National Interest and the Genocide in Sudan
By Ebere Onwudiwe
In Sudan, the Janjaweed is slaughtering black Africans. The Janjaweed is a militia recruited from Arab tribes in and adjacent to Darfur and armed by the Arab government of Sudan. Their victims are black African Muslims from the tribes of Fur, Masalit and Zaghawa. Both groups inhabit the economically depressed Darfur region of Sudan where they are respectively nomadic herdsmen and sedentary farmers. In the past, these occupations ignited periodic conflicts over access to water and land between the two groups. However, this is not the immediate cause of the on-going genocide perpetrated against the black-African Muslims of Darfur by the Arab controlled government in Khartoum.
The current conflict which began early last year is both political and ethnic, and was in truth, started by the black African rebels emboldened perhaps by the successful rebellion of Southern Sudanese Christians led by the Sudan People's Liberation Army (SPLA) against the Sudanese government. Whatever the original cause, the crises which has since degenerated into a humanitarian disaster is overly ripe for resolution. This is where President Obasanjo comes in.
Whatever you think of him, it is no denying the fact that the Nigerian president has a great international stature. If there is any time and place to put his international standing to good use, it is now, it is in Darfur. There is one cogent reasons for this, it is in our national interest to do so. The victims of the genocide in Sudan are exactly like most of our own Northern Nigerian Muslims. This should be reason enough.
Although this new era of globalization requires that our foreign policy extend beyond the narrow concern for African affairs, we cannot escape the fact that we live in this continent, that providence has endowed us with the resources to lend a helping hand to its suffering inhabitants. This is the appropriate prism to view Obasanjo's much maligned internationalism as expressed by his frequent shuttle diplomacy to put out fires in Zimbabwe, and military actions in Sierra Leone and Liberia. The interventions in these three countries show a level of moral and strategic commitment to Africa that is commensurate with our size and fortune.
But what about the Sudan As a major black African country with a great Muslim population, is it not a moral imperative to help to end the starvation, rape and murder of our sisters and brothers in Darfur There is also the strategic dimension that is begging recognition and preventive action. Already, about a million black African Muslims fleeing from ethnic cleansing by the government-armed Janjaweed have abandoned their homes. Consequently, over 100,000 refugees have poured into Chad from where all roads may eventually lead to Nigeria.
Surprisingly, the Nigerian public (Muslims and Christians alike) and their representatives in the National Assembly have yet to show significant interest in the Darfur genocide where hundreds of thousands of people will soon perish just because they look and worship like us. The Nigerian public knows little about the plight because our media have not focused sustained attention on it. This silence is sweet music in the ears of the government of Sudan whose guns, aircraft and diplomacy are supporting the massacre of black-African Muslims in Darfur. The media should bring the atrocities of the Sudanese government against the black-African Muslims of Darfur to the full attention of informed Nigerians. In turn, these Nigerians should pressure Aso Rock to take more courageous action against the genocide in Sudan.
This is not to suggest that Nigeria alone should be able to force President Omar al-Bashir to end the massacre of black-African Muslims in his country, or that President Obasanjo is currently sitting this new African crisis out. Surely, there is some quiet diplomacy that we do not see. The problem is that the situation is already too dire for kid gloves. The Darfur crisis should be seen to be as revolting and compelling today as Bosnia was in 1993. The situation then bears a close resemblance to the current horror in Sudan.
In Bosnia, there was ethnic cleansing of the majority Muslim population in the hands of ethnic Serb militia armed to the hilt by the Serbian government of defunct Yugoslavia. To repeat, today in Darfur, there is ethnic cleansing of the majority black African Muslims in the hands of minority Arab Muslims armed to the hilt by the Arab dominated government in Khartoum.
The world was justifiably infuriated then, as it should be now in the case of Darfur. Recall that a year before, the United Nations imposed a no-fly zone over Bosnia which the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) forces seriously enforced in 1993, the first time that it went to war since its founding in 1949. Why is the United Nations not imposing a no-fly zone in Darfur and why are Western Powers suddenly gun-shy in the face of genocide which international law allows them to take action against Is it because the ethnic cleansing is now directed against black-African Muslims Some say, "Yes, the answer is racism," but I would say that it is the politics of national interest.
The United Nations does the bidding of member states, especially, those of its permanent members of which the United States is front and center. The US is now engaged in Iraq for which purpose it seeks Arab support. It will not take a position in Sudan which is against Arab interest. The lobbying power of Arab countries in London, Paris and Washington cannot be underestimated. One can also speculate that the chief constraint on military action by the U.S. is the immense labor that has been devoted to forging a peace agreement between Khartoum and the SPLA. Since all that's left is a signature, Khartoum may be playing games to gain time and discourage intervention. It may also not be in the national interest of other relevant countries with separatist pressures such as Russia and China to do the right thing by black-African Muslims of Darfur.
That leaves black-African countries of which ECOWAS countries with significant Muslim populations are a crucial bloc.
As a first step, Nigeria can organize a common position of ECOWAS countries on the Darfur crisis. This should be a prelude
to a collective severance of diplomatic relations with Sudan. In the interim, Nigeria should be the diplomatic voice of the
black-African Muslims of Darfur, pleading their case in African and world capitals and organizing relief for those left in Darfur
and for the thousands now languishing in the refugee camps of Chad.
