Where anti-Arab prejudice and oil make the difference

Ray · 05-17-2007, 04:40 AM

Quote:

Where anti-Arab prejudice and oil make the difference

The contrast in western attitudes to Darfur and Congo shows how illiberal our concept of intervention really is

Roger Howard
Wednesday May 16, 2007
The Guardian

In a remote corner of Africa, millions of civilians have been slaughtered in a conflict fuelled by an almost genocidal ferocity that has no end in sight. Victims have been targeted because of their ethnicity and entire ethnic groups destroyed - but the outside world has turned its back, doing little to save people from the wrath of the various government and rebel militias. You could be forgiven for thinking that this is a depiction of the Sudanese province of Darfur, racked by four years of bitter fighting. But it describes the Democratic Republic of Congo, which has received a fraction of the media attention devoted to Darfur.

The UN estimates that 3 million to 4 million Congolese have been killed, compared with the estimated 200,000 civilian deaths in Darfur. A peace deal agreed in December 2002 has never been adhered to, and atrocities have been particularly well documented in the province of Kivu - carried out by paramilitary organisations with strong governmental links. In the last month alone, thousands of civilians have been killed in heavy fighting between rebel and government forces vying for control of an area north of Goma, and the UN reckons that another 50,000 have been made refugees.

How curious, then, that so much more attention has been focused on Darfur than Congo. There are no pressure groups of any note that draw attention to the Congolese situation. In the media there is barely a word. The politicians are silent. Yet if ever there were a case for the outside world to intervene on humanitarian grounds alone - "liberal interventionism" - then surely this is it.

The key difference between the two situations lies in the racial and ethnic composition of the perceived victims and perpetrators. In Congo, black Africans are killing other black Africans in a way that is difficult for outsiders to identify with. The turmoil there can in that sense be regarded as a narrowly African affair.

In Darfur the fighting is portrayed as a war between black Africans, rightly or wrongly regarded as the victims, and "Arabs", widely regarded as the perpetrators of the killings. In practice these neat racial categories are highly indistinct, but it is through such a prism that the conflict is generally viewed.

It is not hard to imagine why some in the west have found this perception so alluring, for there are numerous people who want to portray "the Arabs" in these terms. In the United States and elsewhere those who have spearheaded the case for foreign intervention in Darfur are largely the people who regard the Arabs as the root cause of the Israel-Palestine dispute. From this viewpoint, the events in Darfur form just one part of a much wider picture of Arab malice and cruelty.

Nor is it any coincidence that the moral frenzy about intervention in Sudan has coincided with the growing military debacle in Iraq - for as allied casualties in Iraq have mounted, so has indignation about the situation in Darfur. It is always easier for a losing side to demonise an enemy than to blame itself for a glaring military defeat, and the Darfur situation therefore offers some people a certain sense of catharsis.

Humanitarian concern among policymakers in Washington is ultimately self-interested. The United States is willing to impose new sanctions on the Sudan government if the latter refuses to accept a United Nations peacekeeping force, but it is no coincidence that Sudan, unlike Congo, has oil - lots of it - and strong links with China, a country the US regards as a strategic rival in the struggle for Africa's natural resources; only last week Amnesty International reported that Beijing has illicitly supplied Khartoum with large quantities of arms.

Nor has the bloodshed in Congo ever struck the same powerful chord as recent events in Somalia, where a new round of bitter fighting has recently erupted. At the end of last year the US backed an Ethiopian invasion of Somalia to topple an Islamic regime that the White House perceived as a possible sponsor of anti-American "terrorists".

The contrasting perceptions of events in Congo and Sudan are ultimately both cause and effect of particular prejudices. Those who argue for liberal intervention, to impose "rights, freedom and democracy", ultimately speak only of their own interests. To view their role in such altruistic terms always leaves them open to well-founded accusations of double standards that damage the international standing of the intervening power and play into the hands of its enemies.

By seeing foreign conflicts through the prism of their own prejudices, interventionists also convince themselves that others see the world in the same terms. This allows them to obscure uncomfortable truths, such as the nationalist resentment that their interference can provoke. This was the case with the Washington hawks who once assured us that the Iraqi people would be "dancing on the rooftops" to welcome the US invasion force that would be bringing everyone "freedom".

