General Wesley Clark: Why the U.S. Should Care About Darfur
NPR, News & Notes with Ed Gordon
April 20, 2006
Transcript by Reg NYC
Wes Clark: " I think it's clear that this is, in the first case it's a humanitarian tragedy. It's continuously unfolding, and it won't be stopped without US leadership to stop it."
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Ed Gordon: Today, Jan Eglan, Head of the Humanitarian Aid at the United Nations, delivers his long-awaited report on the ongoing violence in Darfur, West Sudan. Since 2003, government armed militia have driven more than two million mostly non-Arab villagers from their homes, killing perhaps hundreds of thousands.
Last week, Secretary of State Condoleeza Rice called on the Sudanese government to allow a strong UN peacekeeping force into the region to restore order. There are currently only a few thousand African Union troops trying to safeguard an area roughly the size of Texas. Trouble is also brewing in the South, despite a newly-brokered peace deal. Armed rebels from Uganda's notorious Lord's Resistance Army have attacked several Southern villages in recent weeks, including at least one UN compound.
For more on the trouble in Sudan, NPR's Ferai Chideya talked with General Wesley Clark. He was Supreme Allied Commander of NATO during the 1999 Kosovo campaign and now sits on the board of The International Crisis Group. He says Americans should care about what's happening in Sudan.
GENERAL WESLEY CLARK: First, for humanitarian reasons and secondly, for reasons of regional stability and ultimately, even for matters of energy. What we don't need is, we don't need another crisis where the West stands by as hundreds of thousands of people have died. Already the casualty toll from Darfur is estimated to be 300,000 and rather than the instability easing off, it's actually deepened with longer cross-border operations back and forth across the border between Sudan and Chad and greater challenges throughout the region for stability.
Ferai Chideya: By energy, you mean that we have a stake in the region's fossil fuels.
GENERAL WESLEY CLARK: well, I think the whole world has a stake in this. Where we are right now is in a worldwide energy, integrated energy market. Oil that's taken from one place and consumed in another place is, in economic terms, fungible and not technically maybe, every oils a little bit different, but it's a world market. So, a shortage that results from a supply interruption in, in Nigeria or somewhere in Africa is just as significant as a supply interruption, let's say, in the Middle East or off the coast of Texas, because the whole market is ultimately effected by this.
Ferai Chideya: President Bush has broken ranks with others in his administration in calling for an end to the violence in Darfur, but we haven't gotten involved yet as a nation. Why is this?
GENERAL WESLEY CLARK: Well, I think it goes back to the competing priorities for the President and his attention. I wouldn't presume to be able to explain why, but if the President in normal times says we should do something, normally people hop to and do it. And I think it's clear that this is, in the first case it's a humanitarian tragedy. It's continuously unfolding, and it won't be stopped without US leadership to stop it.
Ferai Chideya: You mentioned humanitarian tragedy. We recently had on Paul Rusesabagina who is the gentleman whose life is portrayed in the movie, 'Hotel Rwanda', and he said that in Darfur, what was called during the Holocaust "genocide, never again" has become "again and again and again". That's a pretty grim warning.
GENERAL WESLEY CLARK: I think it's a very grim warning, and in every case, there are specific matters that are different than every other case. There are always competing explanations. There are always assurances that it is different this time, that for some reason it's not going to expand or whatever. But the point it, these episodes have a lot in common. This is war by proxy. It's war underneath the visibility of the major powers. If they had formed up an army and moved in with tanks and artillery and 200,000 troops, it would've gotten worldwide attention in all probability. They don't have those kinds of resources, and they proved they don't need them, the Sudanese I'm talking about. What they are able to do is move out populations, intimidate whole regions of a country and throw a neighboring country into turmoil by supporting groups of irregular fighters, the so-called Janjaweed. And these, assisted by helicopters and other assets from the Sudanese forces, have been very effective in carrying out a policy of ethnic cleansing.
Ferai Chideya: But the Khartoum government says, or claims, that it is not endorsing the actions of the Janjaweed.
GENERAL WESLEY CLARK: Yes, it, it claims that, but the fact is that we know that Khartoum's military assets have been engaged. We know that these people are connected to the government in Khartoum. It's that simple and clear-cut.
Ferai Chideya: In a recent op-ed, you recommended appointing a new US Envoy to Sudan. Why, and who would be up to that kind of a task?
GENERAL WESLEY CLARK: Well, that's up to the administration to pick someone, but you need a tough-minded diplomat who can go in and understands diplomacy and understands how to threaten the use of force. And then I think you need something more. I think you need a United States government that's committing the resources and the prestige of the United States government to back him up.
Ferai Chideya: When you were in Kosovo, as the Supreme Allied Commander of NATO, there was a situation where the global community was heavily critiqued for not entering sooner to prevent bloodshed. What did you learn from Kosovo that can be applied to the situation in Sudan and in Darfur?
