As the Democratic presidential primary campaign limps on, and the cacophony of focus-grouped sound bites strikes a fevered pitch, the candidates are making surprisingly little noise about Darfur.
Candidates on Darfur
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Darfur
The Future of Peacekeeping
Peace operations continue to be one of the most visible areas of activity of the United Nations, one which the international organization can have a critical impact. Consider, for instance, that peacekeeping operations are growing. In October 2004, the surge in peacekeeping activity raised the number of peacekeepers to 54,200. The number of civilian police also increased to 5,900 and the civilian staff to 11,600. By the fall of 2005, the 18 operations around the world employed 83,000 troops, police, and civilian personnel – a more-or-less fivefold increase in the field personnel since 2000. By the fall of 2006, the deployment number had reached an all-time high of 93,000 men and women.
At the same time, peacekeeping operations are becoming more complex and comprehensive. In particular, with many of their tasks increasingly focusing on peacebuilding in post-conflict transitions, peace operations are now linked to longer-term development approaches, which call for integrated programs both within and outside the UN system. The UN Peacebuilding Commission was created to meet these new needs by strategically coordinating the actions of the different actors involved in peacekeeping.
Changing The Subject
In their recent Foreign Policy In Focus piece, “Divestment: Solution or Diversion?” activists Kevin Funk and Steve Fake criticize Sudan divestment as an ineffective diversion from the real bugaboo: Israel. If the “worst offending” companies bankrolling the Sudanese government’s genocide in Darfur are not based in the United States, Funk and Fake reason, the process of influencing companies and the Sudanese regime will inevitably be “convoluted.”
Efficacy, Wind-Blowing, and the Favored Villain
We would like to thank Daniel Millenson for his contribution to this dialogue on divesting from Sudan. Both the idea of linking investment decisions with human rights as well as the targeted nature of this campaign, reflecting a concern to avoid harming civilians, are commendable.
Divestment: Solution or Diversion?
Evoking memories of global activism against apartheid in South Africa, the Save Darfur movement is aiming to address the humanitarian crisis in the beleaguered region by campaigning for divestment from certain companies operating in Sudan.
Divestment: Ending the Genocide in Darfur
When confronted by the crime of genocide, human rights activists do not typically dash to state capitols. Since 1787, foreign policy has remained outside states’ bailiwick, with Congress and the President serving as more appropriate venues for foreign policymaking. So when the United States declared the atrocities unfolding in Sudan’s vast Darfur region to constitute genocide in 2004, activists rightly responded by flooding Congressional mailboxes and crowding the Washington Mall, demanding an end to the violence.
Darfur: The Other Anniversary
Hope in Darfur
On July 31, the UN Security Council (UNSC) passed resolution 1769 authorizing the creation of a 20,000-strong peacekeeping force to be deployed to the Darfur region of Sudan. This resolution has been hailed as a historic landmark on the way to fulfilling the “responsibility to protect” established in humanitarian law. Supporters of the resolution believe that this peacekeeping force will end the ongoing genocide, which has left 7,000 civilians dead each month.
Saving Darfur or Salvation Delusion?
Banner of hands for Darfur, from September 9, 2006 rally in Washington, DC. Courtesy of Genocide Intervention Network.
China in Africa: Its (Still) the Governance, Stupid
Deep inside the tropical forest of Gabon, 500 miles from the coast, China is going where no other investors dare. A Chinese consortium, led by the China National Machinery and Equipment Import and Export Corporation, has won the contract to develop Gabon’s massive Belinga iron ore deposit. In return for purchasing the entire output, Chinese operators will build not only the extractive infrastructure at Belinga but a hydro-electric dam to power it, a railway to the coast, and a deepwater port north of the capital, Libreville, for exporting the ore.