Would foreign intervention in Sudan stop the genocide?

[BrainGlutton]

On All Things Considered this evening, I heard that the French are considering moving troops into eastern Chad to stop the ongoing genocide in western Sudan – I’m not clear on the details.

In this GD thread (“Ask the Neo-con” – http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=268701) – I suggested that U.S. military intervention in Sudan, unlike our intervention in Iraq, might produce positive results because we could have a definite short-term exit strategy: Secure the independence of the South, make it clear we will not tolerate any attempt by the North to reconquer it, and then all we would need would be a token, temporary troop presence to make it stick. Tamerlane corrected me: The genocide now taking place in Western Darfur is unconnected to the civil war that has been going on for a decade between the Muslim North and secessionist Christian/pagan South.

@Tamerlane

The current fighting is in western Sudan, it is of much more recent vintage than the struggle in the south to which it is almost entirely unrelated, it is Muslim on Muslim, and the area has not traditionally been a hotbed of secessionism. There is a secessionist militia operating the region now, but it dates back to all of 2003. The larger group fighting government-allied militias claims to want to preserve Sudan as a nation. In fact the Fur and other non-Arab peoples in that region largely backed the Sudanese government in its war against the south and at various times supplied up to half the manpower of the Sudanese army.

<snip>

The area has traditionally been marginal and starting in 1980’s a series of intermittent droughts pushed the pastoralists ( a majority of whom, but not all, are Arab ) and settled agriculturalists ( mostly non-Arab, with the Fur being the largest group ), who traditionally have coexisted in the region for a millenia, into conflict over scarce resources. Arab pastoralists in search of fodder pushed onto agricultural land and muscled the agriculturalists. The government, dominated by Arabs, has clearly backed ( or at least not hindered ) the violent pastorlist militias that have done much of the damage. Some claim it is a deliberate policy at ethnically cleansing the area, but whether that is intention or not it is creating massive displacement. In 2003 the violence ratcheted up as the Fur and others began fighting back more determindly.

So it was at least initially an economic struggle for survival in lousy conditions, with probably a nice little bit of ethnic and cultural racism ( Arab vs. black African, nomad vs. farmer ) thrown in since then and perhaps now some wider political agendas cropping up ( secessionism, what have you ).

Sounds like an Old West range war – if the group the cowboys were fighting were Indians and sodbusters rolled into one.

Which still leaves the question: Is this a situation which foreign intervention, by the U.S., France, or anybody else, could do anything to correct?

[Larry_Borgia]

Yes, yes it would, if done properly.

According to the Washington post, the Sudanese gov’t is doing more than just not interfereing with the militias. They are giving them air support and weapons.
I doubt Sudan would want war with the U.S. or even france. Also having even a few well armed peacekeepers does alot to deter a mob, especially if the peacekeepers are better armed and most importantly has the authority to use those arms