Is the world suffering from Sudanese genocide fatigue?
By Austin Bay
Remember Darfur, site of the genocide in Western Sudan? Two years ago, in August 2009, the then-United Nations peacekeeping force commander claimed the war in Darfur had “effectively ended.” He argued that major attacks had declined to the point that he thought the war would soon be over.
This month, the U.N. issued a press statement that said attacks had declined 70 percent since late 2008.
Which, given the continued bloodletting, is an awkward way of saying that the war really isn’t over. And it isn’t. The Sudanese government — meaning the Islamist Sudanese government seated in Khartoum, for there is now a separate South Sudan — still occasionally employs heavily armed militias as proxy forces to attack, kill and disperse Darfuri civilians. Sudan’s air force still launches air raids on rebel forces in Darfur.
There are two reasons attacks have declined. The first is that the northern Sudanese government has driven several hundred thousand pro-rebel Darfuris from their land. They are now dead or in refugee camps.
The second reason: The northern government is now engaged in several other wars against Sudanese civilians or former Sudanese civilians. In May, about six weeks before South Sudan became independent, Sudan attacked and occupied the Abyei area, a disputed border zone between the two nations. Over 100,000 people fled south to escape the northern attack. After U.N.-sponsored negotiations, both sides agreed to let Ethiopia deploy a peacekeeping force in Abyei. Ethiopia does not want to see the north-south confrontation expand.
The Abyei dispute involves complex land issues between the Dinka Ngok tribal group and a tribe of Muslim pastoralists, the Misseriya. The big story for the two Sudans is oil, however. Independence left South Sudan with the bulk of the nations’ proven oil reserves. The northerners resent that.
The southerners have their own resentments. The north is charging the south extremely high per-barrel oil pipeline transportation fees. At the moment, the only way South Sudan can export its oil is through Sudan’s pipeline system and its seaport, Port Sudan.
Thanks to oil, the Abyei fracas rated a few headlines. Sudan’s dirty wars in the Nuba Mountains and in Blue Nile state, however, bleed out of sight and out of mind.
The Nuba Mountains are located in South Kordofan state. Under Sudan’s 2005 peace agreement with South Sudan, South Kordofan and Blue Nile states were to have plebiscites to determine their “governance relationship” with Khartoum. The plebiscites have not occurred.
Instead, in June Sudan decided to determine the governance relationship using bullets — and attacked South Kordofan. The Nuba peoples were a particular target. Many Nuba had fought with the south’s guerrilla army. The Nuba fear total domination by the north. Some fear genocidal elimination.
This month, Sudan pulled the same trick in Blue Nile. Khartoum’s first target was the state’s democratically elected governor, who is an opposition party politician.
The Nuba Mountains and Blue Nile state could become new Darfurs. Where is the international outrage? Perhaps the world suffers from Sudanese genocide attention fatigue.
The case can be made that the so-called international community’s passion is only activated when a Republican inhabits the White House and the American left can then accuse said Republican of neglect and racism. 2011’s comparative silence, versus the vocal indignation of 2005, suggests the case has an ugly sort of merit.
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