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Muslim Affairs Page
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Name
Terry
- United States
Profession
College professor
Question
Dr. Reeves,
I would like to ask you the famous question posed by Dr. C. Wright Mills, "Who does it benefit?", if any, to have genocide / civil war in Darfur / Sudan?
Answer
The National Islamic Front (innocuously renamed the National Congress Party) regime in Khartoum benefits most from its serial genocides---in the Nuba Mountains beginning in 1992, in the scorched-earth clearances of the oil fields in southern Sudan (1997-2004), and currently in Darfur. Genocide has become a ghastly domestic security policy for this regime, allowing it the retain its strangehold on Sudanese national wealth and power.
The NIF cannot prevail in free and open elections; most in the north and virtually all in peripheral areas of Sudan hate these brutal men, who came to power by military coup in 1989, deposing an elected government, and deliberately aborting Sudan's most promising chance for a north/south peace agreement since independence in 1956.
The genocide in Darfur will end only when it is no longer in Khartoum's interest to sustain current levels of human destruction and suffering.
Name
muqtadis
-
Profession
marine officer
Question
Salam
Won't it be better if Muslim countries were asked to provide forces to maitain law and order in Darfur. I reckon this could avoid possible poroblems
Answer
I think this is true to a point; but what is key is that the UN Department of Peacekeeping Operations be allowed to make final decisions about which forces, capabilities, and resources are required for this exceedingly difficult mission to succeed.
Right now, Khartoum continues, in a variety of ways, to block deployment of UNAMID (authorized by UN Security Council Resolution 1769 in July 2007); this puts all troop and civilian police personnel at risk, and indeed puts the entire mission at risk.
The vast majority of troops will be from African nations. Some of the troops from these countries will be Muslim; some will not---but it doesn't seem reasonable or appropriate to confine contributions to Muslims alone. Egypt will send some 1,200 troops in January: they will be virtually all Muslims.
But the helicopters desperately needed for the mission simply do not exist in Muslim countries, even as all agree the mission cannot succeed without such aircraft. The same is true of other specialized needs of the mission.
I think also in general that it's a bad idea to determine force composition of a peacekeeping mission on the basis of either religion or race/ethnicity.
Name
Smail
- Morocco
Profession
Teacher
Question
Dear Sir,
As a specialist who devoted much of his time to the Sudan, what can you tell us about the role of the much centralised type of Sudanese government in the unrest of Darfur?
How can true federalism contribute to an enduring settlment?
Answer
The key to transforming Sudan from the site of continuing human suffering, destruction, and political marginalization is an opening up of the political process, and political power, to regions that have never had their fair share of either Sudanese wealth or power. Conflict in Sudan is not north/south, or east/west, but inevitably center/periphery. The National Islamic Front regime, as I indicated in a previous response, came to power by military coup in June 1989, deposing an elected government, and deliberately aborting the most promising chance to end the civil war that had raged almost continuously since independence. Sudan is Africa's largerst country (the size of the United States east of the Missippippi River, and yet power has always been concentrated in the hands of three small Arab tribes from the Nile Valley around Khartoum.
Elections that were stipulated in the 2005 Comprehensive Peace Agreement that ended the north/south civil war are in danger. Khartoum appears prepared to subvert them (currently scheduled for 2009), and renege on a range of commitments. Darfur is unlikely to be given the right to vote; the people of the south are being denied the resources for a meaningful census (it's been over a quarter of a century since anything like a census was taken).
But the men who rule in Khartoum have no incentive to give up the reins of power, indeed much incentive not to (and to rig the elections to suit their needs). If the NIF loses power, then the leadership risks being sent to The Hague to face multiple charges of crimes against humanity.
Change will come to Sudan, a true federal system will be possible, only with legitimate elections the end of NIF tyranny. But right now, oil production and wealth are speaking louder than any obligation to help the marginalized people of Sudan. Here I would highlight in particular the role of China.
Name
'Abd Allah
-
Profession
Question
Harvard based Sudan expert Alex de Waal, who actualy has done field-research in Darfur/Sudan, has sharply critsized the type of "tunnel-vission" that you and other "experts" such as Prendergrast seem to have on Darfur/Sudan, which is propagated by the "Save Darfur Coalition". SDC has been the subject of growing criticisms in many news-papers and accademic works, such as Columbia's Africianist scholar Mahmood Mamdani writings. How do you respond to de Waal's and Mamdani's criticsims and opinions? And have you done field-research in Darfur?
