From Baghdad to Darfur: No, We Shouldn't Bomb Darfur Either. posted by Richard Seymour

David Clark argues in today's Guardian that the "international community" ought to threaten the use of force against the Sudanese government if it fails to curtail the human rights abuses currently taking place in the south-west of the country. He maintains that both Blair and the Left have been unwholesomely silent over the atrocities - in Blair's case on account of his bruising experience of leading the country into war with Iraq; in the Left's case because they are "morally disarmed" by the presumption that any intervention by the West must be automatically wrong. He argues that once upon a time, Blair knew what to do with outlaw regimes (like Milosevic's, for instance), but now he doesn't because of the wild goose chase in Iraq.

It isn't difficult to see the ideological pull of the argument. It appeals because it evinces subtlety, equidistance between two extreme Bad Positions, and moral passion. And indeed, the situation in Darfur is dire. The raw data being compiled by human rights organisations like MSF speaks eloquently of this gruesome reality. Government soldiers and janjawid militias go on a killing spree, and then malaria, starvation and inadequate water supplies do the rest. As Human Rights Watch notes, Thousands have been slain, tens of thousands raped and brutalized, 1.2 million displaced from their homes, and at least 120,000 have fled to neighbouring Chad as refugees. Unfortunately, I don't think there is much else to the argument. First of all, if bombing (or threatening to bomb) Darfur is an appropriate response to human rights violations, then why not Baghdad? Did not Saddam ratchet up atrocities of Darfur proportions in his time? It is true that when the bombing occurred, human rights violations were said to be decreasing steadily in Iraq. Perhaps one could argue that this is because the regime was weakening, but that doesn't sit well with the evidence. Sanctions appear to have strengthened the regime, and the decline in state violence is more likely to be due to the decline in the level of popular resistance. (Although it didn't go away entirely - Sadr's men were operating in Baghdad since 1999). So, if it is appropriate to expect Western states, which are fundamentally amoral institutions, to produce moral outcomes by being allowed to exert its military power in Darfur, why not Baghdad?

Aside from the inconsistency, I don't think Clark can have thought through the human consequences of bombing. One of the reasons why there are so many refugees and displaced people in Darfur and neighbouring Chad is that the Sudanese government is bombing from a great height. Why should it be any better if 'we' do it? (Yes, yes, yes, our planes are so much more accurate than theirs - that's why thousands were killed in even the relatively limited and brief air campaign against Serbia). Prefer a ground invasion? That'll be even more dead bodies, thank you! Tank shells and village to village combat won't make Darfur a liveable place for refugees and victims currently frightened out of their lives. There are other consequences too. Western intervention, particularly into Muslim countries, has tended to inflate support for radical Islamist forces and therefore places 'us' in greater danger.

So, what should "the international community" do? First of all, since there is no such thing as "the international community", it is very difficult to conceive of it doing anything. Second, since Clark's analysis does not stray beyond the 'human rights' framework, he misses a few facts of vital significance - Jack Straw, the Foreign Secretary, doesn't actually have any words of condemnation for Sudan. An official statement released by Straw and Hilary Benn "congratulates" the Sudanese government for signing a deal with the Southern rebels, but is only "deeply troubled" by the serious situation in Darfur. They urge "all parties" to stay their hands. Part of the reason for this may be that the Greater Nile Oil project , of which BP Amoco is a major shareholder (via PetroChina), is working closely with the government to maintain that 16,000 mile stretch of oil pipeline that takes oil from the South to Port Sudan. Too much attention to the little Darfur crisis could destabilise the wider peace, and threaten those supplies. The US government was worried enough to send Colin Powell, who has said that the Khartoum administration should "rein in" the janjawid militias and, happily enough, the government has acquiesced . This is perhaps because in recent years, the US government has been cosying up to the Khartoum administration. Why were they cosying up to the administration? Oil? Nah,

Another problem with Clark's analysis is that he accepts the characterisation of the conflict as "ethnic", and he compares it to the Rwandan genocide. Well, the trouble with the latter comparison is that we have no understanding yet that there is any direct complicity between the US, Britain or France in the unfolding violence in Darfur (see Linda Melvern's Conspiracy to Murder, Verso Press, 2004); and of course, what is happening in Darfur is not genocide. Nor is it specifically ethnic in motivation. It is an increasingly familiar effort at counter-insurgency. As Mercedes Taty, the Deputy Emergency Director for MSF has argued :

I don’t think that we should be using the word "genocide" to describe this conflict. Not at all. This can be a semantic discussion, but nevertheless, there is no systematic target — targeting one ethnic group or another one.

It doesn’t mean either that the situation in Sudan isn’t extremely serious by itself. But, I think it’s important not to mix things and not to standardize our words. So, I would say no, I can not speak about genocide.

The situation is not, therefore, a Rwanda in the offing. It is, however, an extremely needful one. As Taty again testifies:

In fact,I can only [call] it a huge, huge emergency. In the sense of the population figures, when I speak about figures, I am talking about people, persons, population — they are huge, huge numbers.

We are talking about displaced people living in miserable conditions, displaced from their homes, just regrouped in the middle of nowhere and absolutely dependent on any assistance that can be provided to them.

They’ve left their villages of origin, due to violence and burning of these villages. So now they are gathering at some crossroad points and they are absolutely dependent on any assistance that can be provided.

So, if no drinkable water, no drug supply and healthcare, no food is provided, these people have very little chance of surviving.

Just to give an example, but in other situations, when we speak about 5,000 people, we estimate that is already an emergency. Right now I am talking about almost 300,000 people that have been seen by Doctors Without Borders teams.

Therefore, if we wanted to pressure our government into acting in moral ways, we should take the Hippocratic oath. First, do no harm. Second, do the precise maximum that you can to ameliorate the situation. A few simple enough recommendations for a hypothetically moral British government. 'We' should immediately dispatch tonnes of food and medicine to those regions in need of it, negotiate full and uninhibited access for those who would provide it, provide funds for returning refugees who need to rebuild their homes, and refuse to allow any trade, or privileges to Sudan if it continues to abuse its citizens. British based companies should be told to extricate themselves from any involvement in Sudan as long as the regime continues its present course. We should provide expertise and aid on water. Locals should coordinate these activities themselves, insofar as they are not involved in human rights abuses. That would have an enormous, beneficial impact on the situation in Darfur, it would cost a fraction of what the Iraq war cost, and guess what - no violence is required.

Unfortunately, previous experience dictates that no such action will occur. Britain would rather flood Africa with arms and mercenaries than rain down food and medicine on those in need. They would rather inflame the conflict in the Democratic Republic of Congo than forgive African debt. I therefore repeat, for David Clark and anyone else in doubt: States are amoral, self-serving centres of power. They are not to be trusted, or relied upon. Least of all should we cheer-lead a military assault on an already terrified, bloody and starving country.