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Articles : Human RightsPowerful Acts: An interview with Mia Farrow
Guernica magazine’s Joel Whitney recently spoke with Darfur activist Mia Farrow about the role of the UN, China and the U.S. in the ongoing genocide in Sudan:
Not everyone reads a grim news story and gets on a plane to head for a war zone. But not everyone is Mia Farrow. The iconic actress is best known as Woody Allen’s leading lady—starring in films such as Hannah and Her Sisters, The Purple Rose of Cairo, Crimes and Misdemeanors, and Husbands and Wives. After a spate of op-eds appeared in recent months, Farrow has become widely recognized as an impassioned political campaigner—stumping on TV shows, and testifying before Congress. Her current cause? Darfur.
So what? you might be thinking. These days most celebrities come with a cause, and sometimes, suspiciously, that cause is attached to a product that needs peddling. Should we really take Leonardo DiCaprio seriously on diamond mining just because he’s in a film about it? The difference with Farrow is simple: she does her homework, having visited Darfur and neighboring countries 6 times since 2004, even risking her personal safety—and she gets results.
After returning from her first trip to Darfur, Farrow launched a website, www.miafarrow.org where she documented the atrocities she witnessed with photographs and commentary. But it’s her op-eds, usually written with one of her co-authors—Ronan Farrow, her biological son with Woody Allen and a precocious 19-year old Yale Law student, or the Nobel Peace Prize winning activist Jody Williams—that have been her weapon of choice. It was in direct response to these op-eds, plus letters that Farrow wrote to her personal contacts, that the Chinese government decided to withdraw their powerful opposition to UN peacekeepers in the region. Oh yes, and along the way, she publicly likened Steven Spielberg to a Nazi propagandist.
How are all these things connected? It breaks down like this: since China is the major buyer of Sudanese oil, Darfur advocates have targeted China as enablers of the genocide in Sudan. Those same advocates proceeded to dub the Beijing Olympics of 2008, a point of pride in China, the “Genocide Olympics.” Spielberg is helping China to stage the games, so Farrow turned her sights on him.
In a March 2007 op-ed, written with her son and published in The Wall Street Journal, Farrow wrote, “Does Mr. Spielberg really want to go down in history as the Leni Riefenstahl of the Beijing Games? Do the various television sponsors around the world want to share in that shame? Because they will. Unless, of course, all of them add their singularly well-positioned voices to the growing calls for Chinese action to end the slaughter in Darfur.”
I called Farrow at her home in Litchfield County, Connecticut, just days before she would embark on her seventh trip to Africa.
Guernica: When did you first get involved with Darfur? Where did you first hear about the atrocities?
Mia Farrow: You know, it was actually two articles by [the Pulitzer prize winning journalist] Samantha Power. On the tenth anniversary of the Rwanda genocide, she wrote a very powerful op-ed that appeared in the New York Times, and my knees buckled. And apart from that op-ed, it was completely beneath the media’s radar. I had to scrounge around the Internet to find anything at all. I was astounded that this was ongoing and astounded that it was not being reported.
I then read another far lengthier piece that Samantha wrote for the New Yorker that spoke at length about her visit to Darfur, her findings, her meetings with people. I was already a UNICEF ambassador, and I called UNICEF and said, “I need to go to Darfur. Something terrible is happening in the Darfur region of Sudan.” Eventually UNICEF got me to Darfur. I tried to prepare myself by reading everything I could: a history of Sudan, generally, and all about the uprising of 2003 [when a rebel uprising by non-Arabs in Darfur brought severe army reprisals] and about the massacre of the people of Darfur by the janjaweed militia.
I read what I could; still, there was no way to be fully prepared emotionally for what I saw. I cannot even begin to convey it. My photographs can’t convey it. My words can’t convey it. I can tell you that I left Darfur a different person. What I had learned, what I had seen, what I had been told, changed my life; I was now a witness. And this was a responsibility for me that clearly eclipsed everything in my life except my children. It seemed the only appropriate response, and I didn’t have a choice.
Guernica: When was that first trip?
Mia Farrow: 2004. I returned to Darfur last June. By then it had become impossible to speak of Darfur, which I was doing at colleges, without including Eastern Chad. As feared, as predicted, Darfur’s violence spilled across its porous borders reaching well into Chad, and the Central African Republic [known as CAR]. I didn’t know anything about Chad so I said I would like to go to Eastern Chad. Well, UNICEF said it was too dangerous, that they were actually in the process of evacuating. So I went as a private person, not as a UNICEF ambassador. I got myself to Eastern Chad. And that was a terrible week in November when sixty villages were destroyed. Darfur’s janjaweed had crossed into Eastern Chad on a rampage and burned sixty villages.
There were villages on fire, all around. You will see on my website three men lying side by side, their eyes gouged out by janjaweed knives; the mother whose children had been thrown into their burning home the day before, sitting under a tree, her eyes swollen, empty of tears; people stranded under trees just dazed and terrified; some had belongings, whatever they could carry when they ran; most had nothing, nothing at all. And their attackers, the janjaweed, were all around; we were all surrounded.
When I came to Tamadjour, you can see on the website, I met Mr. Joseph Omar, who was going to the still smouldering ashes of what had been his village. He went to search the granaries to see if there was anything he could carry back to his family. But the granaries had been broken to smithereens. The grain was burned. He gathered just some melted pots and, with arms full, he was trying catch a chicken; and we helped him put the chicken in the car and brought him to where his family lived. Which was just under a tree.
Honest to God, from the Darfur border to the tiny town of Goz Beida, under tree after tree after tree, people were clustered, not knowing where to go or what to do. The UN High Commission for Refugees were really struggling because they are simply for refugees, and we’re talking about internally displaced people, people made homeless within their own country. And there was only so much they could do. Yet the enormity of the humanitarian catastrophe was suddenly in their laps too, and they were unable to move people by their own mandate. Nothing was in place for these suddenly displaced people.
