Sudan, justice and peace

6 comments from readers

Dave
16 July 2008 at 13:33

Perhaps the New Statesman could explain what it is doing publishing a paeon in support of US. foreign policy, incredibly this is by HRW and another dodgy front organisation. The ICC lacks jurisdiction for the same reason the US. has failed to subscribe to it. Hoever nothing is said of US. inovlement and arming of the para-miltary groups which lead to the situation in the first places.

Jonty Stang
16 July 2008 at 23:32

That's it Dave... "America bad, genocidal dictator good". Well done, very insightful. Sock it to the man. And you're soooo right, it's impossible to find any critcism of US policy at the New Statesman or elsewhere.

Can I just say this one thing... what about the war in Iraq?

*audience errupts in wild applause*

Matt J
17 July 2008 at 03:01

I believe Omar al-Bashir will most likely get away with what he has done. He is protected by the Arab League and the African Union, both of which are still clubs of dictators, many of whom have done some pretty awful things themselves. He is also a vital ally of veto-holding China; Sudan is the largest exporter of oil to China, the Chinese are reliant on Bashir.

Nevertheless, I believe it was the right thing to ask for an arrest warrant for Bashir. The governments of Sudan have been doing these sorts of things for decades. Before the Darfur conflict another genocide against the Black Christian and Animist south killed between 2-3 million. Only by drawing international attention to this sort of behavior is there any hope of preventing more genocides by a government that has a habit of making land grabs based on ethnicity.

Keep in mind that there was not any significant Arab presence Sudan before the 14th century. Sudan is an Arab colony that is still in the process of being colonised. What is happening now in Sudan has happened before in other parts of the world. The end result will be the eventual extinction of the Natives unless something is done. Certainly, the recent murders of peacekeepers in Sudan and the governments efforts to interfere with them prove that more pressure is needed.

knave
17 July 2008 at 06:54

dave i am not one who normally agrees with Jonty but he right on this point. There is a consensus from left to the right that there has been a genocide in that area.

The US are right to dig their heels on this point.

Funny enough I would probably support action in this area.

raggedyman
17 July 2008 at 11:47

The Americans were the first to cry Genocide over Kosovo and it would seem that the evidence, post-conflict, now suggests that the majority of civilian deaths resulted from US high-altitude bombing.

There is much evidence to suggest that atrocities and massacres that have undoubtedly occurred are being spun for geopolitical reasons - and not just in the Sudan. The Save Darfur Coalition began as an American Jewish initiative with strong backing from the Heritage Foundation and the Holocaust Museum based in Washington and Houston - a strong bastion of American republicanism.

Consider this concerning Ann Penketh of the Independent:

"At the Independent, our editor is always looking for what he calls the 'f*ck me' factor. And that's now lacking in Darfur. I'm quite pessimistic about (the media) finding new angles," said Penketh.

In her view, there are two major strands of the Darfur story that are failing to make it onto the news agenda: the peace negotiations and what she called the "diplomatic disaster" - meaning the apparent inability of the international community to bring an end to the conflict.

According to Reuters' Maguire, one key problem is the complexity of developments in Darfur. "The fragmentation of the rebels makes it hard to present as black and white," he said.

Not only do the media not have any investigative reporters directly reporting from Darfur but they find this increasingly complex multi-polar conflict too 'difficult' to present in black and white terms - so important for their challenged audiences who need a simplistic presentation with a readily recognisable villain to boo and hiss at. Without any 'reality-based' reporters the media relies increasingly on various agencies and NGOs to feed them the latest information. The potential here for the insertion of a politically-distorting viewpoint is of course considerable.

Darfur like the conflicts that continue to rage in the neighbouring countries of Chad and the Central African Republic have a complex geopolitical twist that involves a new scramble for Africa's resources by international players; at the same they are exacerbated by tribal rivalries, the easy availability of weaponry, social and economic factors, and last, but not least, climatic factors that may well be attributed to global climate change.

Even if it is a small step it is surely a step in the right direction to stop viewing the world in terms of pantomime villains and to start viewing the world in terms of its far more complex reality.

Who knows it may turn out that we all share some culpability with regard to Darfur not least if the global warming component turns out to be playing a significant part in the perpetuation of the conflict.

nawawimohamad
27 July 2008 at 05:44

So far I have not read articles from the other side of the coin, therefore my current conclusion is that this article is just one of the US propagandas while Suliman Baldo & Sara Dareshshori are receiving fat pay checks to write it.

The views of the Sudanese government have not been fairly put forward by the media. What is actually going on and what is the conflict in Darfur is all about have not been clarified. However, undoubtedly it has been manipulated to serve the US interests!