Interventions (16 page)

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W
ithin two months, developments in Darfur rendered this approach irrelevant. The mass of evidence of gross violations of human rights in Darfur that emerged made it clear that to continue the North-South peace process without serious inclusion of the Darfur issue was unviable. Events in Darfur were entirely inconsistent for any supposed partner for peace. I began to issue warnings to the various negotiators and mediators to the conflict, including foreign ministers and heads of state and government, that the Darfur issue could not be considered separately from the south. But the lack of resolve to do anything now demonstrated a different logic in the Security Council to one dictated by a concern for the North-South peace process.

As always, there were divisions on the Council. Pakistan, in particular, which held the presidency of the Council in early 2004, rejected requests to put Darfur on the Council agenda. In Darfur, Pakistan saw an issue that could lead to a campaign for intervention, and Pakistan stood in principle against what it saw as meddling in the affairs of sovereign states, particularly a fellow developing, and Muslim, country. China was another obstacle. With a skeptical attitude to humanitarian intervention not dissimilar to Pakistan's, China had also wedded itself to the Khartoum regime with contracts for the supply of Sudanese oil to fuel China's growing economy. China looked set throughout to obstruct any attempt to bring the more forceful options of the UN Charter to bear against Khartoum.

But, in theory, there was scope for negotiation and the alteration of the Chinese and Pakistani positions, as well as those of other skeptical Council members. More concerted pressure and innovations in diplomatic dealings could have been tried. An obstinate Syria, for example, had been persuaded a few months previously to cast its vote on the Security Council in favor of a tough resolution on Iraq. In the run-up to the vote, many thought Syria's representative would vote against the resolution. But in the end, after a sustained period of pressure from multiple parties, it voted for it. Furthermore, in Kosovo, NATO had proudly gone outside the mandate of the UN Charter, in response to the threat of a Russian veto at the Council, to conduct a forceful humanitarian intervention to protect the Kosovar Albanians. If there was another case for such a side step of international institutions in the face of enormous suffering, then Darfur was surely it.

But no real attempt to help the people of Darfur materialized. The province was the size of France; it was in an Arab-ruled country, with a government quick to point out that if Western forces intervened, they would be the third Muslim country in a row to be invaded after Afghanistan and Iraq, and one rich in oil and gas at that. As Bashir reportedly put it privately on occasion: “If they want jihad, let them come.” The situation on the ground was enormously complex, too—not one like Rwanda, where there was a centrally organized and deliberate attempt to wipe out a clearly identified ethnic group. Instead, the divisions were unclear, fractured, and shifting, and who controlled which faction and when was blurred to a similar measure. In some ways, in terms of the level of disorganization and confusion, the war in Darfur was a situation better resembling Somalia or Congo than Rwanda. All this enhanced the preference for inaction among the members of the Security Council.

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I
n the midst of the dithering, we made an official visit to Sudan, arriving on July 1, 2004. It was to include a visit to some of the refugee camps in Darfur and neighboring Chad. The state of the Darfuris was a terrible thing to witness—something which the Sudanese government made more difficult for us to achieve by physically moving a refugee camp, practically overnight, so that it would not be there for us to examine upon our arrival. This was a government with something terrible to hide. From the refugees we were able to meet came endless stories that only gave face to the other countless stories we had already heard—stories of horrific suffering across the province at the hands of viciously unrelenting, marauding forces.

On July 2, we held meetings with President Bashir and other senior members of his government. As I had found when meeting leaders responsible for the most terrible of atrocities, it was remarkable how genteel he was. One always imagines that those responsible for great evil should exude it from their very pores. But as with Saddam Hussein—whom I met with on a special visit to Iraq in 1998 in order to attempt to broker a deal that would stop a war—this was a man who seemed cool, polite, and friendly. It seems paradoxical, but this is often the way with those responsible for massive bloodshed.

Bashir had been in power since 1989, a degree of longevity in power that takes cunning and ruthlessness. As we sat down to our discussion in the presidential palace in Khartoum, Bashir opened by thanking me for the visit and expressing his eagerness to hear my views. I responded in kind, thanking him for his hospitality and then quickly moved on to Darfur.

“The international community wants comprehensive peace in Sudan,” I said. “I have discussed this issue with the U.S. secretary of state Colin Powell and ministers of other members of the Security Council many times, who all want Sudan to take rapid and effective action.” Bashir did not seem too impressed or concerned by this and repeatedly knocked back my extensive comments on the plight of Darfuri civilians and the ongoing violence against them, including my reference to particular incidents in Darfur during the previous two days. Bashir seemed keen to emphasize in response that the conflict had been started by the rebels—a typical argument of governments responsible for atrocities—and that this had created the security vacuum that they were now trying to rectify.

“The world firmly believes that the government of Sudan has control of the Janjaweed, including providing them with aerial support,” I said. “Specific action to protect vulnerable people needs to be taken immediately.” Bashir waved off this demand with a comment indicative of his scornful attitude toward the mass of people in Darfur, and a callous lack of concern for any individual suffering:

“We have bombed the Janjaweed attacking villages. If the villages were more honest, they would admit that our planes also bomb the Janjaweed.”

I have been asked by some journalists, privately, why I did not fire a threat of military intervention at Bashir during this meeting. In answer: This would have been the worst thing to do. If I had stood up and threatened him with the prospect of looming military intervention, knowing full well the Council was far from approving any kind of action, it would have undermined the credibility of the Council further. The inevitable lack of follow-through would then have made the Sudanese even bolder. Furthermore, the key to action on the part of the Council was unity between its members. A secretary-general making threats on the Council's behalf, on an issue that was deeply divisive for its members, would only have enhanced those divisions. The fallout would only have been to make the Sudanese even more certain that there was no international military action over the horizon.

