No peacekeepers, no peace

How has the U.N. responded?

The international community remains essentially paralyzed. Monday, there were some extremely strong comments from [U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan, his strongest statement to date: "Can the international community having not done enough for the people of Rwanda in their time of need, just watch as this tragedy deepens? Can we contemplate failing yet another test? Lessons are either learned or not. Principles are either upheld or scorned. This is no time for the middle ground of half measures or further debate."

This is ironic coming from a man who has dithered for over two years, but that is language that is unmistakably inviting the international community to move robustly to fashion a declaration that the United Nations will deploy [its forces].

The African Union's cease-fire monitoring mission is set to end on Sept. 30. What happens if that mission expires without U.N. forces coming in?

Many people do not believe they will leave, for various reasons. The primary reason is that they are incapable of leaving. Deploying out of the country is not simple. It costs money. It requires organization. The African Union has no plan. It has no logistical outline. It has no resources. It has no leadership. It doesn't even have a spokesman who will declare we have no way of exiting. It's in total chaos. It's a shambles, and if for no other reason, they will not be able to deploy.

The real question is whether they will defy Khartoum and say: "We now accept our being 'blue-hatted.' We accept that we now, however weak we may be, are the U.N." Khartoum has said that if they become U.N. they must leave.

We'll know a lot more about that when the A.U.[African Union] gathers prior to the convening of the General Assembly of the U.N. on the 18th [of September]. The A.U. is certainly eager to have money and resources, and they deserve it. At the same time, the A.U. is incompetent. It always has been. It's badly led, badly organized. It has no mandate appropriate to the situation on the ground. It clearly must be replaced by a more robust force.

Chicago Tribune correspondent Paul Salopek was set free last weekend by the Sudanese authorities. What was the significance of his imprisonment, and release?

It sends a very clear signal: 'Do not think about coming in from Chad to Darfur. We will arrest you.' Khartoum had no intention of keeping him. They made their message, and then released him under the highest-profile circumstances possible. The governor of New Mexico travels and gets him released. There is no advantage to Khartoum in keeping him. To some extent, they get the benefit of being seen as the guys who released him. But they're sending a message, as they're sending a message by refusing to grant visas to news reporters.

Look at how few reporters are on the ground in North Darfur. Look at the datelines. We have almost no Darfur datelines anymore. Of course, this is in Khartoum's interest. They don't want this next massive phase to be witnessed, either by journalists or by humanitarians. Virtually all humanitarians have now been withdrawn from North Darfur, at least in areas outside El Fasher. When Jan Egeland, head of U.N. aid operations, briefed the U.N. Security Council on August 28th, he said: "We could see hundreds of thousands of people die needlessly."

What do you think that the U.N. should do at this juncture to prevent that from happening?

It must make clear it will deploy as rapidly as possible with or without Khartoum's consent, and it must seek out the first-world military resources that would allow for a robust deployment in the near term to begin to protect humanitarians, humanitarian quarters and vulnerable camps, and to begin to produce a military stand-down by Khartoum.

Make no mistake about it: Khartoum would stand down militarily. These guys are not going to fight first-world military resources. They're not well-trained. They're not well-motivated. They don't have a good officer corps, and they would be annihilated, and they know it, if they were confronted with a determined first-world NATO-quality brigade.

Certainly, there would be some symbolic spilling of Islamic blood. You can be sure there would be enough resistance so that the blood of Sudanese martyrs could be trumpeted. But there would be a military stand-down. They would not fight.

The Janjaweed [local militias backed by the Sudanese government] would also disperse, at least in the very large numbers in which they've been aggregating. The Janjaweed are not a real military force. They have military power only when they aggregate in the hundreds of thousands. These guys ride on camels and horseback shooting Kalashnikovs. At a distance of 2 kilometers they would be annihilated by a first-world force. And if they don't know it, they would find it out very quickly.

What should the United States do?

The U.S. should be pushing with every bit of diplomatic and political leverage at its disposal to force China into a position where it must accede to international will and must go along with a resolution authorizing immediate deployment, with or without Khartoum's consent. The key task is to bring about a change of position on China's part, which looks at Sudan only though the lens of its oil production interests in southern Sudan.

Are officials in Khartoum refusing to let U.N. troops in because they're afraid of being tried for war crimes in the Hague?

They know that there is so much evidence against them that there is no way if they're extradited they could ever survive a trial without multiple life sentences. So, they have nothing to lose on that score. They're guilty. They know they're guilty of genocide. They want to complete the genocide for political purposes.

The International Criminal Court in the Hague has more than enough evidence now. There is no senior member of the National Islamic Front who would not receive multiple life sentences if actually tried in the Hague. These guys have absolutely no intention of allowing any Sudanese witness or accused to go to the Hague.

Their primary goal in keeping the U.N. out is to ensure there is no obstruction to the instrumental counterinsurgency genocide. They mean to finish this business once and for all.

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