Stop the genocide

Our position: It would be outrageous for the U.N. not to intervene in Darfur.
Posted October 30, 2006

The government of Sudan is widely believed to be behind the genocide in the country's Darfur region that has claimed more than 200,000 lives and driven millions from their homes. Yet even with a new surge in violence, the United Nations is still waiting for permission from that same government to deploy a peacekeeping force to stop the killing. No wonder some critics of the United Nations consider it worthless.

It's way past time for the U.N. Security Council to dispatch the peacekeepers, whether or not Sudan's leaders agree.

U.N. intervention in a country against its wishes should be reserved for exceptional cases. But genocide more than meets that standard.

For three years, Arab militias backed by Sudan's government have looted, burned, raped and murdered their way through black African villages in Darfur to suppress a rebellion in the region. Two years ago, then-Secretary of State Colin Powell correctly labeled it genocide. A recent report from the United Nations itself concluded, "Government knowledge, if not complicity, in the attacks is almost certain."

A 7,000-troop African Union peacekeeping force in Darfur has been unable to stop the violence. That force lacks the manpower, equipment and mandate.

Now, amid recent gains by the rebels, Sudan's government is vowing a new offensive to crush them. Last week, the government kicked out the United Nations' top envoy in the country. And Sudan's president, Omar al-Bashir, also threatened to expel humanitarian relief groups and foreign media from Darfur. Hundreds of thousands more lives are in peril.

The Security Council passed a resolution in late August calling for a 22,000-troop U.N. peacekeeping force to replace the smaller African Union force in Darfur. Ideally, African and Arab countries would supply the manpower.

The presence of U.S. and European troops in yet another Muslim country could ignite opposition that would hamper a peacekeeping mission. But the United States and its European allies can work through NATO to provide logistical support for the U.N. force and take other steps to assist it, such as establishing a no-fly zone over Darfur.

If the United States and other council members are committed to ending the nightmare in Darfur, they will apply all their diplomatic leverage to overcoming opposition to intervention from China and other apologists for Sudan.

A little more than a decade ago, the United Nations failed to stop a genocidal rampage in Rwanda that left hundreds of thousands of people dead. A U.N. refusal to intervene in Darfur would deal another crushing blow to its credibility, and confirm the harshest views of its critics.