It was clear from my discussions with Bashir and other Sudanese leaders that they were confident that there was no threat from the Security Council or any of its members. With the size of the province of Darfur, the complications of its geography, and the nature of the conflict, and the fact that the insurgency and sectarian war in Iraq was scaling up and consuming the endeavors of the U.S. and UK troops there, they were sure no one in the international community was coming for them. Their calculation proved entirely correct.

We left Sudan with what we could: a negotiated joint communiqué between the UN and the Sudanese government. In this document they pledged to disarm the Janjaweed, to pursue rapidly a comprehensive and peaceful settlement for the province, and to bring to justice all those accused of human rights violations “without delay.” Unsurprisingly, these proved to be entirely empty promises.

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T
he question on many people's minds at this time was: Is Darfur a genocide? The reason for this emerging obsession in the debates was the mistaken assumption that this question was effectively synonymous with “Should the world take action against Sudan?” Yes to one of these questions, it was believed, meant yes to both. But this was a mistake. NGOs and human rights groups had led a huge global campaign for international action on Darfur. Previous great events of suffering that all agreed should have compelled international military intervention—the Holocaust in Europe and the massacre of Tutsis in Rwanda—had clearly been genocide. The mistake was to believe that for intervention in Darfur to be considered legitimate, it had to be labeled “genocide,” just like those previous disasters. The campaign became, in part, to push governments to recognize Darfur as a genocide.

In response to this pressure, the United States Congress voted on July 9 to declare the conflict in Darfur a genocide. Many thought that surely something would now happen. But they were wrong. The problem was that Darfur, by any careful legal examination, was not clearly a genocide, and this declaration, endorsed by Congress, meant that the debate on the definition of the conflict in Darfur—as opposed to what should be done to help the millions suffering—now took center stage at the Security Council. On September 7, 2004, for example, Jack Straw, the British foreign secretary, repeatedly questioned me on what he saw as the important issue of whether the conflict was genocide—as this had become key to the international debate. “What answer would you give today if you were asked if this is genocide?”

I replied in a similar manner to how I had treated this question for many months: “The fact is, whatever we call it, there are clearly gross and systematic violations of human rights and of international humanitarian law happening in Darfur, and the situation is the largest humanitarian catastrophe in the world.” I believed this was all that really mattered. But he asked me to be clear on my view as to whether it was genocide. “I have stayed away from calling it genocide, because teams of experts have gone there, and they cannot conclude if a legal definition of genocide applies, or even, strictly speaking, ethnic cleansing, given the complexity of the situation on the ground.” Straw then continued to discuss this question of what to call the conflict, despite my attempt to cast this concern, which was vexing all leaders engaged on the issue at that time, as irrelevant. But this had clearly become an important question in domestic political debates, whether in Britain or elsewhere.

“Is it conceivable that it could fall to you to advise the Security Council on whether it is a genocide?” he asked.

“That is possible,” I said. “But let me stress that we are here debating whether this is a genocide, when we all can agree that this is a terrible situation and it has to be dealt with.”

This message, which I had been pushing in speeches and interviews and conversations with other politicians for months, failed to resonate. Instead, the obsession with the correct label for Darfur continued. Two days after my meeting with Straw, on September 9, 2004, Colin Powell referred to the conflict in Darfur as “genocide.” Rather than ending the debate on the label and moving on to the question of action, this move only stoked it. (Powell also made it clear that U.S. policy on Darfur would not change, despite the new rhetoric.) The result that then came out of the Security Council was the formation of a commission of inquiry to investigate whether the conflict in Darfur was a genocide. This investigation, led by the respected Italian judge Antonio Cassese, concluded that the campaign of the government of Sudan could not technically be deemed a systematic attempt at genocide, although there were clearly major crimes against humanity and war crimes taking place for which individuals should be held responsible. But this was not conveyed until the commission reported back to the Council, by which time it was January 2005.

There is always a danger with labels in international affairs. Protagonists become obsessed with definitions instead of focusing on what matters, namely the suffering of individuals. The label “genocide” was irrelevant to the fact that hundreds of thousands were suffering in Darfur. But as a result of the obsession with the word “genocide,” as if only genocide could signify an evil worthy of our collective horror and concern, the debate about what
action
should be taken was delayed further.

For the suffering of the civilians it did not matter what the situation was called, or what motive had led to their desperate situation. They were still dying, and in vast numbers, as a result of a government's decisions and the actions of its armed proxies. This was a crime—whatever its form. What Darfur demonstrated, and hopefully should never have to be demonstrated to world leaders ever again, is that the “genocide” label does not hold a monopoly over the most heinous of crimes against humanity, and should not be the sole trigger for action. The sheer numbers that were made to suffer and die in Darfur is proof enough of that.

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I
n the end, it took almost four years of continued mass rape, mutilation, slaughter, and the deaths of hundreds of thousands to exposure, disease, and malnutrition, as well as the forcible displacement of millions more, before the Security Council issued anything resembling a serious response and dispatched international troops to Darfur. But even with this change, which came in late 2007 and several months after my tenure as chief of the UN had ended, the force that was sent was only a “robust peacekeeping” mission. It was not a true humanitarian intervention upholding the Responsibility to Protect. A forceful intervention was needed to have any real impact on the ground, to bring about the sustained protection of Darfur's civilians.

Instead, a peacekeeping
force of nineteen thousand was approved in August 2007, to be deployed by the end of the year. The mission would provide the usual secondary role that such a peacekeeping force can only offer. They would support largely voluntary disarmament, monitor events, and protect humanitarian efforts, and they would be able to defend themselves. They would be helping, of course, but they would not be capable of having any drastic impact on the dynamics around them.