(Chicago Sun-Times) Why has the international community been immeasurably generous to the victims of the tsunami that rocked several coastline nations along the Indian Ocean but shamefully nonchalant about genocide and the cataclysmic human catastrophe taking place in Darfur, Sudan?
The horrific tsunami disaster killed more than 200,000 people, leaving millions in destitute poverty without food, water and shelter. While the outpouring of support for tsunami victims is critically important, why has the international community been arguably blasé about what the U.N. called the world’s worst and most neglected humanitarian crisis in Darfur? Nearly 11 years after the world sat idly by while preventable genocide in Rwanda claimed 1 million lives, international bias against the “Dark Continent” has allowed civil conflict to thrive unchecked, resulting in unimaginable human suffering, genocide to persist in Darfur, and the deaths of 3.8 million in Congo; 2 million in the north-south conflict in Sudan; 300,000 in Burundi, and 250,000 in Liberia. The failure of the African Union and the U.N. to declare the killing in Darfur genocide, publicly condemn the government of Sudan and take robust action to halt it contributed to inaction by lowering the standard of internationally acceptable behavior of states.
As of this month, the crisis in Darfur has claimed 70,000 lives and could claim an additional 350,000 in the next nine months, mainly from starvation and disease. Many more will die if the direct killing is not stopped. The World Health Organization reports that 10,000 Darfurians are dying each month from starvation and disease in government-controlled Internally Displaced Persons camps. Equally troubling, 1.7 million people out of 6.5 million in Darfur have been forced from their homes into these camps, and 230,000 fled into Chad as refugees. Unlike the tsunami disaster, the crisis in Darfur is manmade and could have been prevented and tens of thousands of lives saved by a robust U.N.-sanctioned peace enforcement operation.
Several justifications might explain why the tsunami tragedy has received greater attention than Darfur, including donor disinterest and fatigue with Africa’s crises; donor apprehension about peacekeeping in Africa in the wake of the Somalia debacle; extensive media coverage of the tsunami (access to Darfur is difficult and raw footage of acts of genocide are rare); responses to natural vs. manmade disasters, and the climbing death toll in Asia.
International law places a positive duty on states to “prevent and punish” acts of genocide. No equivalent duty exists to mitigate the effects of natural catastrophes. The African Union and U.N. relief agencies have not received enough assistance to prevent the humanitarian crisis in Darfur while aid to tsunami victims has already exceeded expectations. Jan Egeland, U.N. Undersecretary for Humanitarian Affairs, has stated that a lack of resources is one of the primary reasons why the U.N. has failed to prevent killing in Africa. Aid to tsunami victims is already in the billions. After 12 months of international appeals, Darfur has yet to reach $1 billion. Since 1998, the civil war in Congo has claimed 3.8 million lives, mainly women and children, yet aid for the country has yet to reach the $200 million mark.
Today, would the “civilized world” sit idly by and allow 70,000 Europeans to die of preventable genocide and mass starvation and disease? One wonders why the lives of Black Africans are seemingly worth less on the global humanitarian market today than they were as viable commodities of international commerce in the 19th century?