It was a nightmare; it was an inferno. Dante himself would surely shudder. Horror, horror, mutilations; people were just pouring out of the medical center’s mere five rooms, wounded and with hands chopped off, people howling, people silent, babies dying—just all of it, all of it. This is what Darfur was like in 2003 and early 2004. But by the time I got there in 2004 there was an infrastructure in place in Darfur—very fragile, but an infrastructure. The camps had been set up. Tarps had been lashed to the desert floor. There were bladders of water being trekked in and aid workers were struggling to sustain the displaced people in Darfur. It was a traumatized population suddenly finding themselves in these circumstances—this is what I was seeing, in the immediate sense, in Eastern Chad. And I thought, do people know what’s happening here?
Guernica: I want to read you something written early in the Bush presidency: “An aide sent a memo to President Bush detailing the Clinton administration’s reluctance to act [in Rwanda]. President Bush’s four-word response to this failure to stop genocide, which he jotted in the memo’s margins, could not have been clearer: ‘not on my watch.’” This is a president who is also said to be the first to utter the word “genocide” while in office; and he started a war in the Middle East, in part, to punish something like a genocide. So why hasn’t anything been done in Darfur?
Mia Farrow: At that moment [when the White House called the atrocities in Darfur “genocide”], if not before, a special envoy should have been appointed, with offices in Sudan and in D.C. And an all-out attempt for a peace process, one that would be deemed to be just to Darfur’s people, should have been in the works. But that didn’t happen. There were long months with no envoy at all. And what we have now is a part-time envoy.
What can one conclude here? We have the White House using the word “genocide” and Colin Powell quickly following that by saying, in effect, “This doesn’t mean we have to do anything about it.” (His saying that rendered useless the Genocide Convention, by the way.) I have to assume, leaping back in perspective, that there is a larger Monopoly game going on here, one in which Darfur’s people are simply expendable chips. After this many years—now we’re entering the fifth year—what signal have we given to Darfur’s people? All this talking. All this hand-wringing of the United Nations.
Guernica: Clearly the Bush administration has relinquished its credibility on most issues. But is there no country, no government at all, that has stood up or gone to bat for the people of Darfur?
Mia Farrow: My understanding on this comes from a talk [UN Deputy Secretary-General] Mark Malloch Browne gave at Yale Law School last year. Under harsh questioning from a Yale Law student, who happened to be my son Ronan, he admitted that after Resolution 1706, the UN had gone from door to door, nation to nation, requesting that troops be donated. You may recall that UN Resolution 1706, as outlined by Kofi Annan, specified that 22,500 peacekeepers be deployed in the Darfur region immediately. But it concluded by requesting permission of the government of Sudan.
Guernica: Permission?
Mia Farrow: Right. Under these auspices every nation refused to contribute troops, signers and non-signers alike refused. My understanding from Mark Malloch Browne is that four nations stepped up. Two were Norway and Sweden. The other two—I’m not sure—may have been Bangladesh, Jordan. Given that it was four countries, the sum-total was a mere 400 soldiers. In all the world. To say the least, that is obscenely inadequate, and of course nothing came of Resolution 1706. It was apparently still-born, though it is referred to from time to time, even by the government of China.
Guernica: I understand from NPR, via their website, that Republican Congressman Ed Royce was visibly moved after your slideshow and presentation before Congress and that he told you to go show it in China?
Mia Farrow: I guess anyone who showed up at that hearing would already have been on the same page. The piece that I had written with my son Ronan had just appeared in the Wall Street Journal. And it had provoked a response from China, it seemed—I mean at least verbally. The Chinese ambassador to the United States had written a letter to the Wall Street Journal, an angry letter expressing outrage that the Olympics would be tied into the genocide in that way. It got so much attention that my whole website crashed. But ultimately an envoy was sent from China to Darfur; things were said by the Chinese; suddenly there was support for UN Resolution 1706, for the peacekeepers to be sent to Darfur of the sort outlined in Resolution 1706.
People credited the piece for having triggered this; but I say no. Would that I could say that. Talk is cheap. My understanding is that China has hired a massive press agency working out of Washington, DC, whose job is to create good publicity for China. So China’s donations to the humanitarian efforts in Darfur, China’s words of support for the peacekeeping process… While these are welcome, until the people of Darfur experience safety, it’s simply words. You want to say, “Please China, let it be true. Use your unique point of leverage to persuade the government in Khartoum to do these things, to admit the peacekeepers, stop the bombings, to rein in the janjaweed.”
Guernica: That seems like a remarkable turnaround on the part of China, even just verbally. A lot of people have been talking and scratching their heads on this issue for a long time—divestment campaigns, letters to the editors, audiences with world leaders. It doesn’t seem before your op-ed there was any sign of movement among the Chinese. Was it the phrase “the Genocide Olympics”? And did you coin this phrase?
Mia Farrow: I don’t know who first said it. It may have been someone at the Washington Post. But it was grabbed by the respected Sudan scholar Eric Reeves, who was convinced from the outset that China was the point of leverage for the UN and that the Olympic games would be a point of leverage for China. My son Ronan wrote a piece in the Wall Street Journal called “China’s Crude Conscience.” It was very apparent, then, that China’s oil entanglements with Sudan made them complicit in the genocide in Darfur, and all the ways were outlined in that piece.
But what precipitated that piece was when I was on Chris Matthews’ Hardball on MSNBC. After that show was over, off air, Matthews said, “What does China have to do with this?” And it was another jaw-dropping moment; I’d just assumed that everybody knew what China had to do with it! And so Ronan wrote that piece on China’s complicity. And then I’m watching C-Span about a week later and I see Senator Chris Dodd on television recommending to the Senate that everybody read Ronan’s piece.
Between then and now everyone has come to realize that China is a huge player in this situation. And when it comes to the Olympic games, what hit me was their slogan: “One World, One Dream.” So I started writing another piece with the idea that it’s more like “one nightmare.”
Guernica: Stephen Spielberg was somehow targeted as complicit in this nightmare?
