Congress steps on Bush's Darfur applause line

Leaders from both political parties long ago committed themselves to stopping the violence in Darfur, to little effect. "We will call genocide by its rightful name and we will stand up for the innocent until the peace of Darfur is secured," Bush announced last May. Prominent conservatives, like Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist and Sen. Sam Brownback of Kansas, a GOP White House hopeful, have led fact-finding missions to Darfur. Three Democrats in the House have been arrested for protesting in front of the Sudanese embassy. Upon her election as House Speaker, Pelosi attended a Mass commemorating Darfur's fallen children.

Outside observers say that what the nation now needs is a Congress that can force a radical reconsideration of the U.S. approach to Sudan. "The name of the game for Congress is to change the terms of the discussion," says Susan Rice, a former assistant secretary of state for African affairs, who now works at the Brookings Institution. "By a series of hearings, opened and closed, Congress should demand that the administration put forward concrete plans."

John Prendergast, who worked on Africa policy for the Clinton White House, says he does not foresee a realistic military solution to the problems in Sudan, given the politics of the region and the American aversion to large-scale military incursions in Africa. Instead, he has been advocating a renewed effort to place serious international criminal penalties on anyone in the Sudanese government who is complicit in genocide. "Until there is the threat of punitive action, nothing will change," Prendergast said. "Ultimately we have to go after this regime and go after them hard."

As it stands, many Sudanese leaders who have been tied to atrocities are free to travel the world at will. At Wednesday's hearing, Payne said that one Sudanese official who has been directly tied by human rights groups to the genocide, Ali Ahmed Karti, is scheduled to travel to the United States next month to attend the National Prayer Breakfast, a private event sponsored by a Christian nonprofit group. "The sponsors of a prayer breakfast should not invite a man who has blood on his hands to pray with those same hands," Payne said. "It's wrong." Karti, a former general who serves as Sudan's deputy foreign minister, traveled to the United States last year as well, when he reportedly attended a similar prayer breakfast.

There is a growing sense in Congress that a new approach must be found. In recent months, when describing the moral dilemma faced by the Congress and the American people, Wolf has invoked the words of Dietrich Bonhoeffer, a German theologian who was executed by the Nazis. Bonhoeffer, an anti-fascist who helped Jews escape to Switzerland and participated in a plot to kill Hitler, wrote that there was a difference between what he called "cheap grace" and "costly grace." "Cheap grace" he wrote in one of his most famous passages, "is the preaching of forgiveness without requiring repentance." By contrast, explained Wolf, "real grace is that you are willing to pay the price for what you believe in."

Historians tell us that American government has never had "real grace" when it comes to genocide. It stood by as Saddam Hussein gassed his Kurdish countrymen, as Turkish forces slaughtered Armenians, and as the former Yugoslavia initially descended into ethnic cleansing. "No U.S. president has ever made genocide prevention a priority and no U.S. president has ever suffered politically for his indifference," wrote Harvard University professor Samantha Power, in her history of 20th century genocide, "A Problem From Hell."

Though the applause at the State of the Union address offered an encouraging sign for the people of Darfur, it was only symbolic. Wolf and other members of Congress said earlier this month that they hope the public continues to put pressure on the Congress and the White House to do more in Sudan. "I think we could picket the Chinese embassy," he said of one of Sudan's largest financial patrons. "We could picket the Sudanese embassy. There ought to be college kids outside the United Nations every day."

"This thing will come to an end," he added a moment later. "The question is how many more people will die."

Story finder (3 ways to search Salon)

Search terms:

Salon the Web

Salon Directory (browse by topic)