Act on Sudan

“I was sleeping when the attack on Disa [village] started. I was taken away by the attackers … During the day we were beaten and they were telling us: ‘You, the black women, we will exterminate you…’ At night we were raped several times.”

Genocide has returned to Africa. And as usual, no one is doing anything about it. Earlier this year, on June 24, the United States Congress passed a concurrent resolution (H. Con. Res. 467) that declared as genocide the massive slaughter of between 30,000 and 50,000 people in the western region of Sudan, known as Darfur, in less than 18 months. Just last week, Secretary of State Colin Powell confirmed the ongoing atrocities in Sudan as genocide. According to the 1948 United Nations Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide, the United States, as a convention signatory, bears legal obligation to “prevent and to punish” the act of genocide, and also those responsible for it.

Yet the U.S. government has done nothing. The Khartoum government, since the U.S. resolution, continues to perpetrate the genocide; and the United Nations, which has merely wagged its disjointed finger at Sudan during the last 18-month killing spree, continues to issue resolutions without teeth. Military intervention in Sudan IS in the national interest—it will refurbish our tarnished moral legitimacy after Iraq. However, the U.S. must intervene with 100 percent U.N. approval; otherwise, the existence of enormous Sudanese oil reserves will mire humanitarian intentions in the swamp of U.S. self-aggrandizement.

The moral necessity for intervention in Sudan is clear; but it is also intertwined in U.S. self-interest. After the war in Iraq, the U.S. suffered a considerable blow to its moral legitimacy in the world. U.S. motives were not only questioned in the Middle East. In Europe, China and Russia the Iraq invasion appeared more self-interested than humanitarian; weapons of mass destruction were found neither before the invasion, nor afterwards, yet President George W. Bush appeared dead-set on his decision to oust Saddam Hussein. The vast Iraqi oil fields, which Halliburton eagerly gobbled up during the rebuilding process, further clouded U.S. intentions in self-interest speculations. Although Sudan produces only an eighth of the oil that Iraq does in a given day, a unilateral U.S. intervention would permanently damage the moral legitimacy of the U.S., coming so close on the heels of Iraq.

To rejuvenate the moral legitimacy of the U.S. after Iraq, the U.S. must cooperate with the U.N., but it must also exert steady pressure on the international body to take expedient action. Although the U.N. has yet to officially declare genocide in Sudan, the Bush administration has already done so; thus, the door is legally open for military intervention. The U.S. must maintain pressure on the U.N. to conduct its investigations into possible genocide in Sudan rapidly, as the U.N. recently promised to do. The U.N., on the other hand, must maintain pressure on the Khartoum government and not hesitate to implement the threatened oil sanctions in the case of continued genocide. Clearly, the U.N. is rapidly approaching its own limit for indiscriminate slaughter (who would have guessed after Rwanda?). The U.S. must nudge the U.N. steadily toward a declaration of genocide, as U.N. approval is an essential prerequisite for both the legitimacy of the intervention and for the moral legitimacy of the U.S.

By allowing the U.N. some time to conduct independent investigations into the genocide, the U.S. will avoid the age-old accusations that it exerts leverage over the U.N. as its principal financier. The U.N. will appear more removed from U.S. influence, but it will still be compelled to act on the 1948 Genocide Convention when genocide is confirmed in the coming weeks. It is contingent on the U.S. during this time to ensure that the U.N. does declare genocide and that a successful military intervention will occur, rather than the weaker, indirect method of economic sanctions, which usually only further impoverish the citizens of a population, as they did in Iraq. Until the U.N. declares genocide, the U.S. should also work closely with the African Union to plan an intervention strategy. Once the U.N. declares genocide, a final U.N.-U.S. ultimatum to Sudan should be issued. Finally, a multilateral intervention should take place—one that is coordinated by the U.N., supported by the U.S. and carried out by the African Union. In this way, the maximum legitimacy of a multilateral intervention will diffuse any self-interest suspicions and bolster U.S. moral legitimacy at the same time.

Yet the far, far greater concern is the genocide itself. Why must we couch our moral arguments in the national interest to begin with? Why can’t the moral argument suffice to convince decision-makers that genocide should be stopped at all costs to our own nation? When a government purposefully murders more than 50,000 of its own citizens, does a government really retain the right to rule and govern? Forceful action in the form of military intervention must be taken in Sudan, and it must be taken now. Time is always of the essence when a day means the lives of thousands of innocent people in a place the size of France.