Mia Farrow: What we discovered was that Stephen Spielberg had signed on to stage the 2008 Olympic games. I wrote him a letter and said, “You’re aware of China’s complicity?” and I sent him Ronan’s piece and I outlined it all for him. I had already been in touch with him previously. I told him about Darfur. I sent him a whole lot of photographs in a hardcover iBook. And on each page I hand-wrote the story of each person, and through the pictures conveyed what I hoped was the entire scenario, and sent that along with my op-eds, which are pretty descriptive, as you know. But none of this got a response.
But then when I heard that he was involved with the games I wrote another letter. And by then I was on Darfur time. You know 10,000 people a month are dying. It gives you a sense of urgency. I couldn’t wait any longer. So then my son and I wrote that article you’re referring to.
Guernica: In which you compared Spielberg to Leni Riefenstahl.
Mia Farrow: We didn’t compare him to Leni Riefenstahl. We cautioned him that’s how he could go down in history, so he wouldn’t do it. We hope it was reasonable.
Guernica: Has he been properly brought up to speed, in your view?
Mia Farrow: He wrote a letter to President Hu. Given that it’s Spielberg, it probably reached President Hu’s desk. That’s important. The letter’s on the internet, and it’s a good one. That’s important. What came of that, I don’t know. From what I understand, he feels that he wants two bites of the apple. But I’m getting this third-hand. The first bite is that he makes his feelings clear and what needs to be done clear. And then I would assume, I would hope — I would assume! — he could not continue his participation, his cooperation and assistance in the games. I would assume he would then quit. I just assume; he’s a decent man and how could anyone continue? But perhaps there are things going on that we don’t know about. As we said in the piece, he too has a point of leverage. And I don’t know how effective it will be. And each of his sponsors has a responsibility as well. Every participant.
Guernica: One perception about celebrities getting involved in something like this is that it may make ordinary people feel that only celebrities can weigh in and make a difference. What is required of the non-celebrities out there, who become witnesses secondhand?
Mia Farrow: The humanitarian aid workers need our support. We really have to keep the pressure on our leadership, whatever state we’re in, to keep contacting them. I actually printed from John Prendergast’s book Not on Our Watch: The Mission to End Genocide in Darfur and Beyond, co-authored with actor Don Cheadle], a form letter into which I inserted my own stuff. Not that people should print out the form letter—but using this as an example of what they might request of their leadership. It’s all there. First and foremost what we want our government to do is get behind a peacekeeping process. The envoy can’t be part time. The envoy has to be fulltime and first rate, because ultimately the solution lies at the conference table. For that to happen, all parties have to be at that conference table.
Guernica: What kinds of numbers are there? How many dead?
Mia Farrow: We now have 80%-90% of Darfur’s villages bombed and burned. Two and a half million people driven into camps. Four million now require food aid from the World Food Program. But no one is counting the dead. If you ask Eric Reeves he would say upwards of 500,000.
Guernica: Right, a year ago he was saying 400,000.
Mia Farrow: And the UN sticks to a figure until there’s another. For years, they were sticking to 70,000 until that became an obscenity, when they moved it up to 200,000. And they’ve been sticking there for I don’t know how many years. The truth is they don’t know.
But while we’re dreaming, may I say that Sudan purchased the best watchdog on the Security Council, with China rendering toothless every single resolution to assist Darfur’s people. I wrote a letter to Kofi Annan, regarding UN Resolution 1706. The one powerful thing I thought he could do, with just weeks remaining in his tenure, would have been to resign. I cited to him the example of the documentary Fog of War, in which a young father set himself on fire in front of then-Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara. In reliving this moment, it was the single thing that brought Robert McNamara—for whom I have no sympathy, by the way—to tears. And I said to Kofi Annan, “I’m not suggesting you douse yourself with kerosene. But you could resign. And I think it’s the one remaining powerful act that is yours, to express outrage and frustration at the member states, namely and especially China and Russia, and to protect the integrity of the institution you represent, and your own legacy. Let it be clear to the world where the blame and shame lie: with the member states, not the institution.”
Yet he let the institution take the hit. If I had been the Secretary-General [laughs] and I had written Resolution 1706—given that China and Russia pushed for permission from the government of Sudan be included, which rendered it still-born—I would have tried to get on every TV show. I would have tried to get an interview on the front page of The New York Times, saying, “You know this is what the United Nations recommends: this and nothing less than this in the face of genocide.”
Guernica: Was he thinking about his legacy at that point?
Mia Farrow: Well, I don’t think it helped his legacy to leave office with a second genocide in process. I don’t know what he had in mind. He did respond. He wrote, “I can’t get the troops for Resolution 1706.” I said, “Abandon cautious language and get out there, and say what needs to be said. Use your bully pulpit in a way that no one else can.” I would love to know why it couldn’t have been done. It seems to me there are some ways it could have: one, under the responsibility to protect. Could there not be a standing body within the UN that, when a government is killing its own people, that body comes to protect those people within a number of days?
I would love to see that built into the United Nations. That’s what should be in place rather than, in the face of another Hitler, our saying, “Please Mr. Hitler, may we come in and liberate the camps? No? Oh, dear whatever shall we do?” Four years of hand wringing later: nothing, it turns out.
To see Mia Farrow’s photographs from Darfur, Chad, and the Central African Republic, go here.
This article is republished with permission from our friends at Guernica magazine.
Posted by anthony
Anthony Lappé is GNN's Executive Editor. He's written for The New York Times, Details, New York, Paper, The Fader and Vice, among many others. He has worked as a producer for MTV and Fuse. He is the co-author of GNN's True Lies and the producer of their Iraq doc,...
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According to the World Food Program, about 200,000 civilians have died in Darfur, 80 percent from starvation and disease, and 20 percent from violence.
600,000 Iraqis have died since 2003 as a result of violence related to the Anglo-American invasion of Iraq.
