Obama must halt starvation in Darfur

Between 1991 and 1993, I traveled extensively as a human rights monitor in what became known as the “starvation triangle” in southeastern Sudan. A third of a million southern Sudanese civilians perished in those swamps and savannas, primarily due to the extended periods when the Sudanese government would cut off all access to humanitarian aid to the areas it was trying to pacify militarily.

In makeshift clinics throughout the starvation triangle, I watched one child after another expire due to the cessation of food and medical aid. Only a few years into his reign, President Omar al-Bashir had learned that starvation was an effective weapon of war.

On March 4, hours after the International Criminal Court issued its arrest warrant for President Bashir for crimes against humanity in Darfur, my heart sank when I heard that his reaction was to expel a number of aid agencies from the most vulnerable areas of Darfur. I knew immediately that the death tolls would skyrocket unless governments all over the world — led by the United States — stood up to this deliberate withholding of the basics needed to sustain life for hundreds of thousands of people.

Bashir’s cold calculus is already having an impact on the overcrowded camps that house an estimated 2.5 million Darfuri civilians. More than 1 million people have stopped receiving food assistance, and at least 1.5 million have lost access to health and nutrition services. As I write, water supplies are running out, disease is spreading, and children are going hungry.

The regime in Sudan appears willing to begin the next phase of what ultimately will be universally understood as the genocidal destruction of the non-Arab people of Darfur. The government’s expulsion of aid agencies is the latest tactic in a continuing strategy aimed at — as the Genocide Convention states — bringing about the conditions for the destruction in whole or in part of a particular group of people on the basis of their identity. This denial of aid has the potential to be far more deadly than the earlier phase of village burnings by the janjaweed militias.

This is not a hysterical assertion. During the war in southern Sudan, the denial of humanitarian aid was the regime’s favored tactic. More than five times as many people died in southern Sudan as in Darfur. This difference is primarily due to long periods in which the regime turned off the aid tap. This tactic could be even more deadly in Darfur because the population is concentrated in displaced camps, where people are much more dependent on food aid and where untreated diseases spread like wildfire. Without aid, mortality rates will explode.

The Khartoum regime is testing the limits of what it can get away with. During the days of the starvation triangle, the international community was divided over Khartoum’s killing and confused by the complexities on the ground in southern Sudan. Sound familiar? The division continues today in Darfur, with many diplomats overwhelmed by Darfur’s complexities. Meanwhile, the regime thrives, and Sudanese civilians continue to die.

The international response to Sudan urgently needs an injection of vision, strategic leadership and steely resolve.

The Obama administration can provide all the above. On the campaign trail, candidate Obama talked about the transformative potential of diplomacy. His vice president, secretary of state and U.N. ambassador all have spoken forcefully about the need to back up our principles with pressure and — when necessary — targeted military action.

This remarkable confluence of personnel and principle cannot afford to wait another day, much less for a lengthy policy review.

First, President Obama’s new special envoy, Gen. Scott Gration, and other top administration officials should undertake a full-court diplomatic press to build an international coalition to counter the Khartoum regime’s use of starvation as a weapon of war.

The Obama administration should also work privately to have Bashir removed as president and work publicly to build a credible peace process for Sudan. Military options should be fully considered in order to provide leverage for the diplomacy to work. These measures could include consulting with NATO allies on a no-fly zone and working with the Security Council on a resolution expanding the U.N. peacekeeping force to guarantee the safe delivery of relief supplies. Other coercive measures may be necessary.

Obama’s first major test in Africa has begun. The Sudanese regime will either use starvation as a weapon or not depending largely on how the Obama administration responds.

If the response is inadequate, and the Khartoum regime is not deterred, hundreds of thousands of Darfurians will die.

•John Prendergast is co-founder of Enough, the project to end genocide and crimes against humanity, at the Center for American Progress, a progressive Washington think tank.