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Sudan Tribune

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Diplomacy on trial

BY FRIDA GHITIS, The Miami Herald

March 28, 2005 — Does it really matter when two rich and powerful countries start calling each other names and scuffling like a couple of spoiled kids on a prep school playground? For a quick answer, direct your attention to Sudan, where the Butchers of Darfur are counting on France and the United States to again start pulling each other’s hair rather than work together to stop the brutality of a dictatorship.

In the past few months, since the second Bush term began, the United States and France have made all the stylish diplomatic moves required to put behind them the Freedom Fry Follies, that unseemly breakdown of diplomacy over the Iraq war.

The real test of those efforts at reconciliation will come this week, when Paris and Washington take their seats at the Security Council of the United Nations to vote — after inexcusable delays — on action to stop Khartoum’s slaughter in Darfur.

Last week the Security Council approved a separate plan to reinforce a peace treaty for Sudan’s other war. Yes, Sudan’s government is a serial killer. Its 21-year civil war against Christians in the oil-rich south of the country left as many as two million people dead. That war ended only after international pressure came hard on Khartoum to negotiate a peace deal. The United Nations will now send 10,000 peacekeepers in support of the January peace treaty that marked the end of that conflict.

But what about Darfur?

The United Nations has done nothing to stop the killing of black Sudanese in the country’s western region of Darfur. A U.N. panel already said that these are ”crimes against humanity.” At least 180,000 have died and some two million have fled their homes trying to escape raids by so-called Janjaweed militias.

Time for action is here

The Janjaweed, Sudanese Arabs usually riding camels, have been wiping out non-Arab villages with the well-documented support of Khartoum. To stop them, the world has so far done little more than talk. Now the time for action has, apparently, arrived. Or, maybe not.

The United States and France have a little disagreement. One of the proposals on the table is to prosecute the perpetrators at the International Criminal Court. The Bush administration has a highly controversial stance in opposition to the court, claiming it will be used for political purposes against American citizens. Much of the world is furious at Washington for failing to support the ICC. But this is not the time to force a showdown on the issue.

U.S. officials want to impose sanctions against Sudan, but council members China, Russia and Algeria oppose this. China buys oil from Sudan, and Russia sells it weapons. Algeria wants to protect a fellow Arab regime.

But the principal dispute centers on where to punish the guilty. Last week, France began circulating a resolution calling for prosecutions to take place at the ICC. Paris knew full well that a vote on the issue would put Washington in the most uncomfortable position. It would either veto the resolution, thus appearing to stand in support of Darfur, or support the plan, thus torpedoing its own efforts to slow the progress of the court.

Diplomacy mustn’t fail

France has every right to exert diplomatic pressure, but this is the wrong time to do it. People in Darfur are dying while the diplomats play their chess games.

In the end, France and the United States, no matter how bitter their disagreements, truly share some essential values. If they cannot find a way to work around this dispute, diplomacy indeed will have failed. And the weakest of the weak, displaced Sudanese living in parched refugee camps or trying to stay alive in desolate Darfur, will pay the price.

For the sake of the people of Darfur, take this fight to a different playground, and let the diplomats dazzle us with their talents.

Frida Ghitis, an international television journalist for 20 years, writes about world affairs.

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