In the Congo, some four million civilians have been slaughtered over several years, largely as a result of intervention by US proxies, Uganda and Rwanda.
In Somalia, 460,000 civilians have been displaced by fighting sparked by a US-backed and assisted invasion by Ethiopia.
Poor Mia. You really soiled your self with that remark to Kofi. But don’t worry : we know you’re just working from a script.
While we’re on the subject :
David Mayer de Rothschild — the youngest child (born 1978) of Sir Evelyn de Rothschild, of the British wing of the Rothschild banking family — on a National Radio during a program in support of the superflopped Live Aid campaign — informed everyone that Jupiter, Mars and Saturn were closer to the sun than Earth.
They’re just getting smarter and smarter up there where the air gets SO thin.
Its global genocide.
No but it’s true, the Chinese are a problem. They simply MUST revalue the Yuan. Where else are we going to get so much cheap labor?
That toothpaste stunt clearly didn’t do shit. We have to start thinking bigger.
But no one is counting the dead. If you ask Eric Reeves he would say upwards of 500,000.
Hasn’t she read the WHO mortality survey?
Or consulted MSF?
Or the Center for Research on the Epidemiology of Diseases?
If not, why is she speaking about this?
[the MSF page doesn’t seem to be working at the moment BTW]
Reeves’ figure of 500,000 is not based on field work. We don’t know what it is based upon. Much the same goes for the 400,000 estimate injected into the public discourse by the Coalition for International Justice (now disbanded).
This is rather important actually. From the Sudan Watch link above:
And the methodology was as follows:
But the WHO study concluded that excess deaths in 2003 and 2004 came to about 100,000, with about 30,000 of those due to violence. How this came to be magnified to 400,000 is a mystery.
The 1,136 interviews could not have provided evidence for 300,000 deaths. The most fanciful reading of the WHO data cannot support this.
It’s a lie.
They haven’t realized that it might matter that we can see them. Let me see — where did I put the Karen Hughes guesstimates about the Kurds Saddam gassed?
Got it :
Some Things You Need to Know Before the World Ends
October 21, [2005] Karen Hughes, White House envoy for public diplomacy, told an audience in Indonesia that Saddam had “used weapons of mass destruction against his own people. He had murdered hundreds of thousands of his own people using poison gas.” When challenged about the number, Hughes replied: “It’s something that our U.S. government has said a number of times in the past. It’s information that was used very widely after his attack on the Kurds. I believe it was close to 300,000. That’s something I said every day in the course of the campaign.
That’s information that we talked about a great deal in America.”
The State Department later corrected Hughes, saying the number of victims in Halabja was about 5,000. (This figure, too, may well have been inflated for political reasons; for at least the next six months following the Halabja attack one could find the casualty count being reported in major media as “hundreds”, even by Iraq’s Iranian foes. . .)
The problem in Darfur from a U.S. perspective may well be that the African Union (with EU assistance) is doing too well and freezing out UN/white peacekeepers. Without the white man’s burden, resource extraction, political leverage, the international artifice of white supremacism, is somewhat compromised.
Of course, the U.S. could generously fund aid operations, but that’s not what “Save” Darfur is all about is it?
You know that no money from the Save Darfur campaign has even tried to make it to the Sudan?
Did you know that the EU stopped paying AU troops — when there were having remarkable success?
Have you heard that the Chinese appear to have offered to be the new sponsors of the AU troop presence in Sudan?
I should think Mia is having absolute FITS!
According to the World Food Program, about 200,000 civilians have died in Darfur, 80 percent from starvation and disease, and 20 percent from violence.
600,000 Iraqis have died since 2003 as a result of violence related to the Anglo-American invasion of Iraq.
You know that no money from the Save Darfur campaign has even tried to make it to the Sudan?
Mia,Mia on the wall,
The most Useful Fool
of them all
Let’s nuke China
China is not allowed to
a) host the olympics
b) produce medicines
c) import oil from Africa
Silly.
China is a horror, if you are a rebel of love, you would want to see our 1.3 billion Chinese comrades free. Produce medicine, burn oil, but stop accepting China crimes. Uncle Sam loves the PRC, does more for them than all fawning lefties, so what does that say?
I so wish Chavez could show the courage to denounce the PRC along with Uncle. Then he would be a hero to the world! Let me hear Hugo call for “Tibet Liberdad”! Let him call for religious freedom, however silly the religion may be. Let him call for an end to brutality and the harvesting of detainees organs.
China may be a horror but whatever you say, the PRC has lifted more people out of poverty than any other nation, ever.
See China’s Population: New Trends and Challenges
So I know what Hugo would be getting at. Having said that, he should probably condemn the Chinese judicial system, but can he afford to? That’s a tricky political question.
With organ harvesting, most academic studies seem to agree that the practice is criminal, rather than state sponsored, with judicial-medical collusion.
Hmmm. On the one hand, Sudan is in a crisis that needs a regional solution in which guilty parties (including Khartoum) must be held to account. I echo Szamko’s point about the AU and the white man’s burden and all that.
Sudan reveals the utter lack of leadership on a world scale today. There is absolutely no credible institution or organization that can legitimitely engage the Sudanese civil wars. The UN, EU, US capital, etc, have all revealed their own bloodlust and naked hypocrisy in the ‘war on terror.’ The UN openly backed the brutal bombardment of Somalia in December – where were Mia Farrow’s tears then as hundreds of thousands of poor nomads and farmers were displaced, with some even ducking and dying from US bombs. But if I recall correctly Western media was in a very celebratory mood then, with such headlines as ‘US pounds terrorists in Somalia’ – and yet now the country has become terribly insecure, with key social institutions unable to function even on the basic level they managed during the turbulent pre-ICU years. But now the dominant media speaks of Somalia as a country that just cant seem to overcome its cannabilistic and warring tribal culture, with rarely a whisper of the brutal crime committed by the US, supported by the UN, in Somalia, and how this has in fact been the central catalyst to the destabilization of Somalia in 2007.
