Rev. Danny Fisher

One week ago, George W. Bush announced that the United States would impose strict sanctions on Sudan, in the hopes of bringing an end to the genocide that has ravaged the Darfur region. The San Francisco Chronicle reports:

“For too long the people of Darfur have suffered at the hands of a government that is complicit in the bombing, murder and rape of innocent civilians,” Bush said. “I promise this to the people of Darfur: The United States will not avert our eyes from a crisis that challenges the conscience of the world.”

The new sanctions ban trade with 31 Sudanese government-run oil companies, two government ministers and a rebel leader suspected of being involved in the violence. Bush said he also will seek tougher sanctions from the Security Council, including an arms embargo over the entire country and a cessation of all military flights over Darfur.

Bush must make good on this last promise in particular. He talks a good game, but the reality is that this move by the United States is not nearly enough.

It is unclear whether Tuesday’s sanctions, designed to prevent Sudanese companies and individuals from doing business in the United States, will have any effect at all.

“The Bush administration has…seriously underestimated what it will take to end the genocide,” said David Rubenstein, director of the Save Darfur Coalition.

[Roberta Cohen, an expert on Sudan at the Brookings Institution, a Washington think tank], called “largely symbolic” the sanctions targeting Ahmad Muhammed Harun, Sudan’s state minister for humanitarian affairs, who has been accused of war crimes in Darfur by the International Criminal Court in The Hague; Awad Ibn Auf, Sudan’s head of military intelligence and security; and Khalil Ibrahim, leader of the Justice and Equality Movement, a rebel group that refused to sign the Darfur Peace Agreement last year.

[...]

American sanctions against Sudan are not enough to halt the bloodshed in Darfur unless these restrictions receive the backing of the U.N. Security Council–and particularly of China, Sudan’s main commercial partner, experts on Sudan warn…Unless the United States persuades other nations to join the effort, “all the unilateral action in the world will not make a difference,” said John Prendergast, an adviser on Sudan at the International Crisis Group and a senior Africa specialist in the Clinton administration.

Some of the individuals interviewed for the Chronicle‘s piece express doubts about the possibility or success of multilateral effort, however.

So far, only Britain has supported Bush’s intention to impose sanctions and to ask the Security Council to punish Sudan with penalties. It is highly unlikely that other Security Council members would agree to such measures, said Roberta Cohen, an expert on Sudan at the Brookings Institution, a Washington think tank. Such penalties would broaden the existing Security Council embargos and sanctions, which have been poorly enforced.

U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said Tuesday he needed more time to promote peace negotiations between Darfur rebels and the government in Khartoum, and to persuade Sudan to accept more peacekeepers.

It is clear, however, that immediate action is necessary. With over 400,000 people murdered, 2.5 million displaced, countless others raped and abused, and the numbers growing every day, something must be done right now. For those who feel as I do, putting economic pressure on Sudan is the most pragmatic option–provided the Security Council works harder to enforce existing embargos and sanctions and accommodate new ones. As The Phoenix explains:

Now that the United States is hopelessly mired in Iraq and stalemated–if not losing ground–in Afghanistan, the long-shot hope that the US would intervene has evaporated. It is true that the United Nations does a credible job of providing humanitarian aid in Darfur, but it does not have the political or military will to stop the terror. Neither do the European Union and NATO have the stomachs or the spines to step in. And intervention by African nations is a pipe dream. That which [New York Times columnist Nicholas Kristof], writing in the New York Review of Books, has called “genocide in slow motion” grinds on with no end in site.

The best hope of curtailing the slaughter, and perhaps even ending the genocide, now rests with the international financial community. Oil profits, which are used to fund genocide in Darfur, are Sudan’s only substantial source of revenue.

This being the case, the members of the U.N. Security Council, and in particular China, are in unique position to effect change in the region. As the Chronicle continues:

Of all the Security Council members, China is best positioned to put pressure on Sudan. It buys two-thirds of Sudan’s oil exports and sells Khartoum weapons, which Amnesty International has said are used in the Darfur conflict–a charge China denies. But it is also the least likely to change its mind, and has blocked the sending of peacekeepers without Sudanese consent.

With China being both the “best positioned” and “least likely” to end this conflict through economic pressure, groups like the Save Darfur Coalition have been working tirelessly to see to it that the “least likely” part changes, hence campaigns calling for major corporations to divest in Sudanese businesses. As The Phoenix explains:

The Save Darfur Coalition is mounting a campaign to pressure corporations and investors…to divest in Sudan–just as opponents of apartheid in the 1980s targeted companies who conducted business in and with South Africa. Success is mounting: just a few weeks ago, the British aerospace firm Rolls-Royce, which has supplied engines to oil firms in Sudan for the past five years, announced it is pulling out of Sudan. That came on the heels of a similar announcement by two of Europe’s largest companies, German engineering giant Siemens and the Switzerland-based ABB Limited energy company.

On May 25, Fidelity Investments also announced that it was selling 91 percent of its stock in PetroChina, a subsidiary of the China National Petroleum Corporation.

[To get involved with divestment campaings at the university, asset manager, city, state, and national levels, visit the Sudan Divestment Task Force online at http://www.sudandivestment.org.]

Efforts such as these might influence China’s position on the Security Council, but so might models of leadership from other nations, which is why the Save Darfur Coalition oversees both divestment campaigns and petitions to encourage more action from our government.

One such petition, currently headlining the Save Darfur Coalition’s website, calls on George W. Bush and his administration to take an even greater role in encouraging multinational sanctions from the other members of the Security Council. I encourage you to sign it here.

At this point, I think any and every little bit helps.