DPC op-ed calls for no-fly zone over Darfur

Kurt Bassuener March 6th, 2009

Yesterday’s Washington Post published an op-ed by retired US Air Force Chief of Staff and former Obama campaign co-chair Gen. Merrill A. “Tony” McPeak and DPC Senior Associate Kurt Bassuener calling for the US to work together with its European allies to establish a no-fly zone over Darfur.  The article followed on the International Criminal Court’s issue of a warrant for Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir’s arrest for war crimes and crimes against humanity:

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President Obama, Vice President Biden, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and U.N. Ambassador Susan Rice have all advocated a more engaged and effective policy to end the suffering in Darfur. They have also agreed that creating a no-fly zone over the region would change the dynamic on the ground.

…

By taking away the Sudanese government’s freedom to use air power to terrorize its population, the West would finally get enough leverage with Khartoum to negotiate the entry of a stronger U.N. ground force. Effective military action in the form of a no-fly zone would not preclude a political resolution, as some suggest, but in fact would make diplomacy more effective by reducing Bashir’s options.

Bashir has strung the international community along in a way that the late Serbian leader Slobodan Milosevic would have envied. A no-fly zone is the best way to turn the conflict to his disadvantage. President Obama has vowed to act multilaterally, where possible, to build real, consensus solutions to international security problems. Decisive international action in Darfur may present the best opportunity to demonstrate this resolve.

The article’s argument was endorsed by New York Times columnist and persistent Darfur advocate Nicholas Kristof in his blog yesterday.

What Secretary Clinton could mean for Darfur

Kurt Bassuener November 23rd, 2008

It appears increasingly likely that US President-elect Barack Obama will select former rival for the Democratic Party nomination Senator Hillary Clinton as his Secretary of State. This blog will return to the subject of how his administration, and the persons he selects to be in it, might deal with issues of democracy and human rights. The probable Clinton selection seems a good place to start.

Senator Clinton was among the most vocal and coherent on Darfur during the long campaign, as well as in the US Senate. In fact, I remember distinctly being more impressed with her answers to a debate question on the subject that with Senator Obama’s early in the race, last year. She has an A+ rating from DarfurScores.org, as does President-elect Obama and Vice President-elect Joe Biden, who of the three has been most passionate, articulate, and aggressive in pressing for intervention in Darfur. There is therefore ample reason to believe that US Darfur policy will finally emerge from the rut that it has been in for some years.

The situation on the ground remains dire, with Sudanese air power, both fixed and rotary-wing, engaged against the civilian population. The ICC’s indictments of both government and rebel leaders have not led to anyone being put into custody. And a number of countries, notably South Africa (see earlier post today), are fighting the indictment of Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir for genocide.The word’s response to the genocide has been ineffectual and listless due to lack of American leadership, which owes in part to the credibility expended on the Iraq war. President Obama may well not feel as politically hamstrung, and therefore push for an international response commensurate with the Bush administration’s earlier – and correct – labeling of the Darfur conflict as genocide. As both Eric and I have argued, as have Obama, Biden, and Clinton, that includes a no-fly zone.

Addendum: Palin spins on her Darfur record

Kurt Bassuener October 4th, 2008

According to the Washington Post’s Michael Dobbs, Gov. Sarah Palin’s claim to have backed divestment from Sudan was inaccurate:

 “When I and others in the legislature found out we had some millions of dollars in Sudan, we called for divestment through legislation of those dollars to make sure we weren’t doing anything that would be seen as condoning the activities there in Darfur.
–Sarah Palin, Vice Presidential Debate, October 3, 2008.

“But the record shows that her administration was against the divestment movement before it was for it.” 

Read on.

Darfur no-fly zone flies again?

Kurt Bassuener October 4th, 2008

As Eric and I have written repeatedly individually and separately for over four years (see the publications on the topic under the DPC banner in the European Voice, Wall Street Journal Europe and the International Herald Tribune), a no-fly zone operated by NATO from bases in Chad could change the dynamic on the ground in Darfur, where Sudanese forces and their auxiliary Janjaweed militia act with impunity, backed by Sudanese airpower.  Last summer the idea had considerable momentum, being supported by both Republicans and Democrats in the race for the White House. 

Then something happened - activists who had written a book on Darfur, “A Short History of a Long War,” Alex de Waal and Julie Flint, came out hard against the idea, stating that it would lead to a cut-off in humanitarian aid and undercut attempts to reach peace, and even subvert the north-south peace deal.  These arguments were reminiscent of those made against forceful intervention in Bosnia circa 1993 and 1994.  And they worked for some years, unfortunately.  In Darfur’s case, the wind went out of the sails of the idea, and it vanished below the radar for the past year. 

The ENOUGH coalition which has worked assiduously to end the genocide didn’t propose a real alternative when it came out against no-fly, giving equal weight to the opinion of a former US Air Force Chief of Staff, Gen. Merrill “Tony” McPeak, who explained how it could be done, and the EU’s chief of military staff, Gen. Henri Bantegeat, a ground commander, who said it was impossible.   Instead they supported monitoring Sudanese flights and attempting to shame them.

In the intervening year, the situation in Darfur continued to deteriorate.

Last night, thanks to a question by moderator Gwen Ifill in the vice presidential debate between Governor Sarah Palin and Senator Joe Biden, we now know that the no-fly zone proposal appears to have support on both tickets.  The relevant segment of the debate’s transcript can be accessed here, but below is an excerpt:

Ifill: Senator, you have quite a record, this is the next question here, of being an interventionist. You argued for intervention in Bosnia and Kosovo, initially in Iraq and Pakistan and now in Darfur, putting U.S. troops on the ground. Boots on the ground. Is this something the American public has the stomach for?

