Africa must end silence on Darfur: Wole Soyinka

[gottaB]

ADDIS ABABA, July 2 (Reuters) - Nigerian Nobel laureate Wole Soyinka denounced African governments on Friday for what he called their silence on Sudan's Darfur crisis and habit of closing ranks in the face of foreign criticism.

"The silence of African governments over this issue is unacceptable," Soyinka told a news conference about curbs on the press in Africa.

"This business of solidarity with criminality is a contradiction in terms. The African Union, the African nations and the media must denounce what is happening in Sudan today. There is no other word for it but genocide."

Africa must end silence on Darfur....

[gottaB]

1. Here are some editorials following the AU summit

• Government Must Come Clean, from the Times of Zambia.
  
  
• Darfur: The Open Sore of the Contintent by Obi Nwakanma, for the Vanguard. Nwakanma take a strong anti-Arab position which I think is questionable from several angles, but his conclusion is one I am coming to agree with, and his viewpoint is one that should not be lightly dismissed.
  
  
• AU: Matching Words With Action, from the Cameroon Tribune. Looks at the problem of funding AU peacekeepers and the AU in general.
  
  
• Omotoso at Large :Avoid Another Rwanda in Sudan, from the Vanguard. Urges involvement by AU under Obasanjo's leadership.
  
  

[Lithos]

2. A lot of the problem is funding

These countries are generally so poor that the costs of maintaining a regional force capable of dealing with the issue makes any real effort prohibitive. However, that still doesn't explain the political silence.

As for the US, I am afraid that our own efforts until recently have been pure lip service. It took quite a bit of wrangling by Congressional Democrats who finally embarrassed the Shrub administration into doing something.

[gottaB]

3. I agree, funding is paramount, but not the only problem

Read another editorial this week, from Botswana.

African Leaders Play the Fiddle While Sudan Burns

Van Rensberg offers a thumbnail sketch of Sudan's political history, the succession of democratic and undemocratic governments. Obviously this is going to be a difficult problem to solve.

[Darranar]

4. Didn't the African Union do something about it?

Nothing more than a token gesture, telling a few dozens of soldiers tasked to help the aid process to protect civilians if they were being targeted, but something nevertheless.

Don't remember the details, could well be wrong about most or all of this.

[gottaB]

5. Yes, the AU pledged 300 peacekeepers

And they are trying to mediate peace talks between the JEM, SLA and the government of Sudan. Those aren't going so well at present.

The main job of the peacekeepers is to protect the 60 odd cease-fire monitors, who have been under fire. There is some confusion about their mandate, but I think you're right, they will be charged with protecting civilians.

In any case, there is no genuine cease fire, and the force of 300 is woefully inadequate. Mark Lacey in this morning's New York Times (posted by me in lbn) tells of an incident of a school being burned down, and how the AU monitors arrived on the scene to find the charred remains of eight school girls in chains. A force of 3000 might be able to prevent such atrocities. 30,000 would definitely be effective.

So the question remains, are African leaders truly committed to resolving this crisis? Funding is indeed an issue, but, as critics will note, some AU member states are more than happy to spend money on their own military adventures. From a panafricanist perspective, it's a question of whether AU members are truly committed to the path of greater democratization, peace, and respect for human rights, and whether the AU can be a useful body for achieving these shared goals, or, on the other hand, whether the AU will become just another club for despots, loathe to upset the status quo.

At the moment I'm guardedly optimistic about the AU. I think external funding for the AU's Peace and Security Council is in order, if for no other reason than that foreign powers have a security interest in resolving conflicts in Africa. There also needs to be more support from opinion leaders like Soyinka, as well as political leaders, to make sure that the AU doesn't degenerate into fecklessness and irrelevancy.

[Darranar]

6. Thanks, quite interesting...

300 is far too few to do much of anything though, any hope from this delegation will likely be in regard to the negotiations.