Sudan's State-Sponsored Pyromania

This op-ed appears today in the Los Angeles Times.

The Khmer Rouge's Pol Pot had hundreds of thousands of people dig their own mass graves before they were beaten to death in Cambodia's killing fields. Rwanda's Interahamwe militias used machetes to kill 800,000 people in 100 days. Now, another low-tech, clandestine approach to orchestrating mass atrocities is being perfected by the ruling National Congress Party, or NCP, in Sudan. No need for shovels or machetes when you have a box of matches.

Over the last two decades, I've gone to smoldering village after smoldering village in Sudan and the surrounding region, interviewing the survivors of attacks by militias supported by the NCP. Each time the pattern is the same.

In Darfur, I've sneaked across the border eight times to listen to stories of genocidal attacks carried out by the janjaweed militias. In southwestern Sudan, I listened to the testimonies of survivors of slave raiding and ethnic cleansing carried out by the murahaleen militias. In southeastern Sudan, I watched the beginnings of targeted village raids carried out initially by minority "white army" ethnic militias. In northern Uganda, I've driven all over to find escapees who can document the forced recruitment of child soldiers and gruesome killings carried out by the Lord's Resistance Army of Joseph Kony.

In each case, militias burned villages by the hundreds, clearing populations from their homes at a rate higher than any other region in the world. Burning populations out of their areas of origin, usually on the basis of ethnic identity, may require a new terminology in order to fully capture its intent and methodology. It is, quite simply, state-sponsored pyromania.

In each case in Sudan, the patron of the militias perpetrating most of the human-rights crimes has been the NCP, orchestrating the destruction from Khartoum. When faced with internal or neighboring opposition to its absolute rule, the NCP has literally set the area in rebellion on fire.

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John Prendergast is Co-Founder of Enough, the anti-genocide project at the Center for American Progress in Washington, D.C.

 

 

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Comments

[LizM]

I think what you're trying to say here is that the Obama-Biden administration's approach to Sudan leaves a bit to be desired.

I would agree.

It's not exactly what I would have expected with Susan Rice as US Ambassador to the UN and Joe Biden as Vice President. But, there's the rub.

When Senator Biden was chairman of the Foreign Relations committee he was passionate about what needed to happen in Darfur. He wasn't any less passionate when he was a candidate for president as he called for the deployment of US troops to stop the genocide in Dafur - he thought 2500 would do the trick - and for much needed helicopters (yes, helicopters - shouldn't be too difficult, one would think) to be sent to the area...among other prescriptions. I can recall a SFRC hearing in which Susan Rice was testifying about this and thanking Chairman Biden for his leadership. I don't recall her saying anything about Biden when he was running for president a short time later.

If you detect frustration on my part, then you are very perceptive.

The thing is that I don't recall Senator Biden getting much support from you or from anyone else for whom the dire situation in Darfur is such a critically important and urgent issue. And, so...unfortunately, the pol most passionately concerned with what was and is happening in Darfur is just the VPOTUS, and not getting much respect at that, either.