Wednesday, July 25, 2007

An Ugly Compromise

At the UN, Britain and France have circulated a watered-down draft of a resolution to authorise a joint African Union-UN peacekeeping force for Darfur. The watering down involves dropping the threat of sanctions against Sudan, if it doesn't let the troops in. It's because other African countries weren't happy with that.

Sudan claims the new draft is still "very ugly" but the only thing ugly about it, is the extent to which the major western countries have backed down. The rest of the world's been pressing Sudan to accept a proper peacekeeping force in Darfur for yonks, and despite various agreements and promises, still nothing. Besides, with hundreds of thousands dead and millions left homeless, the idea that there's actually any peace to keep is pretty laughable. The big western powers should fund and equip a much more powerful African Union force, and send it in regardless of what Sudan says.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

The stumbling block appears to be China's reluctance to support (or at least not veto) the Security Council resolution because they don't want to set a precedent that human rights abuses can be used to justify interference in a country's sovereignty.

There's talk on the news about various countries using the Olympics as a way of embarrassing China - presumably some kind of boycott.

What with that and the tensions with Russia, it'll be just like the good old days.

Anonymous said...

Interesting post. I agree, the backing down is a problem. The threat of sanctions seems quite necessary. If we have to threaten economic sanctions in order to save lives, I'm quite in favour of them. Depending what they are, of course.