Teddy Teacher's Homecoming

The Mail's leader says all that is needed over "how Britain has allowed itself to be manipulated and humiliated by a deeply amoral and tyrannical regime" over the Muhammad bear incident:

We have allowed Sudan's rulers to present themselves as behaving mercifully. The two peers who flew to Khartoum will be seen as representatives of our Parliament bending the knee.

The appeasing Foreign Office has been as hopeless handling Mrs Gibbons as it has in preventing the genocide in Darfur.

The Sudanese government, with its Janjaweed militia allies, have murdered 200,000 of their own citizens, and displaced 2million more. But despite endless international hand-wringing, the situation in Darfur is as bad as ever.

Meanwhile, Britain is one of the most generous donors to Sudan. Over the past five years, ministers have provided £333million in aid to the country; this year, we are giving another £110million.

Yet in return, we have neither managed to stop the obscenity of Darfur, nor apparently can we even protect our citizens from politically inspired malice.

Rather than kow-towing to this dreadful regime, we should cut off aid flows, insist that the UN stops dithering and puts a proper peacekeeping force on the ground, and enforce real sanctions on the country.

Dictators will never understand appeasement. Only strength of purpose.

When Strategic Interests Conflict

What's the difference between human rights abuses in China and human rights abuses in Turkey? On one the US is willing to ignore threats from its counterpart, bestowing the Congressional Gold Medal, its highest civilian honour on the exiled Tibetan spiritual leader, the Dalai Lama today. On the other the US is backing off from legislation approved last week by a congressional panel to call a vote on a measure declaring the World War I-era killings of Armenians by Ottoman Turks an act of genocide.

The proximity of Turkey to the ongoing conflict in Iraq might explain the apparent inconsistency...

Majority Favour Military Intervention

Here are the results of our last poll on military interventionism abroad. From the total number of votes, it is clear that far fewer of you than usual were prepared or felt able to express an opinion either way. However, of those that did do so, a majority were at least in favour of the principle of intervening to prevent genocide or to defend the human rights of others, even if not everyone agreed whether the conditions for intervention had been reached in either Sudan or Zimbabwe. I wonder whether anyone thinks such an approach should be taken to protect the freedom of those protesting against two decades' oppression by the military junta in Burma...?

In 2000, British troops salvaged the UN operation in Sierra Leone. Should we now take military action in either Darfur or Zimbabwe?

Yes, both.  36% (8 votes)

Only Sudan.  5% (1 votes)

Only Zimbabwe.  27% (6 votes)

No, neither.  32% (7 votes)

Total voters for this poll: 22

Make sure you take our new poll on the review of self-defence legislation.

Responsibility to Protect

Two generations ago, the United Nations promised in its 1945 Charter, "We the people of the United Nations, determined to save succeeding generations from the scrouge of war..." Just two years ago, in its International Responsibility to Protect Doctrine, it determined that "the principle of non-intervention yields to the international responsibility to protect." More than six weeks ago, the Security Council agreed its "historic" Resolution 1706, later followed by President Sarkozy and Prime Minister Brown's call for action in Darfur.

So why, one might reasonably ask, is it still left down to thousands of grassroots activists across the world to urge the United Nations, "Don't Look Away Now"? The world's fourth Day for Darfur, tomorrow, prompts me to reproduce a letter that I wrote to The Times almost exactly a year ago:

We need action to avoid slaughter in Sudan

The Sudanese Government claims that any UN peacekeepers sent to save lives in Darfur would represent a threat to the country’s national sovereignty.

Yet, for more than a year, 10,000 UN forces have been in Sudan, and the Sudanese Government has made no claim that these troops interfere with its sovereignty. The difference is that, until now, the mandate of these Unamis forces has not included the protection of civilians’ lives.

During its World Summit last September the UN took the bold step of revising the principle of non-interference enshrined in its charter, asserting that it has a responsibility “to help protect populations from genocide, war crimes, ethnic cleansing and crimes against humanity”.

However, in truth, it already had the authority to uphold human rights where member states have conferred sovereignty on the UN through international treaties and covenants. If the UN is going to be able to take effective action against genocidal regimes, then it must now also redefine the concept of national sovereignty.

Sovereignty surely belongs to and is bestowed on governments by the people of a country, and any regime that violates the rights of the people under it so as to strengthen its grip on power should not be considered sovereign.

Failure to address this issue will inevitably mean that the UN will remain paralysed when confronted with obstructive, tyrannical regimes and Sudan will become but the first genocide of the 21st century, not the last.

Note: As I have observed previously, even now that the UN has agreed to send in additional troops, their remit excludes adequate monitoring and enforcement mechanisms, they are to be referred to as an "operation" rather than a "force," and they will only be able to protect civilians deemed to be under threat. So, the Sudanese Government need not worry unduly about its "national sovereignty" being threatened...

Sarkozy & Brown's Darfur Push

"It is the combination of a ceasefire, a peacekeeping force, economic reconstruction and the threat of sanctions that can bring a political solution to the region –– and we will spare no efforts in making this happen."

At first glance, the call in today's Times (and Le Monde) by Gordon Brown and French President Nicolas Sarkozy for intense action to secure a ceasefire in Darfur appears a welcome step towards stopping the genocide in Sudan. They acknowledge that the ceasefire "cannot on its own resolve such a complex conflict" and that "we need a political settlement that addresses the root causes of the violence." They also go further than last month's UN Resolution 1769 in that they threaten "further sanctions against those who fail to fulfil their commitments, obstruct the political process or continue to violate the ceasefire." They are also right to "look beyond Darfur, to the issues affecting Sudan and the region," including the need for better security and greater humanitarian assistance among the hundreds of thousands of people fleeing the conflict across the border into Chad.

