WORLD OBLIGATIONS
October 21, 2007
-Paul Waldhart
"One World, One Dream": While this stands as China’s official motto for its 2008 Beijing summer Olympics, it begs the question of whose dream, exactly? Certainly it’s not the dream of the citizens of Darfur. Theirs is a dream the world at large, and China in particular, has ignored. No example of foreign hypocrisy has been more shameful than that of China’s complicity in the genocide in Darfur, a disgrace so egregious that it has lead many to call Beijing’s summer games by a new name, the "Genocide Olympics." Since 2003, the Janjaweed Militia, supported by Khartoum’s National Islamic Front regime, has killed over 400,000 Sudanese civilians and left 2.5 million others homeless i . All the while China, Sudan’s greatest economic partner and political ally, has remained silent.
Over the last ten years alone China has invested $10 billion dollars in Sudan’s infrastructure supporting oil production ii and has continued to consume over $1 billion of Sudanese oil yearly iii , making China Sudan’s chief trading partner. As the government’s primary source of income (and thus stability for the National Islamic Front), China stands in the perfect position to use its leverage to bring an end to the killing in Darfur, as it used its economic leverage to help reign in North Korea and bring a peaceful compromise on their nuclear issue. Yet in the case of Darfur, China has refused to act.
While not only allowing the genocide to perpetuate, China has used its role as a permanent UN Security Council member to prevent the world at large from taking necessary action as well, all to keep its oil consumption at status quo. The United Nations Security Council has passed multiple resolutions addressing the genocide in Darfur, but due to lack of international will (and China’s unwillingness to support any harsh measures), these resolutions have proven inadequate. For example, in July 2004 the UN Security Council passed Resolution 1556, ordering the disarmament of the Janjaweed militia and the deployment of an African Union monitoring force. No genuine disarmament occurred, with many accusing China of secretly supplying the government with more weapons, on top of the weapons China had sold the Sudanese government in previous years. Two months later in September, 2004, the Security Council again addressed the Sudanese genocide with Resolution 1564 by condemning Khartoum’s lack of progress, calling for an expansion of the African Union monitoring force, and threatening sanctions. iv The killing continued, with the AU monitoring force wholly inadequate to stop the bloodshed in Darfur and with a Sudanese government which knows that any UN threat of sanctions rings hollow. China’s abstention on this resolution served a warning to the other permanent Security Council members that it would not support any such action.
More recently, the Security Council passed Resolution 1706 in August of 2006, "invites the consent" of Khartoum to accept a United Nations peacekeeping force of 22,500 UN troops and civilian police in protecting civilians and humanitarian workers. Yet as of May 2007, only 200 UN peacekeepers have been deployed. v Again, China’s support for Sudan’s abusive government has hindered any strong resolution from passing, stripping Resolution 1706 of much of its force by only "inviting the consent" of those allowing the killing. However, there remains one promising facet of Resolution 1706 that may lead to peace in Darfur: the Resolution’s reference to the "responsibility to protect" clause of the 2005 United Nations World Summit.
This document was unanimously agreed upon by the world’s leaders in the United Nations General Assembly, and its "responsibility to protect" clause stipulates that if a country can not or will not prevent "genocide, ethnic cleansing, and crimes against humanity" from occurring, then the United Nations and the international community may claim this responsibility and employ economic sanctions and military force as a last resort . vi However, since any such action must be approved of by the Security Council, China’s unwillingness to support stringent sanctions, let alone military force, in resolving Darfur’s genocide makes this currently impossible. In the absence of the United Nations to fully commit to its "right to protect," the world’s best hope for Darfur is action from the bottom up—through activists raising awareness and bringing their respective governments to ratchet pressure against China, especially in light of its upcoming Olympic games.
There have already been some, albeit modest, improvements in this area, as China wishes to promote itself through its upcoming Bejing games. So far, China has sent almost 300 engineers to Darfur and created a special envoy for Sudan. This is not to say China has completely turned the corner in policy. How much work still needs to be done in persuading China, and perhaps how shallow its current efforts may be, are reflected in the words of China’s special envoy, Liu Guijin who stated that he "didn’t see a desperate scenario of people dying of hunger" in Darfur . vii Such neglect epitomizes China’s current attitude and the need for both citizens and world leaders to work towards pressuring China, especially in any discussion of its "Genocide Olympics", to use its influence in Sudan for peace. The United States and the international community must take a greater role in leading Sudan to peace and bringing China to help implement desperately needed measures such as the full and unconditional deployment of a large UN and AU force, targeting the Khartoum regime with specific economic sanctions, ordering the rebels and government to stop killing civilians, providing for greater humanitarian relief, and brokering a peace deal while forming the basis for a democratic transition in Sudan . viii Only then, will Darfur’s "one dream" of peace finally be realized.
Citations
( i ) Michael Scherer - " Congress Steps on Bush’s Darfur Applause Line." January 25, 2007.
( ii ) Eric Reeves - "Push China, Save Darfur" December 17, 2007.
( iii ) Jill Savitt - "China’s Deadly Darfur Games." October 4, 2007
( iv ) Human Rights Watch - "The United Nations and Darfur." January, 2005.
( v ) Eric Reeves - "UN Security Council Resolution 1706, August 31, 2006."May 14, 2007.
( vi ) Alicia L. Bannon - The Yale Law Journal Volume 115, Issue 5. "The Responsibility to Protect: The U.N. World Summit and the Question of Unilateralism." March, 2006.
( vii ) Jill Savitt - "China’s Deadly Darfur Games." October 4, 2007.
( viii) John Prendergast and Colin Thomas-Jensen " Enough: An Axis of Peace for Darfur: The United States, France, and China.