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Ordering peace
Much has been written about the limitations of deploying peacekeepers to Darfur. Here, some of this analysis fits into a larger argument (perhaps reasonable but ultimately misguided) that a Darfur peace accord must be hammered out before the deployment of any large force to Western Sudan.
Certainly, peacekeepers cannot substitute for a peace process. Relative calm cannot be achieved and reconstruction in Western Sudan cannot begin unless the U.S and its allies, Darfur’s different rebel groups, and the Government of Sudan accept and earnestly implement a robust political settlement to stop the bloodshed and dying.
That said, we have to look at the other side of the coin. Civilian security in Darfur is absolutely paramount not only from a political perspective, but more importantly from a basic moral perspective. The UN and AU officials and the think-tank types who rightfully stress the need for a real Darfur peace agreement need to respect the moral claims of the mothers and young girls who are still being raped (PDF link), and the one million Darfuris who live near oblivion exactly because the Government of Sudan has blocked humanitarian assistance from reaching them.
The Government of Sudan is already on recent record stating they will not renegotiate the terms of the unenforced Darfur Peace Agreement of May 2006. The things that need to be put on the table—disarmament of the Janjaweed militias, power-sharing arrangements between Darfuri groups and the central government—are topics that Khartoum refuses to discuss. Here, absent concerted economic and military pressure, Omar al-Bashir and his fellow dictators will not budge.
Thus, arguing that securing a consensus peace agreement is an absolute requirement for deploying peacekeepers is an act of bad faith: You’d need a bad-faith government to do a complete 180, and you’d be giving Khartoum more time to execute its campaign of ethnically cleansing and pushing even more weapons into Darfur.
By all means, impose multinational sanctions against the high-level perpetrators of this genocide, in order to make Khartoum think twice about bullying others at the negotiating table. Ultimately, though, political leaders and activists alike should focus on the need to protect Darfur immediately: we need to do all we can to make sure that the boots hit the ground as soon as possible, and that these peacekeepers are well-trained, have the resources to establish security, and have a clear sense of mission, including but not limited to stopping any party who commits or threatens to commit violence anywhere in the Darfur region.
More on this last bit later. For now, skip on over to the Human Rights Watch website and read their recent release on what’s needed to ensure the deployment of an effective multinational protection mission to Western Sudan.