Genocide Met with the Silence of Hypocrisy

SUDAN
As genocide occurs, we sit on our hands

BY FRIDA GHITIS

Special to the Herald
Published 4/6/2004

Every so often the world takes up the opportunity to place its own hypocrisy on display. This time, the opportunity has emerged in a corner of Sudan, the oil-rich African nation. While ethnic cleansing, massacres and other crimes against humanity steadily grind down the lives of three ethnic Sudanese minorities, the indignation of much of the globe remains reserved for more familiar villains.

The sounds of righteous anger and moral indignation have become the province of governments and mobs alike. In Washington, the White House declares its fine deed of freeing an oppressed people from the clutches of a dictator. In Europe, pacifist protestors wave their sunny rainbow flags proclaiming their love of peace above all. In the Middle East, and in Arab communities here in Europe, mobs of young men electrified with rage set American and Israeli flags on fire in support of their embattled brethren.

And yet, when more than 700,000 Muslims in Western Sudan are pushed away from their homes by other Muslims, when thousands are massacred, when women are raped, children abducted and villages burned, there is a deafening quiet.

The hypocrisy of international reaction to the atrocities in the Sudanese province of Darfur is in particularly sharp focus this week because the world is commemorating the 10th anniversary of the massacres in another African country, Rwanda. Ten years ago the world did less than nothing when some 800,000 Rwandans were hacked to death by Rwandans of a different ethnicity. When the killing started, U.N. peacekeepers fled clearing the way for one of the most efficient slaughters in history. Now newspapers, magazines and television stations flicker across Europe and America with sophisticated analysis and heart-rending images of what happened in Rwanda. We need to understand, of course, so we can prevent it from happening again.

But now that it is happening again, as a U.N. official indicated, few people seem to care.

The killings in Darfur trace the ethnic fault line of a country divided by religion and ethnicity. Sudan, the enormous country just south of Egypt in Northeastern Africa, is made up of Arabs and black Africans. Its people are Christians and Muslims. For decades the Arab-dominated government has fought a devastating war against black Christians in the oil-rich south. That war may soon end, thanks in part to key participation by the United States in negotiating an agreement. This new conflict pits Arab Muslims against African Muslims of the Fur, Messalit and Zaghawa tribes.

A rebel group in Darfur rose up against the government more than a year ago, demanding that the government provide more development help and stop arming local Arabs. The government responded by arming a new militia and setting it free to ravage the region, without regard to whether rebels or civilians became targets. Human-rights organizations charge the government with encouraging, if not directly controlling, the actions of the murderous Janjaweed.

Some observers think the Sudanese government aims to suppress the uprising so rapidly that the international community has little time to organize its response.

The response so far has been utterly toothless.

A U.S. State Department official has condemned the attacks, and U.N. chief Kofi Annan has declared himself ''disturbed'' by the conflict. There is little doubt that what is happening in Darfur meets the legal definition of Crimes Against Humanity and Genocide. And yet, not much is being done to stop it. Peace talks in neighboring Chad have not even succeeded in pushing the two sides into the same room.

The paragons of pacifism in Europe and America have staged no protests. Perhaps slaughtering civilians does not offend their sense of morality. Their rainbow flags are apparently reserved to protest American intervention in Iraq. The zealous defenders of Muslims are apparently also too busy worrying about how Israel and the United States behave.

The government in Washington, the defender of Good against Evil, has its hands too full with Iraq and the November election to let the president speak forcefully against the massacres.

John Kerry, the Democratic candidate has no time to worry about genocide when he's occupied driving his own campaign. American silence is echoed in Europe.

Once again, we have found an opportunity to practice hypocrisy, and we have wholeheartedly embraced it.

Frida Ghitis writes about world affairs.

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