Save Darfur Coalition, which depends on much of your writings, has come under sharp criticism
Answer
De Waal suffers from "tunnel vision" of his own, and seems lost in the fantasy that the Abuja process "almost succeeded." The story behind the negotiations is a complex one, but de Waal can't see the forest for the few trees he was so heavily invested in. But I think if you look at my writings on Sudan going back nine years, you'll find that I've been much more accurate in predicting what would happen and why, and present realities in particular bear out this claim. This has been especially true of Darfur. "Tunnel-vision," however, is just a phrase, not a critique, and I certainly don't accept it as a characterization of my writings on Sudan and Darfur, running to well over 2 million words on my website and some 200+ publications internationally.
Moreover, de Waal has in recent months actually moved much closer to my position on the need for an international force on the ground in Darfur. This has long been the position of the Save Darfur Coalition (of which I have been extremely sharply critical, I should note). I won't defend the SDC, and have no affiliation of any kind with the organization. But I think it's important to recognize that without the efforts of US-led advocacy, including both individuals and organizations, we would never have had the current humanitarian force in place that we do today--and that means that hundreds of thousands of lives have been saved, at least for the present.
Mamdani is simply not a serious student of Darfur, and his writings on the crisis are in my view contemptibly ignorant and tendentious. His continuing opposition to a UN force in Darfur amounts to consigning the people of Darfur to massive destruction; for without a protection force that is effective, humanitarian organizations will leave. Some 4.2 million human beings now depend upon international humanitarian assistance; in the event that humanitarian organizations leave---and they are close, I talk to people within these organizations constantly---there will be a cataclysm of human destruction. Mamdani simply doesn't address this issue, a moral and intellectual scandal.
While I have traveled in southern Sudan, I am currently medically unable to travel to Afica (the Khartoum regime would never allow me to travel to Darfur, by the way). Chemotherapy for leukemia has severely compromised my immune system, leaving my very few travel options. That said, I am constantly in touch with people on the ground in Darfur, with people just back, and with Darfuri exiles. I will say with some pride that the universal response of those within this tragic diaspora has been unqualified enthusiasm. One Darfuri leader went so far as to say that I knew Darfur better than he did.
Name
hisham
- Sudan
Profession
account
Question
You Dr say thet darfur crissis is genocide and it is arab x african and you said it was half milion daied but the UN ,AU , Gemy Carter say otherwise why you ixagerate the number and the fact what is your agenda
Answer
I have no agenda other than halting the massive atrocity crimes occurring in Darfur, crimes which all human rights reports make clear have an ethnic dimension. Ethnically-targeted human destruction, and the destruction of the ability of certain non-Arab or African tribal groups to live, is an indisputable reality in Darfur. And those finding that genocide has occurred in Darfur are not so few as this question would suggest. Others declaring genocide include:
the US Congress (unanimously)
the French Foreign Minister
the British Foreign Secretary
the German Defense Minister
The Committee on Conscience of the US Holocaust Memorial Museum has issued an utterly unprecedented genocide finding for Darfur.
Others declaring that genocide is occurring in Darfur include:
•Physicians for Human Rights, including the distinguished international jurist Richard Goldstone
•US Committee for Refugees
•Africa Action
•Justice Africa (UK)(Alex de Waal's outfit)
•Yad Vashem in Jerusalem
•Genocide Watch
And I could go on for a very long time.
As to mortality figures, do some research; for my estimates, see the two-part, ten-thousands word analysis at
http://www.sudanreeves.org/Article102.html
Name
Editor, Mustapha Ajbaili
-
Profession
Question
Isn't the word "genocide" one of those words like "terrorism" that is employed to legitimize U.S. intrusion in oil-rich spots of the world.
Answer
No, and if you look carefully at my writings, you'll see that I cleave insistently, at every point, to the definition provided by the 1948 UN Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide (note particularly the prominence of the word "Prevention").
The indiscriminate use of genocide is a bad thing and certainly occurs. But in the case of Darfur, this is the only word that describes the realities of human destruction.
Name
Editor, Mustapha Ajbaili
-
Profession
Question
While the United Nations and African Union insist that the solution should be political, you argued that "A negotiated settlement for Darfur is out of reach," and what can work is "concrete pressure on Khartoum to abstain from violence.�
Two days ago the SLA attacked a small village and took over it, isn't this violence that should also be stopped
Answer
Of course the first order of business in addressed the security crisis in Darfur is a cease-fire, which involves both rebels, as well as Khartoum and its militia proxies. But it is all too revealing that Khartoum announced a unilateral cease-fire in Sirte, Libya on October 27, 2007 and the very next day bombed rebel targets in West Darfur (this has been confirmed by the UN and AU). There is no moral equivalence here, even if the rebels have much to be criticized for.