Biden: Yes…I don’t have the stomach for genocide when it comes to Darfur. We can now impose a no-fly zone. It’s within our capacity. We can lead NATO if we’re willing to take a hard stand. We can; I’ve been in those camps in Chad. I’ve seen the suffering, thousands and tens of thousands have died and are dying. We should rally the world to act and demonstrate it by our own movement to provide the helicopters to get the 21,000 forces of the African Union in there now to stop this genocide.

 

Palin:  But as for as Darfur, we can agree on that also, the support of the no-fly zone, making sure that all options are on the table there also…America is in a position to help.

Biden has long been a proponent of a Darfur no-fly zone, and was passionate in last year’s Democratic debates on the issue.  He receives an A+ rating from darfurscores.org.   

 

Palin added that as Alaska Governor, she pressed for legislation to ensure the public sector of the state was divested of all business links to Sudan, which is laudable.

 

There is perhaps no more opportune time than now to press forward on the Darfur no-fly proposal, given that the UN/AU Mission in Darfur’s (UNAMID’s) aircraft have come under fire by rebels who believe they are Sudanese aircraft, which are also painted white to mimic the UN and humanitarian aircraft.  Not only has this increased the danger for UN/AU forces, but it has restricted aid distribution:

Aid groups said any further attacks on aircraft in Darfur could have a devastating impact on their work.

“No one wants to use the roads because they keep being shot at,” said Alun McDonald, spokesman for Oxfam in Sudan. “If they are starting to shoot at helicopters now, that doesn’t leave us with many options.”

And what was a major reason Ms. Flint, Mr. de Waal, and many humanitarian aid organizations resisted the no-fly zone?  Humanitarian access… The other main reason - space for peace talks - has also proven empty.  Nothing of consequence has been agreed, and no such agreement is on the horizon, as Bashir sees no reason to relent.  He has bent the international community to his will in a way that would make Milosevic jealous.

 

I hope that Senators Obama and McCain will follow the lead of their running mates and return to advocating the Darfur no-fly zone.  For if they both do so, then the necessary European - particularly French, as they have the bases needed to mount an air operation with fighter aircraft - cooperation needed can finally start to be mobilized.

ICC indictment an incentive for peace in Abyei?

Eric Witte August 9th, 2008

The government in Khartoum

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has agreed to a power-sharing deal in the disputed region of Abyei.  A member of the southern Sudan People’s Liberation Movement is to serve as administrator of the oil-rich area, with a local pro-Khartoum Arab to serve as his deputy. 

Assuming this deal holds (and past agreements haven’t, so don’t hold your breath), one wonders whether Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir hasn’t entered the compromise in order to strengthen the case that he’s an indispensible guarantor of peace with the south.  A settlement in disputed Abyei could serve to dampen international enthusiasm to see al-Bashir handed over to the International Criminal Court (ICC) if ICC judges approve the prosecutor’s request for Darfur-related charges of genocide against him.  In any case, the possibility should be considered in the larger debate over whether peace and justice are at odds in Sudan.

Genocide charges against Bashir: justice and peace in Sudan

Eric Witte July 11th, 2008

The Washington Post is reporting this morning that on Monday, the prosecutor of the International Criminal Court will seek Darfur-related charges of genocide and crimes against humanity against Sudanese President Omar Hassan al-Bashir. The United Nations is grappling with how the Sudanese regime might react, including by possibly targeting peacekeepers or cutting off their supplies. Likewise, humanitarian aid organizations worry about their access to people in need being cut off.

These are serious concerns, as is the major question examined in today’s New York Times about how the charges (there is no formal “indictment” at the ICC) could affect the tenuous north-south peace and what remains of the peace process in Darfur.

In different contexts, this is the same question that surrounded the indictments of Serbian and Liberian presidents Slobodan Milosevic and Charles Taylor at the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia in 1999 and Special Court for Sierra Leone in 2003, respectively. A major after-effect of those indictments was to make the rule of Milosevic and Taylor no longer tenable, and diminished their ability to string along negotiators ad infinitum

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as suited their power interests. Thus, Milosevic was no longer able to wine and dine Richard Holbrooke and maintain his position as the perceived go-to guy for stability in the Balkans. Likewise, the absurd merry-go-round of broken peace and cease-fire arrangements - interspersed by additional negotiations when Taylor felt pressure to regroup and re-arm - came to an abrupt end in Liberia following the unsealing of his war crimes indictment. In Serbia, this meant that Serbs saw their futures tied to that of a pariah. This helped to motivate the civic uprising that overthrew Milosevic after he tried to steal another round of elections in October 2000. In Liberia, it led to international demands that Taylor leave power and the country as an essential component of any peace deal.

The Milosevic and Taylor indictments also led to increased media and high-level political attention for the crises in Serbia and Liberia. In the New York Times piece linked above, Sudan expert Alex de Waal worries that “[Bashir] is prone to irrational outbursts and could respond in a very aggressive way.” That’s quite possible, and greater instability in the short term is a real danger.  But de Waal himself has a smart post up at the Africa Policy Forum blog, arguing that Sudan requires diplomatic attention at a higher order of magnitude. Charges against Bashir could not only create accountability for atrocities in Darfur, but bring increased political resources to bear on the Sudanese crises.  This could lead the international community beyond tactical crisis management, and into the realm of strategic thinking backed by requisite resources to forge a more durable peace.