CT_liotta18_03-18-07_HA4R2LF.1e842c4.html
Provide nce Journal
In Darfur, ‘Never again’ means again
01:00 AM EDT on Sunday, March 18, 2007
P. H. Liotta
EIGHTY-FIVE YEARS AGO, the poet T. S. Eliot began his masterpiece "The
Waste Land" with the line that "April is the cruellest month." Although
Eliot was writing about madness – including the madness that was the
First World War – his lines resonate today for very different reasons.
Specifically, as we approach yet another April we might do well to
remember that, aside from being National Poetry Month, April is also the
month when some of the most extreme cases of genocide took place in the
last century. Thirteen years ago, beginning in April in the African
nation of Rwanda, 800,000 people died in the course of 100 days. Many
who died were cut down by people they knew, neighbors and sometimes even
former friends. During those 100 days, the United States stood by as the
slaughter unfolded. The United Nations, meanwhile, proved diplomatically
hobbled and failed to mandate effective intervention by U.N.
peacekeepers in Rwanda.
Eighty-two years ago, countless numbers died following the April arrest,
and subsequent deportation and murder, of Armenian intellectuals during
the last days of the Ottoman Empire. Even today, in reference to these
events, the word "genocide" is never used in Turkey. During a February
2005 interview, for example, Nobel Laureate Orhan Pamuk stated that
"Thirty thousand Kurds and a million Armenians were killed in these
lands and nobody but me dares to talk about it." In a subsequent BBC
article he was quoted as saying, "What happened to the Ottoman Armenians
in 1915 was a major thing that was hidden from the Turkish nation; it
was a taboo. But we have to be able to talk about the past." As a result
of these statements, charges were brought against Pamuk for "insulting
Turkishness." These charges were eventually dropped, but the sting of
speaking of forbidden topics remains.
When genocidal events took place in the 20th Century – the Holocaust,
the killing fields of Cambodia, the al-Anfal campaign against the Kurds
in Iraq, the brutal disintegration of Yugoslavia – major powers stood by
as thousands, and sometimes millions, died. Powerful states often took
the frail excuse that intervention in such events was not in the
"national interest." While failing to militarily intervene, these same
powerful states also failed to exert effective political, diplomatic, or
economic pressure on offending parties; when states did act,
unfortunately, it was often too little, too late – and safer.
In every case of horrendous human-rights atrocities in recent history,
state leaders and the international community have loudly proclaimed in
the aftermath, "Never Again" – never again should such abuses be allowed
to take place without the world taking action.
Yet another genocide is taking place in the world today: in the Darfur
region of western Sudan. Since the campaign of state-sponsored violence
began, hundreds of thousands have died and 2½ million people have been
displaced. An undermanned and under-resourced African Union peacekeeping
force has faced immense challenges in Darfur, waiting for an already
authorized U.N. force to deploy. Humanitarian aid is frequently
obstructed as famine drives mortality rates to frighteningly high
levels. Violence against the people of Darfur includes gang-rapes,
torture, and executions where children have been beheaded or thrown
alive into fires and tossed down wells.
Some advocates speak openly today of "human security," wherein
individual citizens be accorded sovereign rights and privileges in the
same manner that states have been accorded sovereignty since the
Westphalian system took hold centuries ago. Human security is about
protecting people; equally, human security provides peoples the
opportunities for progress – through education, disease reduction, clean
water, and livable communities. In short, human security is the
cornerstone and the building block for stability, security, and
sustainability.
The classically Western argument that democracies protect, promote, and
enforce human rights is sorely tried when conflicts such as genocide
take place in our globalized, interconnected, and often interdependent
lives. When powerful states, such as the United States, fail to act in
any meaningful way when gross human atrocities take place, Americans
undermine their very legitimacy as a global leaders.
It is now approaching three years since former Secretary of State Colin
Powell declared before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee that
events in Darfur amounted to genocide. Since then, little actual
movement to change the course of events has taken place. Yet necessary
action does not entail just military intervention or peace enforcement.
(While it is true that 5,000 peacekeepers could have stopped the
genocide in 1994 in Rwanda, a country the size of Maryland, military
forces alone cannot compel a better outcome today in Darfur, which is
the size of California.) States must also leverage political,
diplomatic, and economic power.
The good news is that individual citizens can, and do, make a
difference. Student-led groups such as STAND (an anti-genocide
coalition) and the Genocide Intervention Network, and faith-based,
humanitarian, and human- rights organizations such as "Save Darfur,"
have worked doggedly to generate attention and pass on knowledge. Simple
acts such as writing letters and calling a congressman can help change
the way things are.
In the aftermath of the Rwandan genocide, some White House officials in
the Clinton administration commented that they did not hear from the
American public. The voice of outrage today, however, is louder.
Political leaders need to choose to hear that voice.
It is time we remember what happened in Rwanda – and what is still
happening today in Africa and elsewhere. Perhaps it is also time that we
be honest with ourselves as to why powerful states and international
entities always fail to act when the time comes for action. Until we do,
"Never Again" will mean only "Again and Again."
P. H. Liotta, an occasional contributor, is executive director of the
Pell Center for International Relations and Public Policy at Salve
Regina University. Those interested in attending the public screening of
the film Darfur Diaries on March 25 at the Jane Pickens Theater, in
Newport, should contact the Pell Center at (401) 341-2927 or
[email protected], as seating is limited.