The world appears to have abandoned any realistic hope that the new U.N.-African force can get Sudan to stop the genocide in Darfur. Therefore, it’s not surprising that Sudan’s embodiment of evil, President Omar al-Bashir, was – as reported on the Sudan Tribune website on Jan. 17 – “dancing (and) celebrating the completion of the Bridge of the Chinese-Sudanese Friendship north of Khartoum.”
“With China’s help,” gloated al-Bashir – who has effectively obstructed the current mission of the combined force sent by the U.N. Security Council and the African Union – “Sudan will certainly score glorious achievements one after another on our path of construction and development.” And China’s glory in hosting this year’s Olympics, so important for the improved reputation of that Chinese dictatorship, may not be tarred enough – because of its quintessential economic support of al-Bashir – to stop that support.
To further show his dancing contempt of the United Nations and George W. Bush – the first world leader to call the mass murders and rapes in Darfur “genocide” – Bashir has appointed (Jan. 16), as a special adviser, Musa Hilal, the chief leader and planner of Bashir’s monstrous militia, the Janjaweed.
As Human Rights Watch reports: “Scores of victims, witnesses to attacks and even members of the Sudanese armed forces have named Hilal as the top commander of government-backed Janjaweed militias responsible for numerous atrocities in Darfur.”
Moreover, Hilal, also involved with training camps for those rapists and killers, was specifically named, adds Human Rights Watch, “in a government document … ordering all Sudanese ‘security units to allow the activities’ of the components of the Janjaweed ‘under the command of Sheikh Musa Hilal.'”
Blithely countering criticism of his appointment of what Human Rights Watch rightly calls “the poster child” of the burning of Black African villages in Darfur, including the tossing of babies into the flames, al-Bashir, during an official visit to Turkey, actually celebrated Hilal:
“Having contributed greatly to stability and security in the region, we in Sudan believe that those accusations against Mr. Hilal are untrue” (New York Times, Jan. 22).
Why would the government of Turkey have sullied its reputation by inviting this master of human-rights crimes? According to Sudan Tribune, Bashir – the Pinocchio of my childhood readings – will have briefed Turkish President Abdullah Gul, during an official visit, on the “progress of the peace process in Darfur” and “explore means to boost joint political and economic cooperation ties.”
With a straight face, the Turkish ambassador to Sudan insists that Turkey is “resolute to resolve (the Darfur) crisis.” How do these people keep their faces straight?
I doubt that the two presidents discussed the undeniable fact that – as reported by the premier historian of this genocide, Eric Reeves – “at approximately 10 p.m. on Jan. 7, Khartoum’s regular Sudan Armed Forces attacked, deliberately and with premeditation, a convoy belonging to the U.N./African Union Mission in Darfur. The convoy … came under heavy sustained fire near Tine, West Darfur.”
On Jan. 11, the impotent U.N. Security Council mustered its indignation by condemning the attack and protesting to al-Bashir’s government about this attack on “a clearly marked supplies convoy.” I do not think the he shook in his Sudanese Army boots when the Security Council that day – Reuters reported – “threatened action against anyone hindering the deployment of international peacekeepers.”
Bashir’s ambassador to the United Nations, Abdalmahmoud Abdalhaleem, wasn’t in the least ruffled by the threat of real actions against the sovereign nation of Sudan. Like his boss, the ambassador – Reuters added – “said the 15-nation (Security Council) has issued many warnings in the past but had never followed through.”
And there, in this cold, flat statement, is the future of many thousands more black Africans in Darfur as the never fully sated Janjaweed savor all the rapes and murders to come – while their leader, Hilal, stands proud as an adviser to al-Bashir.
Is there any way, then, to close down this holocaust in the face of the intransigence of Sudan? In October 2005, the U.N. General Assembly passed a “responsibility to protect” resolution holding that if a sovereign member of the United Nations is committing mass atrocities against it own citizens – thereby failing its “responsibility to protect them” – international forces have the right to go into that nation and carry out that protection.
Since Sudan is the very model of so criminal a nation, there is a growing movement among human-rights activists to implement that resolution – short of force – until, presumably, force is necessary. Otherwise, the 2005 U.N. resolution is useless. Obviously, it won’t be easy; but there is even an advocacy and research center to that end at the Ralph Bunche Institute of International Studies at the Graduate Center of New York City University as well as in Australia, Sir Lanka and Thailand. More in next week’s column.
