genocide in Darfur
by John at 7/23/2004 08:46:00 AM
Stolen from The Passion of the Present:
US Congress declares genocide in Sudan
At about 9:00 PM EST tonight (Thursday, July 22) the United States Congress House of Representatives voted on the bill "Declaring genocide in Darfur, Sudan" and the vote for the bill was unanimous. At about the same time the Senate, in a unanimous voice vote, also passed its identical version of the bill. These historic votes were among the last of the congressional session, which is now adjurned for six weeks. The full text of the bills is reprinted here.
The vote makes a non-binding recommendation to the President of the United States to, among other things:
This is the first time such a move has been made by the US Congress during the actual committing of a genocide.
- call the atrocities being committed in Darfur, Sudan by its rightful name: 'genocide'
- lead an international effort to prevent genocide in Darfur, Sudan
- seriously consider multilateral or even unilateral intervention to prevent genocide should the United Nations Security Council fail to act
If one of the parties to the Convention decides to call an action genocide, my understanding is it makes all parties to the Convention responsible for preventing the action. Any one nation can make the decision unilaterally that an act is genocidal. I suppose then that the assertion has to be convincing enough that other nations cannot weasel out of the obligations they have set for themselves. To my knowledge, the Convention has never, ever been invoked except after the fact (not that "genocides" haven't been prevented - Kosovo is an example I guess, but I don't think it was ever called genocide).
For a short answer to "when is it OK for the US to act unilaterally?" I'd say "when I think it is." I'm not dogmatic on this issue, and if an action is important enough to me and the only way it will be accomplished is if the US act unilaterally, then that's what I'm for. That said, I'd much prefer it if we could get UN approval for action in Sudan - it protects us from exactly the kind of "imperialist" rhetoric that has troubled us in Iraq, it gives other nations a basis to support our actions, and it gives us allies (and the ability to cover our asses, at least a little) if things start to go badly.
Over lunch I had some second thoughts, which I'll add.
I suppose that I am naive and idealistic enough to think that if the cause the US supports is sensible and correct, then it will also have significant support worldwide. This would make it easier for us to convince other nations, through the diplomatic means available at the UN (and of course, external to the UN in many cases, e.g. NATO, OAS, various other multinational treaty organizations), that they should follow our lead. In other words, if what we want to do is the right thing, we will hardly ever need to act unilaterally.
I agree with the bill. Something needs to be done right away. Unfortunately foreign policy is never easy.
Quotes from Associated Press: "Sudan's foreign minister warned the world against intervening in a bloody conflict in the Darfur region, saying his country would retaliate against foreign troops.....Sudan's Cabinet on Tuesday also condemned the prospect of foreign intervention, saying the country could solve its own problems."
"EU officials did not go so far as to label the killings in Darfur genocide - as the U.S. Congress did last week - because they said they wanted more evidence."
"Russia, Pakistan and China had expressed opposition to the threat of sanctions and called for Sudan to be given sufficient time to meet its commitments."
If only the rest of the world had our conviction on the subject....
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