The exclusive focus on bashing the government has emboldened the rebels, encouraging them to keep up the fight and shun the negotiating table. The peace process, as a result, has collapsed. Though uncontroversial among seasoned Sudan watchers, such a view is politically incorrect in the West, where the debate has been held in the shadows of a glossy campaign long on sentiment and outrage, short on measured analysis.
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Saving Darfur II
My lurch from left-wing idealist living in Britain, to right-wing realist in Africa continues apace. This time it is The Spectator that seems to have nailed the analysis of Darfur...
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| August 10, 2008 9:00 PM
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Just watched it this evening. It seems to be a classic of its kind. In the first two minutes Hilary Andersson has made two references to genocide, characterised the conflict as Arabs versus black Africans and used a UN death toll of 300,000. All of these are desperately contentious issues. In terms of black Africans versus Arabs the characterisation is simply inaccurate - everyone in Darfur is black and African. The 300,000 figure is backed by nothing in the way of research. Not even the back of a fag packet was used to come up with it. And don't get me started on the "genocide". So plenty of outrage so far. Little measured analysis.
Much of the report focuses on Chinese trucks delivered after the 2005 arms embargo. A valid criticism of China but unfortunately it comes with reference to atocities committed by the govt in Sirba in December, using those trucks. What Andersson fails to point out is that it was rebels who attacked Sirba in December. The government would have been defending the town. So again the government is branded murderous without the full context being explained. (They were certainly involved in committing atrocities when they retook the town in February using Janjaweed fighters - but that wasn't the episode described in the report.)
http://www.un.org/News/Press/docs/2008/sc9271.doc.htm
No doubt I will be accused of being a Khartoum sympathiser. But guff like this plays into the Sudanese government's hands. Khartoum can say the international media has an anti-Sudan agenda and is then able to safely ignore perfectly valid criticism.
Journalists, human rights campaigners, aid agencies and evangelical Christian groups are all guilty of the same sin. We have signed up to an attractive narrative of good guys versus bad guys. The truth is just a bit more complicated.
What do you think?
Rob Crilly in Jerusalem
Rob Crilly is a freelance journalist based in Jerusalem writing for The Sunday Telegraph and The Daily Mail. He spent...
I'd be interested to know if you caught the recent BBC TV World Uncovered programme about Chinese involvement in Darfur,
http://www.bbcworldnews.com/Pages/ProgrammeFeature.aspx?id=43&FeatureId=870
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/africa/7503428.stm
Any opinions on that?