And yet, underneath, they seem to be accepting a number of false presuppositions:

• They describe the weak UNAMID operation as the deployment of a "robust force," though it has no authority to disarm the militias or to pursue and arrest suspected war criminals indicted by the International Criminal Court.
• They make reference to the meeting of Darfur's rebel groups in Tanzania earlier this month, but neglect to mention that the Sudanese Government's subsequent escalation of violence is already causing the rebels to reconsider attending full negotiations.
• They also make no mention of breaches in existing sanctions, notably by China and Russia, including photographs (such as the one above) published by Amnesty International just last Friday showing military equipment being supplied by Russia at West Darfur's Geneina airport.
• Perhaps most fundamentally, they appear to believe that a political solution will be the inevitable outcome of the supposed ceasefire and the recently agreed peacekeeping force, whereas in reality a political solution must be found first if any ceasefire is to hold.

To quote both Rodolphe Adada, the new UN-AU mission head, and Mark Kroeker, the retiring UN police chief, once again, although UNAMID is sure to be one of the main tools for forwarding peace in Darfur, "it's only a peace operation — you need to have peace to keep," and "The countries that have been talking about Darfur need to now do something about Darfur with their deployment of police in probably the most desperate place in the world."

Olympic Boycott

Edward McMillan-Scott, Conservative MEP for Yorkshire & the Humber and a vice-president of the European Parliament, is calling for a Europe-wide debate on whether athletes should boycott the Beijing Olympics in response to continuing evidence of persecution, and even genocide, in China. He says, "The civilised world must seriously consider shunning China - and using the Beijing Olympics to send the clear message that such abuses of human rights are not acceptable."

What do you think? Should British athletes stay away next year? Take the poll in the sidebar and leave any further thoughts in the comments.

See also: The Genocide Olympics and Olympics Rights Torches

More Darfur Dithering

"China appeals to all parties to maintain restraint and patience."

Over what, you might ask? Proposed new sanctions against Sudan, which the Chinese claim, "would only complicate the issue" — by which they presumably mean the issue of Chinese economic interests and their sale of weapons and aircraft to Khartoum.

In contrast, President Bush ordered new American sanctions against Sudan on Tuesday and is demanding new United Nations sanctions to pressure the Sudanese government to halt the bloodshed in Darfur. The American President insists, "We will continue to insist on the full implementation of the Darfur peace agreement. We will continue to promote a broadly supported and inclusive political settlement that is the only long-term solution to the crisis in Darfur." However, like China, UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon says he wants more time for diplomacy and last month urged Britain to delay a push for tougher sanctions.

Once again, we are left wondering what it will take before the international community takes the effective action that is so desperately needed.

Beckett Condones Chinese Genocide Support

Zimbabwe, Sudan and Burma, three of the world's most oppressive regimes, all benefit from Chinese aid and trade. For instance, China sells the Sudanese government military equipment and purchases two-thirds of Sudan's oil exports. Given the country's economic interests, it is perhaps unsurprising that China should continue to use its veto on the United Nations Security Council to block efforts to send peacekeepers to Darfur.

However, even I am astonished by the support expressed by our own Foreign Secretary, Margaret Beckett, for China's role in financing the Sudanese genocide: "I noticed there have been some criticism of China, but actually China has played a really quite positive role, particularly in the negotiation of the Darfur peace agreement."

One would have hoped that the Foreign Secretary, who is in the middle of a six-day visit to China, would be able to exert some pressure on her Chinese counterpart that it would be in China's interests to adopt a more principled and ethical approach to its foreign affairs. However, Mrs Beckett is clearly even less likely to achieve any results in this area than will Wednesday's call by the United States Congress for China to use its economic leverage with Sudan to stop the violence.

The American resolution noted that the spirit of the Olympics is "incompatible with any actions supporting acts of genocide," but a defiant Beijing is so far rejecting attempts to use the conflict to "politicise the Olympic Games."

Time is Up - Protect Darfur

Ahead of tomorrow's global protests to mark the fourth anniversary of the conflict in Darfur, and clearly not appreciating that the time for mere talk has long passed, Tony Blair has yet again threatened "tougher action" against Sudan's government and rebels if they fail to act to end the crisis in Darfur.

The LibDem's Lynne Featherstone says all that's necessary in response:

"It is clear that what we are witnessing in Darfur is genocide. The British Government and the international community cannot continue to watch as this catastrophe unfolds in front of them. A no-fly zone, a proper and extensive arms embargo, targeted travel bans and asset seizures as well as meaningful sanctions are all essential yet the Government has so far done nothing. What will it take before this country takes the effective action that is so desperately needed?"

Calling Things By Their Names

"Following World War One, during which one million Armenians were murdered in Turkey, Polish lawyer Raphael Lemkin urged the League of Nations to recognize crimes of barbarity as international crimes."

A United Nations exhibit that was supposed to be opened by U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon yesterday has been delayed following Turkish objections to the inclusion of the above sentence. Speaking on the thirteenth anniversary of the Rwanda genocide in which 800,000 Rwandans were slaughtered in an orchestrated campaign, Mr Ban called for a "global partnership against genocide" and made the U.N. special adviser for the prevention of genocide a full-time post.

Meanwhile, evidently more comfortable arguing over history than taking concerted action on the subject, the international body is still waiting for approval from the Sudanese government to send in U.N. troops to Darfur.