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Reply #24: But don't you feel that if the AU can't to get a broader UN mandate, [View All]

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NNguyenMD Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sun Jun-12-05 09:02 PM
Response to Reply #20
24. But don't you feel that if the AU can't to get a broader UN mandate,
where China has a permanent seat on the security council, they're probably never going to get one. And who would expect the AU to act alone in solving this matter, without the political and material support of ANY major powers much less the UN.

And you are probably correct, giving military support to the Rebels in the Sudan would become a proxy war between US backed Rebels and the Chinese backed Arab government. It would have happened in Rwanda between the US and France had we given open military support for the RPF to take down the French supported Hutu government. The French were supplying the Intarahamwe and Hutu Army with weapons throughout the entire genocide. Even after the genocide, the French troops who arrived made sure that members of the Hutu militias had access to the foreign aid in the refugee camps near Rwanda's border with the Congo. In that situation it was the French backed Hutu vs the nobody backed Tutsis.

It happened between the USSR and the United States when we backed the Contras against the Soviet backed Sadinistas. We were stepping on the invested Oil interests of Russia and France when we invaded Iraq. It didn't scare us then to get involved, it shouldn't scare us anymore now. You're going to be stepping on the toes of another nation in almost any situation when taking a side in another nations civil war.

The problem I have isn't pissing off China, its recognizing a government that chooses to systemactically annihilate an entire ethnic population, not just by supporting militia groups like the Janjaweed, but by using their own army and airforce to commit genocide on a desperate population of black Africans. Thats not a government that you can negotiate with. Military force used to overthrow the government is what stopped the killing in Rwanda, and I'm willing to bet that it'll be the only answer to stopping the genocide in the Sudan.

Hands down, I agree that putting our men on the ground is a mistake, because then the situation converts from being military support to a new Vietnam. But if we just let everything move on in the same path without interference, it'll only prolong the genocide thats being committed. That is all that doing nothing will accomplish.

The UN isn't giving the AU the support they need now, and so long as China is warming its permanent seat on the Security council, they are never going to get it.

In my opinion, supporting the AU means, "Hey guys, if you see them committing acts of murder and genocide we want you to shoot back and we want you not to just defend yourself, but openly engage the Janjaweed militias and Sudanese Army so that they can't kill anymore people. You have our political support and our military backing if you want it."

During Rwanda, the state department was obsessed with maintaining the cease fire between the RPF and Hutu government. They were basically saying to Kigame "Stop your attacks and they promise that they're not going to kill anymore of the helpless Tutsis, thousands of whom they've already murdered. Don't worry, we trust them on good faith that they'll stop the widespread genocide." That was the extent of the US involvement in Rwanda. Because the world chose not take a side, because they not recognize who were the good guys who wanted to stop the killing, the Tutsis paid with their lives.

As far as ethnic tensions go, well that would be a function of the AU to maintain the peace in the region. The Rwandan government today does not engage in revenge executions, on the contrary because the jails are so full now the government has instituted a judicial system that forces the two ethnic groups to come to terms with each other, with victim and killer still living side by side in the same neighborhoods.

I know I sound like a conservative hawk, but I just feel very strongly about this because I am amazed that today after the Holocaust, and Rwanda, this is happening all over again. The fact that its happening in an African nation, to black African people only underlies the extraordinary global racism that allows this kind of devastation happen to defenseless blacks.

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