Author: Mick Hartley

itarian Affairs Jan Egeland has very recently reported to the Security Council, Khartoum’s grim war of attrition against humanitarian operations in Darfur is relentlessly more successful. Moreover, the possible collapse of the Chadian government of Idriss Deby before growing military pressure from Chadian rebel groups, supported by Khartoum, could have potentially catastrophic implications for humanitarian operations in eastern Chad.

The events of recent weeks—in Addis Ababa, Tripoli, Khartoum, Beijing, New York, London, Paris, Berlin, and Washington—make all too clear that diplomatic paralysis has set in, and that the genocidal quo will prevail for months. Khartoum has made clear that it will accept no “hybrid” force in Darfur, one that includes UN peace support personnel as well as some form of UN command structure; this obduracy has effectively gutted UN Security Council Resolution 1706 (August 31, 2006). […]

Most ominously, there are increasingly disturbing reports that Khartoum is prepared to resume war with southern Sudan. Tensions are running extremely high in a number of regions that might serve as flash-points for renewed conflict, especially oil-rich Western Upper Nile. It is in this context that Salva Kiir—nominally First Vice-President of the “Government of National Unity” in Khartoum, and President of the Government of South Sudan—has broken fully with the National Islamic Front on deployment of a force to Darfur for civilian and humanitarian protection:

“The international community should send peacekeepers to Darfur with or without Khartoum’s approval, the Sudanese regime’s number two Salva Kiir has said. ‘My position has always been very clear…that international forces should come to save lives,’ the Sudanese first vice president told reporters in Cairo after meeting Egyptian Foreign Minister Ahmed Aboul Gheit on Wednesday. Asked if the Sudanese government’s consent should be a prerequisite to any deployment, Kiir said: ‘It should not be a condition. There will be no reason, if people are dying…and it should not restrict the international community from coming in to save lives.’” (Agence France-Presse [dateline: Cairo], November 22, 2006)

In the context of mounting tensions in southern Sudan, and a continuing refusal by the National Islamic Front to abide by key terms and benchmarks in the Comprehensive Peace Agreement (January 2005), Salva Kiir’s remarks reflect just how explosive and regionally consequential Darfur’s conflict has become. It threatens not only some 4.5 million conflict-affected civilians, but stability in Chad and the Central African Republic, and may prove to be the catalyst for renewed north/south war in southern Sudan.

And Jan Pronk, expelled head of the UN operation in Sudan, sharply criticized international passivity toward the Darfur crisis, in an interview published in a German newspaper:

The international community “has absolutely not reacted to this day against (Khartoum’s) violation of the Darfur peace treaty,” Pronk told the daily Munich Suddeutsche Zeitung. “This must be registered. Any reply would have been better than no reply at all.” […]

“The situation is very simple,” Pronk said. “The government of Sudan has violated the peace treaty in Darfur to which it was a signatory. And it continues to violate this treaty. It bombs villages. It recruits more and more soldiers, instead of disarming the militias. It always seeks a military solution.”

argues that IT spending should be included, as this is largely determined by consultants. On that basis, new Labour has spent £70 billion on consultants since 1997 – the equivalent of perhaps 150 hospitals or about 140m pieces of body armour. […]

[A]s one academic commented, consultancy has become like Marxism in the Soviet Union: nobody believes in it, but everybody must pretend to.

ntary answer slipped out last week, foreign minister Ian McCartney admitted that Abdallah, head of the Sudanese Intelligence and Security Service, had been granted two single entry visas to the UK this year. But he insisted that the government had used the opportunity to raise its concerns over Darfur.

Robert Mugabe and Iranian President Mahmud Ahmadinejad share a sofa (via) – though to be honest Ahmadinejad looks less than enchanted:

Ayatollah Khamenei called Mugabe a prominent and courageous African figure, saying that the measures he has taken, such as the land reform program which gives formerly occupied lands to Black farmers, are in response to the nation’s will.

The Leader referred to Iran’s progress in the scientific and technological fields and expressed hope that sharing such experiences with Zimbabwe and the implementation of the agreements the two countries have signed would serve to expand bilateral relations.

At the meeting, which President Mahmud Ahmadinejad also attended, Mugabe said, “Once the occupied territories of Black people were restored, Britain, the U.S., and their allies accused us of human rights violations and despotism. This is while our attempts to enable the people of Zimbabwe to determine their own fate and promote peace in Africa are our only sins.”

The Zimbabwean president called his meeting with the Supreme Leader a historic opportunity, adding, “Despite all the charges raised against us by the West and their endeavors, the Zimbabwean government is supported by the people and we are determined to continue our campaign against imperialism based on such support.”

mpose his control over all of Lebanon. It was all about the “bigger picture” then, and still is today. But not so long ago, officials from the US and the UK were insisting that Lebanon was integral to their wider vision for the Middle East, even a catalyst for change in the region, not a bargaining chip. The brave new world which those who support engagement with Syria want to usher in in the Middle East is starting to look increasingly like the same old one.

