Crib Sheet: Sudan

An average of 320 people die every single day in Sudan. That’s about 10,000 people every month. According to the WHO, 70,000 displaced Darfuris died between March and October 2004, but outside analysts now estimate that "more than 400,000 have been killed or perished from disease" since the violence began in Feb 2003.

The recent State Department memo on Human Rights found "genocide had been committed in Darfur, and the Government and the Janjaweed bore responsibility." There are daily reports of rapes, mutilations, torture, beatings and murder. U.N. Secretary General Kofi Annan described the situation last week as "little short of hell on earth."  Yet so far, the response from the White House has been shockingly muted and indefensibly passive.

Here are a few things you need to know:

KHARTOUM CULPABLE: The government of Sudan has claimed it has no link to the ongoing and systematic murder, rapes and torture. The LA Times reports, however, that one of the top leaders of the murderous militia groups is now acknowledging the government not only knew about the genocide but has been directing it. Militia leader Musa Hilal told Human Rights Watch that his group of killers was following orders from Sudan’s government and military. "All of the people in the field are led by top army commanders…These people get their orders from the western command center and from Khartoum."

ANOTHER MISSED OPPORTUNITY: In her whirlwind tour of Europe in February, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice remained noticeably quiet about the situation in Sudan, missing a prime opportunity to rally support to stop the killing spree. President Bush also had little to say during his trip. He missed an equally important opportunity to hold Russian President Vladimir Putin publicly accountable for resisting U.N. efforts to punish the Sudanese government. Putin has tried to sanction efforts because Russia is a major arms supplier to Sudan. The resulting backslide by the U.N. Security Council since it threatened sanctions last summer has allowed the situation in Darfur to deteriorate rapidly.

SAVING CASH FOR CONTRACTORS: One reason that some of the funds for the African Union have been held up: a big chunk of the money has remained in the United States to pay private military contractors. Detouring work through outside private contracting groups (which, after all, are in it to make a profit) drains precious resources, is overly expensive, notoriously slow and an inefficient use of money. Nevertheless, the State Department has allocated over $20 million to Pacific Architects and Engineers (PAE), which has a "record of allegedly overcharging the United Nations in the Democratic Republic of the Congo," and DynCorp, a company officially sanctioned in Afghanistan for overly aggressive behavior, investigated for sex trafficking in the Balkans, and suspected of drug running in South America.

AFRICAN UNION FACES TROUBLE: The mass murder in Sudan is being monitored by African Union peacekeepers. As Nicholas Kristoff points out, however, "The African Union doesn’t have the troops, firepower or mandate to actually stop the slaughter, just to monitor it." Today, there are barely over 1,000 troops deployed to cover a region roughly the size of France. Last September, Sen. Corzine joined forces with Sen. Mike DeWine (R-OH) to pass an amendment that would provide $75 million to help the African Union peacekeepers. That money has been set aside, but it has yet to be distributed. No money means no new troops and, according to Adrian McIntyre, of the international relief agency Oxfam, "Every day they’re not deployed means another day that hundreds of thousands of civilians in Darfur remain vulnerable to violent attacks."

BLOCKING THE ICC: One of the key steps to stopping genocide is beginning to prosecute the perpetrators. But the White House has wasted precious time engaged in political bickering over what kind of court should be used. The U.N. and the European Union have both strongly backed using the International Criminal Court. The ICC was established in 2002 to try cases of war crimes and genocide exactly like this. The Bush administration, however, has thrown on the brakes. Why? The White House doesn’t like the ICC and wants to put together an ad hoc tribunal to deal with it instead. The result is a bottleneck that will delay U.N. action for weeks "at a time when an estimated 320 people are dying in Darfur each day."

CONGRESS REMAINS IN THE LEAD: On March 2, 2005, Senators Jon Corzine and Sam Brownback stepped up to fill the leadership vacuum left by the Bush administration by introducing the Darfur Accountability Act. The act calls for specific and urgently needed actions including: calling for a presidential envoy for Sudan to work with the international community to stop the killings; establishing a military no-fly zone to stop the Sudanese government from bombing civilians; expanding the African Union force; freezing the assets of those responsible for the crimes; extending the arms embargo to Sudan; and calling for new sanctions by the U.N. Security Council.