Are we washing our hands of Sudan?

WHILE the West indulges its interest in the US elections and the self-inflicted pain of Iraq, the human catastrophe that is unfolding in Darfur in Western Sudan has seemingly been placed on the backburner.

The media has rightly termed this nightmare a "race against time". As the raped, tortured, burned and buried alive are lying in heaped masses in their hundreds of thousands, the chief of UN humanitarian operations, Jan Egeland, has stated that over two million lives are at risk. And the monsoon season has yet to begin.

The situation in Darfur carries all the hallmarks of a civil war that has devastated the lives of so many. The Janjaweed is the Arab militia (frequently difficult to distinguish in equipment, uniforms and supplies from the Sudanese army) which is engulfing hundreds of thousands of refugees caught up in a battle with the African rebel group, the Sudan Liberation Army. And the term "liberation" is very threatening to those in power in Khartoum. The Sudanese government has been against the establishment of refugee or squatter camps in certain locations and has refused international aid agencies the right to attend upon the sick and the dying.

But the war is not really about Islam and Christianity, Arabs and Africans. It is about one basic thing: poverty. According to Christian Aid, more than a million people fled the Janjaweed once the Khartoum government began to use the militia to suppress an uprising in Darfur because of the neglect which resulted in famine, disease and poverty.

The Sudanese People's Liberation Army/Movement was the protector of the southerners in Darfur, as opposed to the richer pickings found in the north, in places like Khartoum. As a result, the innocent are herded like cattle and were either against the north or in favour of the south. To use the simplistic solution as voiced by President Bush which effectively excludes the innocent who just want to get on with their lives: "either you're with us or against us".

The 30 day deadline placed upon the Sudanese government by the international community, during which they are supposed to sort out the carnage inflicted by the Janjaweed Arab Fighters they are allegedly backing, has become a tragic farce. Their politicians have already stated that they are unable (or unwilling) to act, no doubt because the ethnic cleansing which they oversee is arguably to their own powerful benefit.

So at least a million people have been displaced and all the West is doing is issuing threats. The refugee camps are not "tented cities" because there are few tents, nor is there much in the way of food distribution, medical supplies or lavatories. Disease on a catastrophic scale is a human time bomb waiting to happen.

The total response of the rich to the poor has been three helicopters from the Dutch, a contingent of French soldiers from Chad and donations given to the aid agencies who have alerted the media to yet another holocaust. As the politicians in the US and the UK take their annual month's holiday, the US Congress left a parting shot to the government in Khartoum - that genocide was taking place - and then closed their door. The threats of military action, whether in Britain or the US are perhaps made with more enthusiasm by the zealots because, as Colin Powell has pointed out, the perpetrators of this genocide are readily identifiable as "Arabs", alluding to the experience of Iraq.

No-one is suggesting that the solution is easy - issuing demands that the Khartoum government must disarm the various tribal factions has led the Middle Eastern and African world to protest at yet another example of US-led imperialism. If it is true that the Janjaweed are given direct or indirect support from Khartoum, the Sudanese president, Omar al-Bashir has to be warned of the war crimes he is participating in, at the highest international level, that of the United Nations.

The African Union has promised troops to secure the border for refugees and our one time enemy and now close ally, Libya, is establishing a humanitarian corridor through which aid will be transported from its border to Sudan. The US and the European politicians need to put down their suntan lotions and get working on the transport of aid immediately. Let Sudan not become yet another scar on the conscience of humanity, an expression used by Tony Blair regarding our inactivity over the poverty inherent throughout Africa. Indeed, prior to taking his holiday, Tony Blair stated that Britain has 5,000 troops waiting to be deployed as and when necessary. It is necessary now.

Following the debacle of Iraq, one has to ask in terms of military intervention, who can you trust to do it? If the retrospective argument put forward by the Bush administration, namely that the invasion of Iraq was a form of humanitarian intervention, is believed, then we certainly don't want Sudan to become yet another war grave such as Afghanistan, Iraq or anywhere else Mr Bush has laid his hands upon.

His protection of Ariel Sharon's pogroms in Gaza, the mounting evidence of human rights abuses by US forces (overt or covert) in Central America, East Timor, Iraq and in Cuba, and his own concerns in relation to a forthcoming election, cast severe doubts in the African and Arab world over any US "concerns" in Sudan or elsewhere.

Moreover, the damage the partnership with Bush is causing in Britain, both electorally and post-Hutton/Butler and the appointment of John Scarlett to head MI6, has perhaps left the reputation of Britain somewhat tattered in terms of adopting a high moral ground.

Because of these facts, many more people will undoubtedly die in Darfur because of a hesitancy which has inevitably seeped into the Anglo-American textbook on international humanitarian intervention. People are now increasingly concerned over where "humanitarian" ends and "crusades" start, especially when Mr Bush needs every nationalistic vote he can lay his fingers on.

Now is an opportunity for Britain to rekindle its European flame which has, in terms of British integration, received a serious setback due to the shoulder to shoulder approach towards Bush over Iraq, as opposed to the French and German position which, with hindsight, would arguably have been preferable.

Britain must now reassert itself in relation to Sudan from a European perspective. It can lead fellow members of the European Union to a block position of power in the United Nations, in which the UN plays a decisive role in influencing military intervention where essential, and enabling humanitarian aid to be transported. The US should be kept very much in the background. The world community needs to respond irrespective of the "concerns" of the US.

The international community should consider the use of sanctions as soon as possible. The 30 day UN resolution took two weeks to negotiate and states that further action will be "considered" at the end of that period. A total arms embargo and the freezing of international assets, which will impact upon the Sudanese government and not upon the civilian population, should be implemented. Working with the African Union, the UN can demonstrate that it is capable of being taken seriously after the failed negotiations surrounding the Iraq debacle.

Aid agencies should have the assistance to enable them to supply personnel working on the ground, and international monitors should be supplied. These things can be financed by the European Union, providing not just finance but logistical support, along with the enforcing of a workable peace agreement while another scar on our conscience heals.

The crisis in Sudan is a disaster that is happening now. It has been called the world's worst humanitarian crisis. It provides the international community with an opportunity that could demonstrate how local problems become international concerns, which can be resolved without the might of the US military.