Did Mia Farrow call for a boycott of the US for its actions in Somalia? If not for Somalia, then what of Iraq, or its enabling of Israel’s desruction of Lebanon and Gaza? How about for the weaponry and funding that the US provides to anti-democratic forces the world over (people in Pakistan seem to want a change, but for some reason Musharraf is holding on.) How can she be so critical of China and yet silent on her own country’s crimes, which dwarf China’s own brutalities and unforgivable compromises in its pursuit of its national intersts. This reveals her and much of the rest of the ‘Save Darfur’ movement’s contamination by the white man’s burden – a refusal to see how they are themselves located in an international political economy in such a way as to implicate them in destructive and murderous campaigns. This refusal then allows them to externalize themselves from the “barbarism” of the third world and then recast themselves as liberal do-gooders who are on a mission to save the dark world – again something that has too often served as the ‘humanitarian’ plank of Empire.
The UN lost legitimacy in my eyes long ago – as it stares slack-jawed at Palestine, Lebanon, Somalia, Niger Delta, Patrice Lumumba, etc. Selective (US backed) outrage has been the name of the game at the UN for decades.
The real tragedy is that Sudan, like Somalia, is in a severe humanitarian crisis. But, again, conflicts like Sudan need to be addressed by effective regional bodies that constitute the mutual interdepedence of neighbouring countries and can effectively resist the imperialism of the US, UN, EU, and so on.
On Somalia
At least 367 killed in Gulf of Aden this year-U.N.
That’s weird… when we discus the USA, generally the reasoning goes “It’s got it’s good points, but it’s evil…” how come china gets “It’s evil, but it’s got it’s good points…”
I’m probably just reading you wrong… lack of coffee…
Pretty sure we condemn Bush when he makes political decisions such as that…
You’re so right. If she’s not talking about American evils, she should shut the fuck up.
It’s definitely a priority to get some Euro-American knowhow onto Sudanese soil:
The Sudanese government must not be allowed to keep playing “cat and mouse” with the international community over ending the violence in Darfur, U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said on Wednesday….Sudan has sent mixed signals about the joint force, saying it should be under the AU’s command and control rather than the United Nations’, and has suggested it should be mainly African.
Speaking in Washington at a conference on democracy in Latin America and Africa, Rice said the hybrid peacekeeping force was essential to increasing security and she urged African governments to “hold Sudan accountable.”
“We must not let the government of Sudan continue this game of cat and mouse diplomacy, making promises then going back on them,” Rice said.
U.S. Special Envoy to Sudan Andrew Natsios is in Sudan this week speaking to government officials and trying to convince Khartoum to agree fully to the force.
BUT
The actual people of the region need aid to deal with famine and flood.
You’re so right. If she’s not talking about American evils, she should shut the fuck up.
What the fuck man. That is just basic to any serious ethical foundation. For example, I make it clear all the time to my own family, friends, and other Indians who raise issues of racism in Canada, that if they cannot themselves overcome the dehumanizing casteism that too often overdetermines social relations amongst Indians, then they have absolutely no right to speak of white racism in Canada. None at all.
Wonder if you read everything that I wrote. I made it clear that Sudan is seriously fucked up right now, and that it is imperative that regional bodies address the issue. Americans should be more concerned about the hell that their own government has unleashed on Iraq, Afghanistan, Somalia, etc – and yes I do believe that if she cannot articulate Sudan and a criticism of China alongside a severe condemnation and calls for boycotts of the actions of her own government – genocide and the world’s largest refugee crises in Iraq, Palestine, and Somalia, then yes she should shut the fuck up.
You may think me an anti-american/western ideologue, but so be it. I am sick to death of the hypocrisy. Would a boycott London Olympics 2012 campaign ever gain the same traction as boycott China olympics? Would Mia Farrow receive op-ed space in the Wall Street Journal if she called for a boycott of London 2012?
My main point was how in the hell can she appeal for intervention into Sudan by the very institutions that twiddle their thumbs, and even enable Western imperialism and destruction of entire countries? So what if her cries about Sudan are heard and the white man moves on this – this will do nothing to move the UN on its complicity in crimes against Somalis, Palestinians, Afghans, and Iraqis, will it? In fact, it may only serve to further legitimize the crimes of the UN against these peoples (especially as they are in support of the US).
China, India, and Russia deserve strong condemnation for their blind pursuit of ‘strategic interests’ in Sudan and elsewhere – but for me this can only ever be articulated effectively and legitmately from an anti-imperialist perspective, which this woman is seriously lacking. Otherwise it runs the risk of becoming another instance of ‘humanitarian imperialism.’
I do believe that if the Western do-gooders stepped backed and looked in the mirror once, it would allow more space for regional bodies to emerge and develop the independent institutional capacity to address these sorts of conflicts. ECOMOG in West Africa seems to have had some promise…
On the whole, I’d call China the best ally the Revolution has and has ever had. There are a lot of factors involved. They have their infections, it’s true. But as a force for change they have a LOT of cards and they’ve been playing them to our benefit, more than most people realize.
There is a misconception that large industrial projects represent lower risk and that profits at the expense of the cost of labor is just good business sense. That’s not necessarily fascism. From what I can tell, it could very easily just be naivete.
Singh, never hesistate to repeat yourself. Even if people read every word you say, write for the new guy that might just fortuitously show up.
I think we all know that Condi is a two-faced fire breather never ever ever to be taken at her word.
If China decides to pay AU salaries in the Horn, that’d be a BIG win.
Where have I heard pendejada about ECOMOG?
Depends. If they were in a position to actually help with the problem of white rascism in Canada then they should speak of it, whether or not they were in a position to change things in other areas. i’m not clear on why anyone would listen to Mia Farrow, but apparently some people will, and in this case that’s a good thing.
Requiring people to remain silent unless their own life is perfect is a great way to kill any attempt at helping anyone else… and abandons the people who apparently need help.
