WSJ Op-Ed Darfur

The Wall Street Journal

April 5, 2006

COMMENTARY

Darfur

BY PAUL RUSESABAGINA
April 5, 2006; Page A20

History shows us that genocides can happen only if four important conditions are in place. There must be the cover of a war. Ethnic grievances must be manipulated and exaggerated. Ordinary citizens must be deputized by their government to become executioners. And the rest of the world must be persuaded to look away and do nothing. This last is the most shameful of all, especially so because genocide is happening again right now in Darfur and the world community has done precious little to stop the killings.

What is happening in Darfur is exactly what happened in my home country of Rwanda, which was left to choke on its own blood from April to July of 1994.

The United Nations took virtually no action during the genocide. A detachment of well-equipped peacekeepers, made up of less than one-twentieth of the American troops now stationed in Iraq, could have easily stopped the killings without risk and sent the powerful message that the world would no longer tolerate mass murders of civilians, a real expression of the phrase "Never Again." But this simple act was deemed, then and now, to be somehow beyond the power of the United Nations, the United States, NATO, the European community and everybody else with the real power to stop another holocaust.

There are now about 7,000 soldiers from the African Union stationed in Sudan, which is mostly an exercise in public relations. They lack helicopters, jeeps and firepower. More importantly, they lack a sense of purpose. There are no clear rules of engagement and many of the soldiers appear more interested in collecting their per diem payments than inserting themselves between the government-backed Janjaweed militia and their victims in the farming villages. The African Union recently said it will stay into September, and a handover to the United Nations might take place at that point. By that time, the genocide will have lasted for three years with a likely half-million dead, or more.

(snip)

The real lesson here is that the United Nations is not only in need of reform but also a basic rethinking of its peacekeeping philosophy. World governments must agree that the extinction of a race is a crime worth stopping at any cost, and back up this sentiment with action. And the U.N. Security Council must create a tool that it has lacked for far too long -- a small multinational "rapid response" force which can quickly airlift tanks, jeeps, helicopters and troops to spots where the evidence of genocide is overwhelming.

(snip)

Mr. Rusesabagina is the author, with Tom Zoellner, of "An Ordinary Man," published this week by Viking. The film "Hotel Rwanda," was based on his personal story as a hotel manager who saved the lives of numerous Tutsis by offering them refuge in the Hotel Milles Collines in Kigali, Rwanda. A recipient of the National Civil Rights Museum's 2005 Freedom Award, he lives in Brussels.

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