Dueling Over Darfur

3) Has the stress on genocide—which has continued even after the end of large-scale hostilities in early 2005—misrepresented the situation? Has this meant that we have missed more appropriate actions? Does putting Darfur into the same category as the Holocaust and Rwanda mean that we are obliged to do the same for a whole array of ethnic wars and counterinsurgencies across the world?

JOHN PRENDERGAST: Well, at least we agree on your first line: the point of activism is to make a difference. However, we diverge in the starkest of terms on most of your other main points. Let me begin with three general counterpoints:

First, your criticism of the advocacy community seems bizarrely misplaced, when it is the policymakers in Washington, Brussels, London, and Beijing who have been primarily responsible for the failure to confront the crime of genocide and the inability to craft relevant solutions to the complicated crisis in Darfur. Activists seek to raise the alarm bell and to shape the policy priorities of their government. We were not running the failed peace process you were a part of in 2006 that led to an escalation of violence, for example. We just want to see solutions. And we recognize that the actor that is primarily responsible for the mayhem in Darfur is the Sudanese regime and its brutal counterinsurgency campaign that has ruthlessly targeted civilian populations and attempted to divide and destroy the rebel movements and the communities that support them.

Second, hardline rhetoric is problematic only insofar as it hasn't been backed by credible action. That is not the fault of activists. It represents the failure of will on the part of policymakers in Washington particularly who placed other priorities (reserving assets for Iraq, maintaining access to counterterrorism information from the Khartoum regime, and not wanting to upset China, the principal investor in Sudan's oil sector) over undertaking actions necessary to confront genocidal intent. The Khartoum regime figured out the U.S. Government (USG) was willing to bark but not bite, and knew they could literally get away with mass murder, in the face of the empty Washington rhetoric.

Third, I don't think you fully recognize how much activists have indeed made a difference, particularly in the last six months. A divestment movement is growing throughout the U.S. that has led 20 states, numerous universities, and some mutual funds to sell their shares of stock in companies doing business in ways that support genocide. Activist campaigns targeting China's hosting of the "Genocide Olympics" in 2008 have led Beijing to become much more constructive behind the scenes of late. Activists have pressed relentlessly for the deployment of a U.N.-led force to protect civilians in Darfur, and we are almost there. The Bush administration finally decided to take its first bite after all the barking, and imposed further sanctions on the regime a few months ago, signaling that confronting genocide has now taken its rightful place as equal to the other policy imperatives governing relations with Sudan. The list goes on. Frankly, if you removed the advocacy movement from the equation, absolutely nothing would have been done on Sudan. So it's not that activists diverted energies from what otherwise would have been a good approach; rather, we created attention and momentum around a set of issues that would have been ignored, at no cost, otherwise.

Now I would like to turn to some of the specific points in your submission, which I have reviewed with my ENOUGH Project colleagues Colin Thomas-Jensen and Julia Spiegel. (You see, we need a battery of people to tally up the differences of view we have with you!!)

· Your "Hot Air" paragraph has a number of holes. The USG has often been as vocal in its criticism of the rebels as it has of the government (and often disproportionately harsh on the rebels), so it is very suspect to say that U.S. rhetoric emboldened rebel groups to think that a NATO intervention was imminent. Look also at USG sanctions. The USG has imposed sanctions on the rebels as well as NCP [Sudan's ruling National Congress Party] officials. The hot air is blowing in all directions.

"Hot air" without follow-through is what actually emboldens rebels and the NCP alike. As has been the case with the Bush administration's rhetorical advocacy of a no-fly zone, for example, harsh rhetoric without any serious military planning to back it up hands the NCP a propaganda victory. The regime has called the U.S. bluff time and time again, and clearly no one plans to do anything about it. And even with the sanctions, the USG didn't target the key guys responsible for ongoing atrocities, and Washington didn't work aggressively to make them multilateral. That again sends a message to the regime that we're all talk and no walk.