Then you and I disagree. I hear about Iraq and Palestine all the time. Sudan isn’t on the radar. I’m glad someone is bringing it up…
No, it wouldn’t and she wouldn’t. However, this boycott can gain traction and she can get space on this one, which might end up helping people. It would be unethical of her not to try, IMHO...
There’s no one left to condemn them if we relegate everyone who’s gov’t acts like douchebags into the ‘shut the fuck up’ bin…
Possibly legitimately but hardly effectively. If she decided to take on the issue of imperialism she’d be tuned out and ignored. This is a specific issue she’s bringing to people attention.
On Edit: I agree with microdot, singh. Keep writing. I enjoy reading your perspectives/opinions on GNN...
She also doesn’t mention the well documented and extremely relevant U.S.-Sudanese intelligence collusion. Chinese intransigence on the security council hasn’t been the only comforter for Khartoum.
And she doesn’t talk about the rebels.
She says things like this
When there have been some very good studies done of mortality at the height of the civil war in Darfur. But Mia doesn’t talk about them.
This is a burying of the issues, not a useful bit of publicity for Darfur.
_Depends. If they were in a position to actually help with the problem of white rascism in Canada then they should speak of it, whether or not they were in a position to change things in other areas. i’m not clear on why anyone would listen to Mia Farrow, but apparently some people will, and in this case that’s a good thing.
Requiring people to remain silent unless their own life is perfect is a great way to kill any attempt at helping anyone else… and abandons the people who apparently need help._
Really? I think that is kind of weak. Caste prejudice can be so brutally dehumanizing that I myself do not think that anyone who continues to speak of Dalits as less than humans (sometimes even speaking of blood differences) has any ethical/moral ground from which to take on the issue of white racism. And if you do, then we are in serious disagreement.
For example, in Canada the Indian community will from time to time press the state for recognition and redress of the brutally racist Komagata Maru incident. It is an ugly stain on our collective history that should definitely be redressed, but at the same time it is also the case that when the first wave of Indian labourers came over to Canada, those who numbered amongst the oppressor castes, even as they themselves were being exploited and oppressed by whitey, continued to oppress and exclude the oppressed castes (Dalits). They would not allow Dalits to sleep or eat in the rooms that were allocated to labourers by employers. For myself, then, any attempt to articulate opposition to the racism that the Komagata Maru represents also must come to terms and redress the oppression Dalits experienced from both white racism and casteism. Otherwise, the oppressor castes that are leading the movement for Komagata redress can possibly use such an incident to further entrench caste oppression. And just so you know, there are Indian organizations that do articulate anti-racist and anti-casteist positions, and it is only with them that I stand in solidarity.
Then you and I disagree. I hear about Iraq and Palestine all the time. Sudan isn’t on the radar. I’m glad someone is bringing it up…
Agree that we are in disagreement. I never hear about any sort of celebrity driven Save Iraq or Save Palestine movement in the US, but it seems that there seems to be no shortage of Save Darfur bandwagons going around these days. And the Save Darfur campaign seems to most easily gain traction in the press/dominant institutions in a way that say a Save Palestine movement never ever could.
No, it wouldn’t and she wouldn’t. However, this boycott can gain traction and she can get space on this one, which might end up helping people. It would be unethical of her not to try, IMHO...
This just seems so problematic to me. For centuries now, Western countries have spoke of their need to save, enlighten, modernize, develop, etc the rest of the world, while paying scant attention to the damage that their interventions leave in their wake. And they use cases like Sudan to justify their continued need for intervention…
It is very important how a crisis or problem is articulated, what sort of solidarity is expressed within the articulation, as this then determines what sort of solution is put forth, and what configuration of forces will emerge from such a solution. In this case, from my point of view, Mia Farrow, George Clooney, and the rest of the Save Darfur movement seem to be unable to articulate the Sudan crisis alongside what is happening elsewhere in North Africa and West Asia. For you this may seem to be a necessarily strategic imperative, but for me it risks legitimizing those actors and institutions that have caused so much death and destruction elsewhere. And this can potentially legitimize their actions further as well.
There’s no one left to condemn them if we relegate everyone who’s gov’t acts like douchebags into the ‘shut the fuck up’ bin…
Hmmm. Can you please show me where I said this? I have no problem condemning China’s actions in Tibet, India’s many brutal repressions of its minorities and revolutionary movements, and so on, but my first concern is always my own responsibilities here as a citizen of Canada. Therefore, it would be hypocritical of me to do so without first condemning the brutal cultural genocide (the residential schools must be historically unprecedented in their brutality) that Canada has inflicted upon the first nations peoples, the support we offer to the US imperial missions, aggressive Israeli militarism, and so on. Only once our own positions are grounded in a very vocal solidarity with those brutalized by our own governments can we effectively excercise our solidarity with those oppressed by other governments/corporations/ institutions. So it is very possible to condemn France, Russia, China, Iran, India, and so on, and people do it all the time within more general anti-imperialist movements.
Anyhow, I am being silly with my time, and should get back to my own writing now. So let’s agree to disagree then.
Thanks for the kind words.
the African Union (with EU assistance) is doing too well
but they only have 7,000 soldiers.
African Union Force Low on Money, Supplies and Morale
Sunday, May 13, 2007
UNITED NATIONS — The beleaguered African Union peacekeeping force in Darfur is on the verge of collapse, a development that is undercutting international efforts to protect civilians and deploy United Nations reinforcements, according to A.U. and U.N. officials.
The African Union’s first major peacekeeping mission — once considered the last line of defense for Darfur’s civilians — has been crippled by funding and equipment shortages, government harassment and an upsurge in armed attacks by rebel forces that last month left seven African troops dead.
The setbacks have sapped morale among peacekeepers, many of whom have not been paid for months. It has also compelled the force — which numbered 7,000 troops at its peak — to scale back its patrols and has diminished its capacity to protect civilians, aid workers and its own peacekeepers. In one example, Gambian troops last month failed to aid a Ghanaian peacekeeper who was gunned down in a carjacking incident within 300 yards of the mission’s Darfur headquarters, U.N. officials said.
