Views » February 16, 2005

Genocide by Attrition

By Eric Reeves

A Jan. 25 report from the U.N.-appointed International Commission of Inquiry on the conflict in the Darfur region of western Sudan noted evidence of “crimes against humanity,” but found no evidence of “genocidal intent” on Khartoum’s part. Yet as the violence enters its third year, Khartoum’s counterinsurgency warfare becomes ever more conspicuously genocide by attrition.

The scale of human destruction and suffering in the region has reached almost incomprehensible dimensions. The non-Arab African tribal populations from which the Darfuri insurgencies have drawn forces have suffered total mortality from disease, malnutrition and violence in the range of 400,000. Another 2.5 million people have been internally displaced within Darfur or across the border into Chad. Forced relocation of the displaced remains Khartoum’s ultimate solution to the humanitarian problem. Altogether, roughly 3 million people are now “conflict-affected,” and in increasingly desperate need of humanitarian assistance.

Khartoum’s Arab militia allies, the Janjaweed, continue their brutal predations, and the number of displaced continues to grow. Those in camps for the displaced are at the mercy of the Janjaweed. Hundreds of women and girls leaving camps to collect firewood (necessary for cooking the raw grain that is often the only food provided) have been raped, continuing the use of rape as a racialized weapon of war.

Violence also continues to define life in those rural areas not yet destroyed by Khartoum’s scorched-earth campaign. The African Union (AU) and other sources on the ground in Darfur confirm that the regime has used helicopter gunships and Antonov bombers against undefended villages, fleeing civilians, and even humanitarian personnel and resources.

What the United Nations has called the “world’s greatest humanitarian crisis” is only getting greater. But the very description of Darfur as a “humanitarian crisis” is an indication of the international community’s inability, once again, to confront what is clearly genocide. The realities of Darfur are not incidental to the war, they are not a massive case of “collateral damage.” To put it in the language of the 1948 U.N. Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide, Khartoum’s war effort is “deliberately inflicting on the non-Arab tribal groups of Darfur conditions of life calculated to bring about their physical destruction in whole or in part.”

What is the international response to ongoing genocide in Africa—a genocide that may ultimately claim more lives than the Rwandan genocide of 1994? To date, aside from a humanitarian aid effort that serves fewer than half those in need, this response consists of 1,400 AU monitors, who have been deployed without a civilian protection mandate, are woefully underequipped, and are prevented from investigating atrocities or cease-fire violations unless Khartoum agrees. Further, the AU troops—whose deployment is a fig leaf to cover the world’s inaction—have been constrained by contrived fuel shortages for their helicopters, hostile ground fire and denial of access by Khartoum.

This small AU force is powerless to stop genocidal violence in a region the size of France. And it is the violence that has displaced people into squalid, disease-ridden camps; that has precipitated the complete collapse of Darfur’s agricultural economy; that has fatally undermined relations between Arab and African populations in Darfur; and that ensures the ranks of the insurgency movements will never lack for young recruits who have seen family members killed, mothers and sisters raped, and children flung into bonfires. Without robust humanitarian intervention, of a sort very tentatively suggested by NATO Secretary-General Jaap de Hoop Scheffer on Feb. 4, Khartoum’s genocide in Darfur will continue—Rwanda in slow motion.

At the center of the international failure, however, is a continuing refusal to speak honestly about the genocidal nature of the human destruction in Darfur. This reflects in part an obscene deference to Chinese diplomatic efforts to protect the Khartoum regime. The National Islamic Front is China’s indispensable partner in oil production and development efforts in southern Sudan, and Beijing will allow no actions that threaten rule by this tyrannical clique of genocidaires. Moreover, the war in Iraq continues to take its toll on U.S. efforts to act effectively within the United Nations—efforts that have been hobbled by the profligate squandering of diplomatic capital.

But there is ample reason to see the United Nations itself as part of the betrayal of Darfur. The report from the Commission of Inquiry, with its highly politicized determination not to use the term “genocide,” is distinguished by bizarre contradictory reasoning, a selective pattern of adducing evidence and an unforgivable failure to conduct forensic investigations of the many sites of mass executions of African tribal populations.

Though it is not without merit, the U.N. report is nonetheless a moral outrage. In other words, it’s a fitting emblem of the world’s response to Darfur.

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• Reader Comments

  how sad, over 180 reader comments regarding the article about the stolen election and not one in regards to this article, you know, about Genocide?