A telemarketer gets more than he bargained for… (via Secular Blasphemy)

From the Times:

A Muslim who killed a swan while fasting during Ramadan has been given a two-month prison sentence.
Shamsu Miah, 52, killed the mute swan at a boating pond in Llandudno, North Wales, on September 25. When challenged by police he said: “I am a Muslim, I am fasting, I needed to eat.” Llandudno magistrates were told that Miah, from the town, had white feathers stuck in his beard and blood on his shirt. Jim Neary, for the prosecution, said: “The officers told him the swan was the property of the Queen and he replied, ‘I hate the Queen, I hate this country’.”

Miah, who has no previous convictions, pleaded guilty at an earlier hearing to intentionally killing a wild bird and possessing a bladed article. He was released from custody, having served two months on remand.

It’s easy to spot that this man hasn’t integrated well into British society. He should, on being challenged by the police with white feathers stuck in his beard and blood on his shirt, have said, “OK officer, it’s a fair cop”.

tional relief operations were threatened by government obstruction and members needed to talk to Sudanese officials immediately as well as put pressure on those sending arms to rebels.

Meanwhile African leaders have had a nice meeting in Libya, but have decided, um, nothing:

Several African leaders have ended a meeting in Libya without announcing a breakthrough in efforts to halt the violence in Sudan’s Darfur region.

A Libyan official said the leaders rejected pressure on Sudan to accept international peacekeepers.

Which makes Anne Applebaum’s article about the success of the Darfur campaign seem premature at best:

[I]t is not simple to explain why this particular grass-roots action has been so successful. After all, Darfur is not the only place in the world where there has been mass murder, even ethnic mass murder, on a large, historically familiar scale. The North Korean regime has for years run concentration camps directly modeled on the concentration camps of Stalin’s Soviet Union. But, though there is excellent documentation of Pyongyang’s camps—the U.S. Committee on Human Rights in North Korea even has satellite photographs on its Web site—and though some religious and university groups have made an effort, the level of interest, and therefore perhaps of U.N. involvement, is much lower.

The same is true of arbitrary arrests in Iran…,some of which have targeted particular ethnic groups for intimidation or elimination. For that matter, Saddam Hussein’s use of chemical weapons to murder tens of thousands of Kurds never caught the popular imagination, not before the war and not afterward.

I can offer no scientific explanation for why the tragedy of Darfur conjures up the specter of history’s judgment and why other tragedies do not. But the answer must lie in the fact that this conflict has so few strategic or geopolitical implications. Because it seems to be in no one’s “interest” do so so, a call for a U.N. intervention in Darfur surely feels—at least to Americans and Europeans who haven’t followed China’s involvement in Sudan’s oil industry—like an act of real charity and not more evidence of the West pursuing its interests.

I don’t see why an explanation for people’s concern is needed, to be honest. Whether this ranks as genocide or not, there are still millions of lives at stake, and the continuation of what Jan Egeland has called “acts of inexplicable terror”. And there clearly are strategic and geopolitical ramifications: the Arab world is silent at the actions of a Muslim regime, and is ready to start screaming about “new crusades” at any international intervention. The Africans, as we’ve seen, are for various reasons largely impotent.

And no matter how many campaigns are launched – and here’s another one, by the way: We Blog for Darfur – nothing’s getting better where it counts, in Darfur.

775X/sr=1-37/qid=1164211702/ref=sr_1_37/026-3320998-5257225?ie=UTF8&s=books”>The Meaning of Mind” (1996) is one of the most powerful and eloquent arguments I’ve read for the view that people should be understood and judged as moral agents responsible for their own actions, rather than helpless victims of brain chemistry. I mean, no, I don’t necessarily believe all this stuff, but it’s good to know there’s someone out there battling against the therapeutic state.

stating aggression of Saddam Hussein, was limited. Syria was—let’s give Baker his due—”on side.” The Iraqi Baathists were demoralized by the sheer speed and ignominy of their eviction from Kuwait and completely isolated even from their usual protectors in Moscow, Paris, and Beijing. There would never have been a better opportunity to “address the root cause” and to remove a dictator who was a permanent menace to his subjects, his neighbors, and the world beyond. Instead, he was shamefully confirmed in power and a miserable 12-year period of sanctions helped him to enrich himself and to create the immiserated, uneducated, unemployed underclass that is now one of the “root causes” of a new social breakdown in Iraq. It seems a bit much that the man principally responsible for all this should be so pleased with himself and that he should be hailed on all sides as the very model of the statesmanship we now need.