The crisis comes as the Sudanese government has renewed aerial bombardment in Darfur. And it has raised serious concerns among U.N. planners and outside experts about the viability of plans to deploy a joint U.N. and A.U. peacekeeping mission of up to 20,000 troops. Some governments that have committed to send troops and equipment to Darfur are either balking or failing to make good on their pledges.
“The risk is great that everything will collapse,” African Union Chairman Alpha Oumar Konare warned last month during Darfur talks in New York. “Today, we have soldiers who have been waiting three or four months to be paid.”
The violence in Darfur erupted in February 2003, when the Sudanese Liberation Army and another rebel group took up arms against the Islamic government, citing discrimination against black tribes. Sudan responded by training and equipping Arab militia, known as the Janjaweed, that killed hundreds of thousand of civilians suspected of backing the rebels and drove 2.5 million more from their homes.
The Bush administration has accused Khartoum of genocide and has argued that an expanded U.N. role in Darfur is key to ensuring the population’s safety.
The A.U. presence — known as the African Mission in Sudan — was established in 2004 to monitor the violence and to prevent abuses against civilians and humanitarian aid workers in Darfur. The force quickly endeared itself to Darfur’s displaced civilians, escorting women to forage for firewood, reporting atrocities, and mediating between warring factions.
But it has been plagued for several months by chronic shortages of funds and supplies, forcing members to patrol in jeeps without radio communications and borrow soap and food from private charities and U.N. humanitarian agencies.
Last month, five Senegalese soldiers were gunned down by followers of the Sudanese Liberation Army faction headed by rebel leader Minni Minawi, according to Senegalese and A.U. officials. Others have been beaten and robbed. One A.U. officer has been detained since December.
To improve security, Rwanda and Nigeria committed last year to send an additional 1,500 A.U. troops to Darfur to reinforce the mission. The United States contracted a U.S. company, Pacific Architects & Engineers, to construct barracks for the troops, but the plan was delayed because of a dispute over whether the United States or the United Nations would cover the costs.
Rwanda and Senegal have warned that they may withdraw if they do not receive financial support for the mission from Western donors. “What is the purpose of having them there just to sit in the sun,” Rwandan President Paul Kagame told Reuters last week. “Things are not good, and the international community needs to act.”
The deteriorating situation has aggravated a dispute between Khartoum, the African Union and the United Nations over who would lead and fund the expanded peacekeeping mission. The groups reached a compromise last month that provides for U.N. command of the overall U.N. mission in Sudan, with the African Union commanding operations in Darfur.
But Norway and Sweden, the only European nations that have expressed interest in participating in the Darfur mission, have rejected the accord. “We are not members of the African Union; we are members of the United Nations,” said Raymond Johansen, Norway’s deputy foreign minister. “It will not be easy for our troops to report to an African Union commander.”
The two nations initially pledged to send about 250 military engineers to Darfur. But Johansen said that they have objected to a U.N. proposal to place them under the protection of A.U. troops, saying they would provide an additional 250 Scandinavian security forces to ensure the engineers’ safety. U.N. officials said that Khartoum would probably oppose the deployment of European security forces.
The United Nations has begun discussions with other possible contributors, including Iran, Kenya, Nigeria, Pakistan, Thailand and Jordan, which has pledged to send six Cobra attack helicopter to the mission. China has promised to send a small unit of about 200 military engineers.
But many offers have not materialized. Egypt promised more than six months ago to provide 36 armored personnel carriers for the Darfur mission but hasn’t furnished them, according to U.N. officials. Bangladesh has agreed to transfer troops currently stationed in Congo to Darfur. U.N. officials, however, say the troops are still needed in Congo.
Konare, meanwhile, has indicated that the African Union wants the United Nations to fund the expanded mission in Darfur but play a subservient role in running the mission. But wealthy donors are unlikely to accept the financial burden unless the United Nations administers the mission, U.N. officials said.
“The big money problem is that the Americans and the Europeans promised over the last decade that as long as the Africans deployed in these kinds of situations, we would pay for the soldiers and equip them. And we haven’t done it,” said John Prendergast of the International Crisis Group.
Alex de Waal, a British scholar who advised the African Union, said that while the A.U. force has stumbled, international donors have allowed it to “wither on the vine.”
“You don’t put a force into horribly difficult situation, where they are being shot at and having their soldiers killed and then tell them that they’re second-rate and deprive them of resources,” he said.
this article is 2 months old, in order for what you are saying to be true, you need to show us how it is wrong.
China may be a horror but whatever you say, the PRC has lifted more people out of poverty than any other nation, ever
prove that it is the government that lifted them out, not the c word.
And I’m sure someone could counter that that the PRC has also killed more people by drought than any other nation, ever.
The African Union has done an amazing job with a) only 7,000 troops and b) very little money (owing to EU administrative errors it seems). The challenge is to build up its legitimacy and popularity, which is currently being challenged by the U.S./EU who want to bring the UN in (along their lines as in Southern Sudan, replete with Blackwater etc..).
I would agree with Alex de Waal who is probably the best informed commentator on Darfur. As quoted above:
And that lack of faith (which the funding shortfall amounts to) is why the AU can’t do the job, not competence.
prove that it is the government that lifted them out, not the c word.
Why? Under the PRC however it’s happened, and whenever, hundreds of millions of people have become wealthier, learned to read, and are living longer lives.
On AU funding:
So it looks like the EU has been imposing impossible conditions upon the AU bureaucracy, which wasn’t ready to deal with their requirements.
Other reports from the EU say that fraud isn’t being investigated as an issue.
BUT
As Julie Flint points out, we are all reading from an outdated script on Darfur, to an extent. We’re not talking about genocide or anything so simplistic.
Darfur is a patchwork of shifting rebel forces over which Khartoum has little control any more. We need to get those rebels to a table for talks, and the language of genocide is irrelevant to this task.
