What role does avoiding terrorism play in the int. comm. response to Darfur

Great Debates
1

Seeing how Darfur is an Arab group declaring war on a non arab people is the international community dragging its feet out of fear of being portrayed as crusders. Is there fear Bin Ladin will latch onto a response by the int. community as evidence of a crusade and people fear this will make terrorism worse? Even though Darfur is more about race than religion, religion does play a small role with the Arabs being muslim and some of the blacks being christian and its not like terrorists need hard evidence before they claim a crusade is being waged against them.

I know the international community drags its feet and accomplishes little with international human rights as it stands, usually just some political pressure and maybe sanctions and we (the US) already have those against Sudan. Are we actually taking Darfur less seriously than we take other situations? If so, does fear of inciting terrorism play a role in that behavior?

2

[QUOTE=Wesley Clark]
Even though Darfur is more about race than religion, religion does play a small role with the Arabs being muslim and some of the blacks being christian
[/QUOTE]

The Darfur region is almost entirely Muslim. There are conflicts between Muslims and non-Muslims in the Sudan, but they’re in other parts of the country and not related to the Darfur situation.

3

In fact, part of the conflict in Darfur is due to the fact that the Sudanese government is Salafist and attempts to impose Shari’a law, while the people of Darfur are mostly non-Salafist Sufis, don’t support the Sudanese government’s interpretation of Shari’a law, and are therefore marginalized and persecuted by the government.

Bin Laden is already allied with the Sudanese government and has praised the Sudanese for their actions in Darfur and told them to resist any outside interference.

4

[QUOTE=Captain Amazing]
The Darfur region is almost entirely Muslim. There are conflicts between Muslims and non-Muslims in the Sudan, but they’re in other parts of the country and not related to the Darfur situation.
[/QUOTE]

I know. But the US sanctions were put in place in part because Christians were being oppressed.

http://www.american.edu/ted/gumarab.htm

http://www.persecution.org/Countries/sudan.html

Perhaps that is totally unrelated to Darfur, nonetheless I think it could be seen as an issue for a terrorist and they’d percieve it as a christian vs muslim war. I think terrorists are paranoid enough to see crusades anywhere.

Bin Ladin’s recommendation that fighters go to Sudan and resist any outside force is along the lines of what I’m talking about. If Norway, with its christian history sends troops to Darfur will that be percieved as another religious invasion of holy land up there with the creation of Israel or US troops in Saudi Arabia.

http://za.today.reuters.com/news/NewsArticle.aspx?type=topNews&storyID=2006-04-25T064110Z_01_ALL523900_RTRIDST_0_OZATP-SECURITY-BINLADEN-SUDAN-UN-20060425.XML

“I call on the mujahideen and their supporters in Sudan … and the Arabian peninsula to prepare all that is necessary to wage a long-term war against the Crusaders in western Sudan,”

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[QUOTE=Captain Amazing]
In fact, part of the conflict in Darfur is due to the fact that the Sudanese government is Salafist and attempts to impose Shari’a law, while the people of Darfur are mostly non-Salafist Sufis, don’t support the Sudanese government’s interpretation of Shari’a law, and are therefore marginalized and persecuted by the government.
[/quote]

Gonna disagree just a bit here with the good Captain. At least some of the rebels, specifically the smaller rebel group JEM ( largely composed of Kobe Zaghawa from northern Darfur ), are deeply attached to the political and religious ideals of Hassan al-Turabi. Turabi is currently on the outs with the Sudanese government ( hence, some claim, but Turabi denies, JEM ) but is a former Justice Minister and was the implementer of Sudan’s harsh brand of Shari’a in Sudan. Turabi was also the one who invited Osama bin Laden to Sudan and was his host during his exile there for six years.

In that case it is more a case of competing Islamist ideologies, or really more a political struggle between different groups with not too dissimilar ideologies. At any rate Sufism is endemic throughout Sudan, not just in Darfur.

Like his proclamations of support for the Palestinians, I’d tend to regard that as more empty posturing and pandering. MHO of course. But given his one time association with Turabi, it is unlikely a religious issue, so much as an opportunity to decry a presumed western interference in a Muslim nation.

