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Monday, Nov 9, 2009
A professor urges action on Darfur, saying the U.S. should be embarrassed about declaring the violence genocide while doing so little to stop it.
May 17, 2005 | As southern Sudan enjoys the first fruits of peace from the comprehensive treaty it signed with the Khartoum government on Jan. 9, ending a 21-year civil war, hundreds of civilians continue to die violently on a daily basis in Sudan's western region of Darfur. The situation in Darfur exploded in February 2003 after the Islamic regime disarmed insurgent African groups and left weapons in the hands of Arab militias, which it then hired to control the insurgency. The Arab militias began slaughtering and raping Darfuri civilians and razing their villages, displacing 2 million people and creating an untold humanitarian crisis.
In July 2004, Congress led the world in unanimously declaring the violence in Darfur a genocide, as the Bush administration also subsequently did. And Congress is considering the Darfur Accountability Act, which would take strong steps against the Khartoum regime and provide support for the meager African Union monitoring force that is now in Darfur.
But recent media reports suggest the Bush administration may be backing off its earlier genocide determination, and even trying to neuter the Darfur Accountability Act.
While the world was wringing its hands over Darfur, Smith College English professor and Sudan expert Eric Reeves was taking action on the tragedy. Since becoming involved with Sudan in 1999, Reeves has taken off six semesters to focus on raising awareness about the genocide. His writing has appeared in over 150 publications; State Department officials read his reports, and journalists quote his mortality assessments. Reeves also led the divestment campaign that eventually forced Talisman Energy, a Canadian oil and gas company that was operating in Sudan, to exit the country.
Asked what the world can do now about what he says is "arguably the most destructive civil conflict since World War II," Reeves told Salon, in a phone interview from his home in Northampton, Mass., "We can pass all the U.N. resolutions we want, but if we don't see to it that Khartoum is forced to adhere, none of these will make any difference ... If we wait for meaningful action from the U.N., we will be waiting forever." What's needed to stop the genocide, Reeves said, is immediate humanitarian intervention and military support to protect civilians and aid operations.
How did Sudan become your central preoccupation?
I just finished my 26th year as a professor at Smith. About a dozen years ago, I also began a career as a wood-turner, and found that my work was marketable. I resolved that all the profits I made would go to humanitarian organizations, and that led to contributions to Doctors Without Borders, or Médécins Sans Frontières. In January 1999, I met in New York with Joelle Tanguy, the executive director of MSF at the time, and our conversation turned to Sudan. It was looking more and more intractable; that year, MSF named it the most underreported humanitarian crisis in the world.
At some point, she said something to the effect of "Sudan needs a champion." And for reasons I couldn't fully explain, I said, "I'll see what I can do." That launched what became a very intensive Sudan career that's now over six years old.
There have been six semesters in which I've found myself doing both Sudan and teaching, and that has been almost overwhelmingly difficult. In fact, three years ago I tried to retire from Sudan work. But I found after a week I couldn't retire. I'm not unusual in finding that Sudan presents a spectacle of human destruction and suffering that is overwhelmingly compelling. Even before I traveled to Sudan I'd met many Sudanese, looked into many Sudanese eyes -- there's just no way I can walk away from these people. Not with the powerful voice I've developed; it registers in a lot of important places.
I can assure you that I won't rest until peace comes to Darfur, and it is a peace that is sustainable throughout the country.
What was the catalyst for the crisis in Darfur?
The current conflict arose in February 2003 out of the Khartoum National Islamic Front Regime's asymmetric disarming of African tribal groups, leaving weapons in the hands of Arab militias and taking them away from African tribal groups. That led to an increase in Arab raiding, which was deeply alarming to village leaders.
In the 1980s, Khartoum changed the administrative order by refusing to respect traditional tribal lines of authority. In recent years, they began disarming African villages, which were then completely vulnerable to attacks. One of the precipitating events was the storming of a police station by African villagers who were simply reclaiming their weapons to protect themselves. That act was soon replicated throughout Darfur.
In February 2003, Darfur exploded, and Khartoum was obliged to redeploy forces from the south. In military-to-military confrontations between Khartoum's regular forces and the Darfuri insurgents -- the Sudan Liberation Army (which is different from the Sudan People's Liberation Army, the southern movement) -- Khartoum began to lose badly. That was the beginning of its recruitment of the Janjaweed, who don't attack insurgents; they attack civilians. That's what they were hired to do.