  I guess people don’t care about the suffering of others if the States don’t have an immediate hand in it huh?

  kinda makes me want to puke.

  Posted by The Great Went on Feb 17, 2005 at 12:37 AM

  I agree.  I just saw the movie, “The Hotel Rwanda”.  In it, there is a very telling quote by a western journalist whom has just captured footage of the mass murders occuring in the streets of Rwanda.  (The UN didn’t want to call the ethnic cleansing that occured there genocide either)

  After a Rwandan man thanks the journalist for shooting the footage, saying “the world to see this is our only hope of help arriving”, or something to that effect, the journalist looks sad.  He replies that unfortunately, he believes most westerners, upon viewing the footage will think “oh, how awful”, and then “go back to eating their dinner”.

  This movie really touched upon the Western view of the African as unimportant.  This movie has received excellent reviews, and is already listed in the top 250 movies of all time on IMDB.  Clearly, a lot of people are seeing it.  Yet, we all leave the theater, and go back to “eating our dinner” or whatever, instead of thinking about how this film’s message is applicable to the current world—example, sudan.  (yes, i understand these situations are not EXACTLY alike)

  Ugh.

  BTW- if you haven’t seen the movie, see it now.

  Posted by beth on Feb 17, 2005 at 2:44 PM

  if there was oil in that region, you would of seen foreign troops and help in forms of monies and supplies. Once again I ask myself, is the lack of help because of who they are?  How about the “African-American” leaders, movers and shakers, and others not being more vocal about what has and is happening in Africa?  Maybe it isn’t racism but where one lives in this world.

  Posted by jeff on Feb 17, 2005 at 5:00 PM

  There *is* oil in Sudan. Just ask China. . .

  BTW - anyone care that 800,000 people - 8% of the population!!! - in Niger are slaves? And the “tradition” has been going on for generations? At least it is now illegal, even if there is no enforcement. (Forget reparations for the “poor” black slobs here - lets just END slavery NOW!)

  Africa was the birthplace of mankind. The middle east of civilation. Now they are just pathetic hells on earth. And one cannot blame the US for *that*.

  Posted by um on Feb 17, 2005 at 8:34 PM

  To The Great Went and beth:  I think most Americans, especially progressives, see this as too depressing and impossible to solve, and would rather turn their heads.  No excuse, but an understandable reaction.  Africa is a goddamn nightmare. 

    To jeff: When the freed slaves from America became the government of Liberia, they enslaved nearby native Africans.  Seems like power-hunger and greed are universal traits of humanity, just like apathy.  Self-interest governs us, which is why Republicans are in power.

  To um, in response to the statement “one cannot blame the US for *that*”:  to play devil’s advocate, the US is an extension of the European colonialism and mercantilism that decimated Africa, not to mention the largest beneficiary of the healthiest members of the West African community throughout the 17th, 18th, and 19th centuries.  American multinationals like Shell are entrenched in countries like Nigeria, using divisive tactics - in some cases inciting tribal war - to take a greater share of the petroleum in the region.  And lastly, on a more indivdual note of personal responsibility,  any American who owns a diamond has contributed its weight in karats to the destruction of Africa. 
    The history of the continent is atrocious.  But to respond to my first point, how to remain focused on such an overwhelming problem without succumbing to apathy?  The obvious answers - education, sustainability, a more democratic ownership of natural resources - ain’t easy to do, and will take a whole lot of capital. 
  Instead of puking, let’s try and figure out a way that would somehow benefit the West as well, or else the capitalists will have nothing to do with it.

  Posted by rocco on Feb 18, 2005 at 12:43 PM

• extended discussion >>>Continued...

  Discussions with more than 5 comments are continued on our special discussion page to encourage continuity and ease of use. There are currently 12 posts.

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Also by Eric Reeves

• Despairing for Darfur
  Despite increasing coverage, the press has failed to impart the extent of the genocidePosted on September 30, 2004
• Deathly Silence
  The growing genocide in Darfur testifies to the world’s disgracePosted on August 27, 2004
• Too Little, Too Late
  Colin Powell’s visit to Darfur only highlights the United States’ inactionPosted on July 13, 2004
• Oncoming Catastrophe
  The United Nations’ continued inaction could lead to 1 million deaths in SudanPosted on June 23, 2004
• Genocide in Sudan
  The United Nations suppresses its own report on ‘the world’s greatest humanitarian crisis’Posted on May 6, 2004