Darfur Debate Marches On

The debate about Darfur rumbles on. The American Prospect responded to the same Robert Kaplan, New Republic piece that we dissected on this blog last week. Of course, the Prospect has a different take, and falls directly into Kaplan’s charge of hypocrisy. Its argument seems to be that any economic or diplomatic, or even military coercion against the Khartoum government is acceptable so long as we do not put US troops on the ground. As we have said before, limiting intervention only at the point of ground troops is no solution, and is a recipe for further crisis in the developing world. While Darfur has come to symbolize a moral line in the sand, no side in the American debate is willing to acknowledge the complexity of the situation, a complexity born of a struggle over political and economic resources.

Further evidence that the liberal debate is out of step with the situation on the ground emerged today in newspaper reports that Darfur rebels have refused to sign the peace settlement brokered by the African Union, and accepted by the Sudanese government. Clearly, the simple cessation of violence is not the only and highest priority for the Darfuris with whom Western liberals claim to sympathize.

By viewing the Darfur conflict as "a defining moral challenge of our era" (as the Prospect described it), we fail to recognize the complex and competing local interests at stake, and we are unable to see that these interests do not map cleanly onto our black and white picture of the region. Rightly or wrongly, Darfur rebels are prepared to stake the well-being of local populations on their ability to gain greater concessions from the central government. And it may well be that Western pressure on Khartoum has encouraged them to do so, prolonging the conflict beyond its natural lifespan. Indeed, it has been suggested that Darfur rebels only reignited their insurgency when Khartoum was forced to the negotiating table with more powerful rebels in the South. Whomever humanitarians intervene against, or on behalf of, by failing to acknowledge their own interests, they risk distorting the dynamics of local politics, as powerful international entities become stakeholders in the battle.