[QUOTE=Wesley Clark]
Even though Darfur is more about race than religion, religion does play a small role with the Arabs being muslim and some of the blacks being christian and its not like terrorists need hard evidence before they claim a crusade is being waged against them.
[/QUOTE]

As Captain Amazing noted, there is no real Christian involvement here at all. The non-Arab, but quite Muslim Fur, Zaghawa, Massalit and others provided plenty of soldiers to the Sudanese government when they were fighting non-Muslims in the south.

The other thing which is worth repeating again is that the terms “Arab” and “black” should not be looked at from an Americocentric view of race. Both Arabs and non-Arabs in this region are equally dark-skinned and moreover have been intermarrying for centuries. Here’s a missionary site with some decent phtos of representative Baggara ( Baqqara ), a catch-all conglomeration of Arab ( i.e. Arabic-speaking ) nomadic pastoralists, some of whom ( but not all ) are heavily involved in the janjaweed militias:

http://www.sudan101.com/baggara.htm

The fighting is actually a complex blend of politics, economics ( compeition over scarce resources due to increasing desertification ) and some ethnic supremacism ( which is also in part a carry over from British policies that favored the Arab-speaking nomads over the previously dominant non-Arab agriculturalists ). But more the first two, I’d say, possibly giving vent to and/or justifying the third.

  • Tamerlane
6

[QUOTE=Tamerlane]
Gonna disagree just a bit here with the good Captain. At least some of the rebels, specifically the smaller rebel group JEM ( largely composed of Kobe Zaghawa from northern Darfur ), are deeply attached to the political and religious ideals of Hassan al-Turabi. Turabi is currently on the outs with the Sudanese government ( hence, some claim, but Turabi denies, JEM ) but is a former Justice Minister and was the implementer of Sudan’s harsh brand of Shari’a in Sudan. Turabi was also the one who invited Osama bin Laden to Sudan and was his host during his exile there for six years.
[/QUOTE]

We’ll split the difference, because, while the JEM is probably linked with Turabi, but the SLA isn’t, and is largely nationalist, democratic, and secular.

7

[QUOTE=Tamerlane]

As Captain Amazing noted, there is no real Christian involvement here at all. The non-Arab, but quite Muslim Fur, Zaghawa, Massalit and others provided plenty of soldiers to the Sudanese government when they were fighting non-Muslims in the south.

The other thing which is worth repeating again is that the terms “Arab” and “black” should not be looked at from an Americocentric view of race. Both Arabs and non-Arabs in this region are equally dark-skinned and moreover have been intermarrying for centuries. Here’s a missionary site with some decent phtos of representative Baggara ( Baqqara ), a catch-all conglomeration of Arab ( i.e. Arabic-speaking ) nomadic pastoralists, some of whom ( but not all ) are heavily involved in the janjaweed militias:

http://www.sudan101.com/baggara.htm

The fighting is actually a complex blend of politics, economics ( compeition over scarce resources due to increasing desertification ) and some ethnic supremacism ( which is also in part a carry over from British policies that favored the Arab-speaking nomads over the previously dominant non-Arab agriculturalists ). But more the first two, I’d say, possibly giving vent to and/or justifying the third.

  • Tamerlane
    [/QUOTE]

Fair enough. However is there a risk that terrorists and terrorists sympathizers would look at an intervention as a kind of crusade against Islam and if so is that playing a role in the world’s intervention in the area? Bin Laden recently called on mujahadeen to go to Sudan and fight any UN force that goes there, are people afraid to intervene for fear of angering the terrorists?

8

[QUOTE=Wesley Clark]

If so, does fear of inciting terrorism play a role in that behavior?

Bin Laden recently called on mujahadeen to go to Sudan and fight any UN force that goes there, are people afraid to intervene for fear of angering the terrorists?
[/QUOTE]

To answer your original question - I dunno. I can only speculate and say that I expect it isn’t an overriding issue as much as it is reason #321 why nobody wants to get involved.

Darfur is nowhere. It has no strategic value to anyone save Chad and the Sudan - no major resources, geographically unimportant, politically irrelevant. It’s huge and far from the sea and proper infrastructure of any sort. Intervening might well be ugly, likely expensive and certainly difficult and in amoral realpolitik terms has almost zero payoff. For the U.S. in particular any international goodwill generated will likely be negated or at least partially compromised by charges of imperial aggrandisment, no matter how inaccurate such charges might be.

Persuading nations to go against their own rational self-interest is extremely difficult. Talk is cheap afterall, but action certainly isn’t.

  • Tamerlane