By Brian Brivati and Philip Spencer. They teach genocide studies at Kingston University (THE GUARDIAN, 25/10/06):
Raul Hilberg, the Holocaust historian, explained that for genocide to take place there has to be a triangle: perpetrators, victims and bystanders. In Darfur all the elements are present. We have the victims, the perpetrators, the indifference of bystanders. The issue is what will happen next: will this escalate further as civil war with crimes against humanity, or is there something different here that will bring it into the realm Hilberg describes.
Who are the victims? More than 200,000 black African Muslims have been killed in two years. According to the UN, by September 2004 1.45 million had been displaced, with 500,000 more in urgent need of assistance. The figure now is probably nearer 3 million. Then there are the deaths from disease and malnutrition - in 2005 the UN estimated 180,000 and there are probably now some 80,000 more.
In the recent renewal of fighting the rebel groups who oppose the Khartoum government and who rejected the peace treaty that ended the civil war there have been attacking civilians in the displaced persons camps. The government has launched attacks similar to those condemned by the UN in 2004. Some argue this is a counter-insurgency like many others. But this one is different because of the nature and the project of the Khartoum government.
Who are the killers? The Sudan government has systematically engaged in mass murder; it has the tanks, the aircraft, and its own militia, the Janjaweed. They have their own racist ideology, in this case an Arab supremacist one, which they use to assert their solidarity with Hizbullah and to claim they too are being attacked by evil Zionists. Jonathan Steele has argued on these pages that this is as much an economic conflict between nomads and settlers as an ethnic one between Arabs and Africans. Others have pointed out that all those involved are Muslims. It is difficult to see how this explains the large numbers of black African Sudanese being killed and displaced in such a concentrated period of time.
Who are the bystanders? The international community is once again disgracing itself by its passivity. But the UN has never intervened to prevent a genocide - not in Bangladesh, not in Cambodia, not in Rwanda. It has only recently, under limited US and British pressure, passed resolutions authorising intervention in Darfur. It ignores vicious internal suppressions in other parts of the world.
What is more shocking is the indifference of the left. Instead of demanding our governments act now, we are told that what is going on in Darfur is none of our business. Or that this is civil war, not genocide. Or that it is far too complicated for us to intervene. Or that any intervention on our part would only make matters worse. Or that we shouldn't call for intervention because no one has the slightest intention of doing anything, so we are raising expectations that cannot be met. Or that the real plan is to invade Sudan and create a new colony.
These are shameful evasions that run counter to all the left is supposed to stand for. Ever since the Holocaust, if not before, it has been surely the most basic principle for the left to take a stand against state-organised mass killing. We found a name for this crime - genocide. We devised a law against this crime - the genocide convention. But now we are confronted by mass killing again. Whether or not you call it genocide, it is mass murder. The author of the UN report, Antonio Cassese, who reluctantly decided it might not technically, absolutely qualify as genocide, specifically concluded that actually it made no difference. Above all, he said, don't use this as an excuse not to act.
Is the left silent because it is the US and Britain that have called for action? These governments have done very little and only under pressure from an improvised coalition of refugees, NGOs and the internationalist left in Europe. The main problem is not with the west. It is more with two other powerful forces: one political, the other ideological.
The first is other states, especially China, which depends on Sudan for 11% of its oil. Oil interests - that's familiar.
The other is the problem of national sovereignty. The UN does not want to sanction intervention inside the borders of a nation state for fear of violating this sacred principle. So it asks the Sudanese government if it could send a few troops in. But, amazingly, the Sudan government won't agree. It only tolerates the African Union force because it knows it can't do anything to stop the killing.
Whether we see this as civil war or genocide, we face the same choice. We can remain bystanders and let the slaughter go on. If so, let us never again pretend we care about large numbers of people being killed, especially if they are black, especially if they are African, especially if they are Muslim.