attacks in the south should be deployed immediately to Darfur.
None of which sounds as compelling as armed intervention, but it is a programme of action that could be pushed through now. We should not allow the language of humanitarian intervention to be hijacked.
Lindsey Hilsum is international editor of Channel 4 News
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