‘Are We Not Humans?’
"After my reporting trip to the Chad-Sudan border and columns about the murder, rape and starvation that have devastated Sudan, readers wrote in with many thoughtful comments and questions. Here’s my effort to address some of them:
Perhaps you could help us understand the root causes of this conflict. Is the basis for this conflict between the two warring factions religious identity, Shariah law? — David Wood, Johnson City, Tenn.
The two main warring factions are rival Sudanese military branches now locked in a civil war: the Sudanese Armed Forces and a militia called the Rapid Support Forces. Imagine if the U.S. Army and a government-backed Ku Klux Klan military force joined together to stage a coup to overthrow America’s elected government, then co-ruled oppressively for a time, and finally began fighting each other while also slaughtering and starving civilians. That’s roughly the picture.
The Rapid Support Forces were responsible for most of the massacres and rapes that I described in my columns in Sudan’s Darfur region, an echo of the Darfur genocide of two decades ago.
In Darfur, the divide is not religious, as almost all people are Sunni Muslim. Rather, it is threefold. First, the Rapid Support Forces are Arabs and target non-Arab ethnic groups. Second, those Arab attackers are mostly lighter complexioned and target Black Africans (sometimes calling them slaves or comparing them to litter or black plastic bags). Third, the Arab groups are often nomadic herders while the African tribes frequently are settled farmers, leading to conflicts over water access and grazing rights that have been exacerbated by climate change.
How can we best respond to a famine like this? Air loads of food or repairing local farming communities? — Daniel Brownstein, Berkeley, Calif.
A famine has already been declared in Sudan, and some experts fear that it could become one of the worst in history, eclipsing the 1984 famine in Ethiopia and other countries. To see starving children is searing: They do not cry or demand food but are almost expressionless, for the dying body does not expend calories on anything but keeping the major organs alive.
The best way to prevent so severe a famine in Sudan would be to end the war. But if the war continues, then we should at least press the warring parties to allow more humanitarian access. That means letting trucks bring food to communities that are starving. Doctors Without Borders reports that it has had to cut off rations for 5,000 malnourished children because warring parties are blocking attempts to resupply.
In most of the world, “to starve” is intransitive: Children starve. In Sudan, it is also transitive: Warlords starve children. The U.S. should use intelligence community resources to monitor atrocities and release intercepts and images to hold warring parties accountable and end the impunity.
Likewise, donor countries need to provide more support for groups like the United Nations’ World Food Program; only about half of the U.N. appeal for Sudan has been met. There is plenty of failure to go around.
I don’t know, Nick. It seems to me we have enough problems in our own backyard without sticking our nose into affairs in Africa. — Dale Bowden, Boise, Idaho
In the 1930s and early ’40s America had plenty of problems at home, but does anyone think we were right to largely ignore the Holocaust? Decades later, President Bill Clinton has said that his passivity during the Rwandan genocide was one of the greatest regrets of his presidency. My point is that we have the bandwidth to address problems at home andto make a difference in Sudan. And just because we can’t do everything in Sudan doesn’t mean we should do nothing.
Is there a military response from the U.N. or U.S. that would curtail the slaughter and improve the ability to receive and distribute food? — Trevor Ferguson, Victoria, B.C.
I don’t see a military solution. Some people talk about an international peacekeeping force, for that did help in the Darfur genocide, but I doubt that there’s the political will to create such a force today. Plus, there isn’t a peace to keep.
That said, it’s not hopeless. The United Arab Emirates fuels the atrocities by arming and supporting the Rapid Support Forces; I think the U.A.E. can be shamed into backing off, just as it was shamed into withdrawing from the brutal war in Yemen five years ago. Likewise, the Sudanese Armed Forces can be shamed into allowing food into areas it has tried to starve.
Ideally, the two scorpions would agree to retreat to their barracks — each reassured that at least the other would not assume power — so that civilian rule could be re-established in Sudan. But that would require sanctions, pressure, attention and shaming at a far greater level than now exists, and this won’t happen unless America and Britain lead the way.
The most appalling thing is the U.A.E. sending weapons to support the R.S.F.’s war on Black African tribes. But I guess the U.S. depends on their good graces for our base there, so we aren’t leaning on them. — Pete Sommer, Redwood City, Calif.
I don’t understand why President Biden has been so deferential to the U.A.E.: We have much more leverage over the U.A.E. than it does over us. Biden was rightly critical of President George W. Bush for not doing enough during the Darfur genocide, but Bush was far more activist at that time than Biden is now. If millions die from an avoidable famine in Sudan, that will be a stain on Biden’s legacy.
Basketball players, owners and fans should ask hard questions about the N.B.A.’s partnership with the U.A.E., for this tarnishes basketball. Performers should cancel events in the U.A.E., as the rap artist Macklemore did. Even a discussion of such a boycott raises the cost to the U.A.E. of its policies.
Do you know of interviews with the leaders of the militias that perpetrate the atrocities that you’ve described? I’m interested in how they can justify these things to themselves, to their families. — David Margulis, Roswell, Ga.
I was unable on this visit to enter Darfur and interview any of the warlords and ordinary gunmen responsible for atrocities, but I have done so in the past.
It’s fascinating: They see themselves as the good guys. First, they each say that the atrocities their side has committed have been exaggerated and that the other side has also attacked some Arabs. They say that the Black African groups are intruders and are blocking their herding routes, draining their wells and stealing their animals. So they claim they’re defending their lands.
The Arab groups have also dehumanized the Black African groups, referring to them as slaves, and that makes murder and rape easier. Fighters sometimes perceive women as spoils of war and also as weapons of war, and rape can serve grim practical purposes. Indeed, mass rape can be the perfect crime, for it terrorizes Black African groups and leads them to flee, it discredits those groups’ tribal leaders because of their failure to protect women, and it is unlikely to be reported and get the attackers in trouble.
How can I help on my level — just a housewife here in Texas? I want to do something! This is not right. — Bonnie Dillon, Fort Worth
If you want to help the relief efforts, one approach is to support local Sudanese grass-roots efforts through MutualAidSudan.org. This network was nominated for a Nobel Peace Prize this year.
I’ve also long admired Doctors Without Borders, which is active both in Sudan and in Chad next door. Those doctors have guts as well as scalpels.
Also, consider advocacy groups. One small initiative is Preventing & Ending Mass Atrocities, paema.ngo. And Human Rights Watch has done outstanding research reports on the Sudan crisis.
You can also engage in your own advocacy. Former Senator Paul Simon of Illinois said that if each member of Congress had received just 100 letters calling for action during the Rwanda genocide, the U.S. government would have lumbered into action.
Sudan will suffer whatever happens, but the toll of famine will depend partly on us: It could be 500,000 deaths or it might be 12 million. We have a chance to save millions of lives, or we can say we’re busy and it’s complicated and someone else had better do something.
I think of a woman I met, Maryam Suleiman, who told me how the Rapid Support Forces had executed her five brothers and tried to rape her. “Are we not humans?” she asked me.
That’s for all of us to answer."
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