GENERAL WESLEY CLARK: Well in the first place, we were heavily critiqued, the United States was heavily critiqued for two years for not getting engaged effectively in stopping the Bosnian War. So, when I got there and saw what was unfolding in Kosova, I immediately worked behind the scenes to help formulate a strategy to help bring nations together, to help focus NATO's attention on it. And we put a 'diplomacy first' strategy in place, but we also knew our adversary. I'd spent hundreds of hours with Slobodan Milosevic. And I understood that he was a man who respected only the threat of military force, and therefore without a viable threat, the diplomacy wouldn't be empowered. And so, we put a threat in place, and it's a matter of having strong proactive diplomacy with a strong threat. That was what we did in Kosova. It worked for a while until after the diplomacy didn't take up after we had delivered the strong threat. We forced a pull-back, but Milosevic, I guess, had gone to the Russians who said, 'Oh, don't worry about US airplanes. We had airplanes in Afghanistan. It didn't help us. And, and you can do whatever you need to do without NATO getting involved. They're really not going to do it.' He set in motion a broad campaign, and he was, he was proved wrong. NATO did take effective action and NATO stopped him, and rolled it back. And we put a million and a half Albanians back in their homes. It was an enormous success for NATO and for the power of united action. That's what it's going to take in Darfur.
Ferai Chideya: But when you talk about united action, what do you mean? And I'm going to just tread on some sensitive ground here. In Kosovo and in the whole Balkans conflict, you had a bunch of white people who were dying, who were being killed by other white people. There seems to be a certain level of compassion fatigue about black people being killed by other black people or brown people and a lack of ability to mobilize international forces to the aid of groups like that.
GENERAL WESLEY CLARK: Well, I don't know if it's racist. And I do know this, that the United States is heavily committed in Iraq right now and in Afghanistan. Certainly the administration's got it's hand full, and so does NATO, which is by the way, looking well beyond its borders. But here's something that's immediately important to do. I think with the right kind of leadership from the administration, we could focus NATO on this problem. I don't think it could be done without the presence of some US troops on the ground in the region, as well as US assistance with air power and command and control. But I think it's a relatively small number of US troops that would be required, and I think we could muster a large force of supporting troops. You know, in the occupation in Kosova, at the end of the war, the US troops were never in the majority in that operation. I think the most we ever had was on the order of five or six thousand US troops, and yet we had over 40,000 total troops involved in occupying Kosova. It shows what kind of leverage the United States can provide when the United States is engaged.
Ferai Chideya: Now the US has a complicated relationship with Sudan. We have mentioned energy, but also we've received valuable information from their Intelligence Minister, who was once Bin Ladin's personal handler and is considered an architect of the campaign in Darfur. Are we, as some reports would allege, a long Los Angeles Times series for example, enabling a genocide in exchange for intelligence in the war on terror?
GENERAL WESLEY CLARK: I suspect that the intelligence is of some utility, but I also believe that we've got to be very careful not to buy off on and endorse regimes like this just because they'll provide intelligence. There's no telling how valuable the intelligence really is. We don't know what part of it is accurate, what's inaccurate, and more importantly, we don't know that we're getting all that could be gotten. So, in this case I think the intelligence is, is certainly useful, but if the government of Sudan wants to remain a government in the world in good standing, then it's got to obey international law. It hasn't done that.
Ferai Chideya: International law often comes down to the United Nations. Now Secretary of State Condoleeza Rice recently called for an increased UN presence in Sudan, Particularly in Darfur, and the House, here in the US, recently passed a bill calling for action in Darfur and economic sanctions. Is that enough, are these rumblings enough, to make something happen?
GENERAL WESLEY CLARK: No, I don't think it is enough, because without a stronger international presence along the border, without US troops there to bring this mission home to world opinion, we won't have the leverage to stop the government of Sudan.
Ferai Chideya: Let's move to the South. Things there are deteriorating rapidly as well. The government in Khartoum appears to be using the Lord's Resistance Army the same way that it used militias, including the Janjaweed in Darfur, to destabilize the region, to persecute those unsympathetic to the government's interest. So, is the whole peace treaty that is supposed to be in place in trouble?
GENERAL WESLEY CLARK: Yes, the peace treaty is in trouble, but that doesn't mean that we should junk it. What we need to do is use the commitments that have been made as leverage and demand that they be lived up to.
Ferai Chideya: How do we do that? How do we do just what you said?
GENERAL WESLEY CLARK: I think you've got to have a US Envoy to Sudan who has competence to work both the South and the West, both Darfur and the Lord's Resistance Army, and hold the government of Sudan accountable. He's got to have the kind of leadership and charisma that some of our great diplomats do have. And we've got to put the muscle of the United States government at his beck and call and behind him.
Ferai Chideya: General Wesley Clark was Supreme Allied Commander of NATO during the 1999 Kosovo campaign. He's now a member of the board of The International Crisis Group. General Clark, Thank you for joining us.
GENERAL WESLEY CLARK: Thank you. It's good to be with you.