I see very little productive point in negotiations unless the aim is the absolutely unconditional and immediate cessation of all hostilities against Darfurian civilians, repatriation of all refugees, and the unconditional payment of reconstruction costs and restitution. Whatever you want to call it, it needs to cease immediately and permanently, without a lot of fucking around. How best can that be accomplished? I submit that it would be best to figure out how to get those AU troops equipped and paid, and send them in to restore peace. And fuck Khartoum if they’ve got a problem with that.
I don’t think Khartoum does have a problem with that. As they’ve said consistently, they are in favor of an enlarged AU force with some UN component but not run by the UN (ie the U.S.).
The sticking point is the funding, which has been criminally short, not just for the AU but also for aid agencies (who have been doing amazing work with little security or resources).
Obviously the aim would be the end of hostilities. One of the worst mistakes in the Darfur conflict were the Abuja accords, which only included a minority of the rebel factions (no-one is holding the JEM accountable for continued fighting BTW, an interesting omission).
It has to be all, or nothing. So we need to hold those rebel leaders to account and demand that they come to the table (and maybe cut off their funding? Qaddafi would be a place to start).
look sam, I’ll I’m looking for is evidence to support the assertion that the UN/EU/U.S. secretly think that the AU mission is doing too well and therefore want to destroy it.
You’re so right. If she’s not talking about American evils, she should shut the fuck up.
Now THAT’s funny. (Inside joke)
Shazam, could you splain please a bit about the “Qaddafi would be a place to start”.
My impression about Qaddafi is that he would be a good person to cut out of the loop. I haven’t heard anything but rhetoric from him. Is he financing pendejada?
Last I heard he was against extra-continental “peacekeepers” and accusing “The West” of only being interested in the oil. But that may have been because he was thinking he’d qualify for the role of King of Africa.
He is now planning to soil himself by executing white people on trumped up charges.
Does Kaddafi still have those 40 ninja-chick bodyguards? I always liked that. It had style…
No doubt. He also wore that bitchin’ leopard-skin fez.
Gazprom, the Russian gas monopoly, has chosen Total, the French oil company, to help develop its giant Shtokman gas field
Al Breach, head of research for investment bank UBS Warburg, called the deal “a major victory” for France and all of Europe.
Breach said: “I think critically it looks like this is going to be European partners, but not Americans.
“It confirms a trend we’re seeing where Russia is doing joint venture deals with a number of European concerns but not with the Americans.”
Just for reference (and context) :
Total also recently signed pacts with Venezuela allowing the country to take stakes of up to 83 percent in their Orinoco projects.
From MSNBC
Where others might come to a country and seek to impose a particular way of doing business, Total is prepared to listen and adapt to local conditions.
This approach has helped Total do business in Saudi Arabia and Bolivia, for example. In Venezuela, where ExxonMobil and Conoco walked away from heavy oil upgrader projects rather than accept new terms from president Hugo Chávez, Total was one of the companies that stayed.
Total’s head of exploration and production, said oil companies today had to learn to accept the consequences of resource nationalism.
This meant increasing a company’s contribution to local communities and using more local suppliers, for example, as well as recognising that sometimes the agreements of 15-20 years ago might have favoured the multinationals.
END OF QUOTE
What on earth has this to do with what the US is doing in the Horn of Africa, much less Mia Farrow?
Meanwhile, we have a copy cat kidnapping ring in Nigeria trying to discredit MEND. I almost fell for it myself.
I wonder who’s clever idea that was.
OK OK OK. Sarko kicks in. It seems the EU is going to open up a, get this, “humanitarian corridor” in Chad, so The Corporations can proceed with their intervention in The Sudan. The deal is they’re only supposed to be kind enough to offer their services until the UN can get together an official Peacekeeping Force.
Where they’re going to find the called for 20,000 is anybody’s guess. Have we heard anything about them even thinking about paying AU salaries (garnered from the profits they’ve been sucking out of Africa for the better part of the last 300 years)? I haven’t heard. Has anyone heard?
But voila : what do you think this means? :
OPEN QUOTE
Jean-Marie Guehenno, the UN official in charge of peacekeeping, [stressed on Friday that] there would have to be close “co-ordination mechanisms” between such a EU-UN force and the planned African Union-UN force that is to take over peacekeeping from underfunded and poorly equipped AU troops in Darfur.
END OF QUOTE how mysterious and blantantly duplicitous is that?
Meanwhile, UN Peacekeeping troops in The Congo (17,000) are moving right along. Apparently Peacekeepers from India, Pakistan and Bangladesh have all been trading food, WEAPONS and military FN intelligence with their friendly neighborhood insurgents from Rwanda.
So what is that then? The real functionality of UN Peacekeepers? Sounds more like a smuggling operation to moi. A thinly veiled excuse for putting down airstrips etc. How’d you say those Rebels in The Sudan got their weapons again?
Never fear, Ban Ki-Moon is here. Investigations have been launched.
Let’s get a few more close looks at what those so-called Peacekeepers have been doing in The Congo before we go with the flow on Chad and The Sudan. Because I think we’re looking at tiny tiny smokie smokie.
Child prostitution
I suspect that these “Hutu militias” are nothing of the sort. Probably some criminal gangs whipped up by Lundin mining, Paul Kagame or the Museveni clan to steal Congolese resources.
Child prostitution
“NO AUTHORIZATION
In case you use personal firewall, please adjust the privacy settings for this web site.”
Interesting, look on the Office for Internal Oversight Services website. Should be here
And what is Museveni up to at the moment? This is slipping underneath the radar.
Museveni has been touring East Africa, possibly to drum up support for a regional grouping (and he was very quick to respond negatively to Qaddafi’s “African U.S.” proposals).
[which is odd coming from such a staunch U.S. ally]
And, MPs of the ruling National Resistance Movement (NRM) are undergoing military drills at the Kyankwanzi National Leadership Institute, Kiboga
Ugandan army kills eight Kenyan warriors