But a cease-fire is a long way off primarily because of bad faith on the part of Khartoum
Name
Hany
-
Profession
Question
In most of your articles you seem to emphasize that the government of Sudan and the Janjaweed militia are the ones responsible for what you call a "genocide" against the non-Arab and black Africans. Can't we say that the rebels have their share, maybe a bigger one, in the killings of innocent civilians?
Answer
The rebels have their share of responsibility, and more so recently, but I think it is preposterous to look at the past five years and conclude that primary responsibility for human destruction, village destruction, destruction of livelihoods, rapes of women and girls lies anywhere but with Khartoum's regular military forces (including Antonov bombers and helicopter gunships) and its militia proxies.
Most of the attacks on civilians by "rebels" are committed by rogue elements (now simply bandits) or remnants of Mini Minawi's SLM (Minawi alone signed the ill-fated Darfur Peace Agreement, and is now nominal part of the Khartoum govt).
The security situation in Darfur is chaotic for lots of reasons; but Human Rights Watch got it right in a report entitled "Chaos by Design"---the current security crisis is deliberately exacerbated by Khartoum as part of its genocidal strategy.
Name
Editor, Mustapha Ajbaili
-
Profession
Question
How can you convince the world that the United States does not care about Oil in darfur, and that its interest in "solving" the conflict comes only from a humanitarian desire?
Answer
There is no evidence whatsoever of oil reserves in Darfur...none. There are no photographs or reports of any oil infrastructure or exploration activities of note in Darfur, nor were there before the conflict erupted. As for oil in Kordofan and southern Sudan, all the major concession areas are already controlled by China, Malaysia, India, and France. US longterm interests in Sudan, with respect to oil, are likely to be an increased supply for the overall world market. With oil at $100/barrel, consuming (I would agree over-consuming) countries like the US simply want more oil on the world market.
Name
Abdo
-
Profession
Question
In a few words, how would you describe the future of the conflict in Darfur in 2008?
Answer
Unless UNAMID deploys effectively---and this looks increasingly unlikely, though we must hope things improve and work hard to make this mission succeed---security will continue to deteriorate in Darfur. A year ago UN and nongovernmental organizations made clear that they had reached the end of their security tether, and that without improved security they would withdraw. UNAMID is what they have pinned their hopes to. If the mission aborts (a clear possibility as the head of UN Peacekeeping made clear over a month ago) or simply proves as ineffectual as the current African Union mission (AMIS), then we will see gradual, or rapid, reduction in humanitarian reach and capacity. At the same time the number of displaced persons increased by 300,000 in 2007; the number of conflict-affected persons in need of humanitarian assistance, according to the UN, now exceeds 4.2 million. If there is a large-scale reduction in humanitarian access, or a withdrawal by key organiztions, we will see cataclysmic human destruction.
Darfur is at a tipping point, a very dangerous tipping point.
Name
Daniel Ibn Saad
-
Profession
Graduate student
Question
Why is there such a preoccupation with classifying the travesties in Darfur as "genocide"?
Answer
I'm not sure there is a "preoccupation" with a genocide determination---indeed I think this notion is a red herring, and that compared with other responses to the Darfur crisis, this has not been "time-consuming" or "resource-consuming." I happen to believe that genocide is the ultimate human crime; I also believe on the basis of extensive research that genocide has occurred in Darfur and continues. I've said as much publicly for four years, in a very wide range of publications. See, for example my piece "Unnoticed Genocide" in the Washington Post (February 25, 2004), attached below.
I point this out not because mine was the first public declaration of genocide (though it happened to be that) but because almost all I wrote then is as true today as then. Clearly no characterization of the Darfur atrocities, even the most strenuous, has made a difference in international response. A genocide determination, if accurate or highly plausible, should be a warning call to the international community; in this case it has not been, and Darfur is poised to enter its sixth year of vast human destruction and suffering, defined by massive atrocity crimes that are ethnically targeted (however we characterize them). If there is overwhelming evidence of genocide, we should not wait for an official legal determination in a court of law: if we do, the genocide will be over before it is labeled.
From the Washington Post, again too much is as true today as when it was written four years ago:
The Washington Post (February 25, 2004)
“Unnoticed Genocide” by Eric Reeves
Name
Editor, Mustapha Ajbaili
-
Profession
Question
The session has ended. We would like to thank Mr. Eric Reeves for taking the time to answer your questions, and all those who participated in the dialogue.