Highly seductive though the rhetoric of liberal interventionism may be, it is always towards hubris and disaster that it leads its willing partners.

· Roger Howard is the author of What's Wrong with Liberal Interventionism
howard1966@btinternet.com

Guardian Unlimited | Comment is free | Where anti-Arab prejudice and oil make the difference

The main article.

Ray · 05-17-2007, 04:44 AM

Quote:

steerpike77

May 16, 2007 1:33 AM

Far from anti-Arab prejudice,I think it likely that few people elsewhere care tuppence about what savageries the inhabitants of these benighted lands are visiting upon one another. The media and chattering classes yes, they will pick their goodies and baddies according to their political prejudice, but for the rest, pfui!

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FRVessant

May 16, 2007 1:38 AM

I think a part of the problem is that there is no simple solution for Congo. (Not that there are simple solutions for Iraq or Sudan, but there is at least the appearance of their existing.) It's a complex conflict that can't be bombed to a resolution. Where would we intervene? How would we get troops there? Who would they attack? In the Sudan, these questions seem to have simple answers: in Darfur; by paratrooping them in maybe, heading down through Egypt perhaps, maybe by airlift or maybe just bomb Khartoum a little; any and all Arabs. Basically, even the Decents know that "intervention" in Congo would be disastrous. The Sudan is mostly arid and seems ideal for manoeuvres by armoured troops; it seems like we'd only need to go in, shoot a few bad boys and it would all be resolved in a couple of months. The Decents probably aren't even clear on who's fighting whom in Congo.

Yet you are absolutely right. Sudan is much more complicated than the Decents tend to believe. It won't be resolved without a political solution and it is not simply the Arab-dominated government that refuses to come to one. Intervention would not be very likely to resolve anything. Besides, so long as no one hurts the flow of oil, we don't actually care a less.

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halgeel84

May 16, 2007 2:36 AM

Did you say that the Congo does need liberal intervenion yet again? Stunning, indeed!

Weep, Beloved Black Brother
A poem by Patrice Lumumba

"O black man, beast of burden through the centuries,
Your ashes scattered to the winds of heaven,
There was a time when you built burial temples
In which your murderers sleep their final sleep.
Hunted down and tracked, driven from your homes.
Beaten in battles where brute force prevailed.
Barbaric centuries of rape and carnage
That offered you the choice of death or slavery.
You went for refuge to the forest depths,
And other deaths waylaid you, burning fevers,
Jaws of wild beasts, the cold, unholy coils
Of snakes who crushed you gradually to death.
Then came the white man, more clever, tricky, cruel,
He took your gold in trade for shoddy stuff,
He raped your women, made your warriors drunk,
Penned up you sons and daughters on his ships.
The tom-toms hummed through all the villages,
Spreading afar the mourning, the wild grief
At news of exile to a distant land
Where cotton is God and the dollar King.
Condemned to enforced labor, beasts of burden,
Under a burning sun from dawn to dusk,
So that you might forget you are a man
They taught your to sing the praises of their God,
And these hosannas, tuned in to your sorrows,
Gave you the hope of a better world to come.
But in your human heart you only asked
The right to live, your share of happiness.
Beside your fire, your eyes reflect your dreams and suffering,
You sang the chants that gave voice to your blues.
And sometimes to your joys, when sap rose in the trees
And you danced wildly in the damp of evening.
And out of this sprang forth, magnificent,
Alive and virile, like a bell of brass
Sounding your sorrow, that powerful music,
Jazz, now loved, admired throughout the world,
Compelling the white man to respect,
Announcing in clear loud tones from this time on
This country no longer belongs to him.
And thus you made the brothers of your race
Lift up their heads to see clear, straight ahead
The happy future bearing deliverance.
The banks of a great river in flower with hope
Are yours from this time onward.
The earth and all its riches
Are yours from this time onward.
The blazing sun in the colorless sky
Dissolves our sorrow in a wave of warmth.
Its burning rays will help to dry forever
The flood of tears shed by our ancestors,
Martyrs of the tyranny of the masters.
And on this earth which you will always love
You will make the Congo a nation, happy and free,
In the very heart of vast Black Africa."

Weep, Beloved Black Brother

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kwazulu

May 16, 2007 5:17 AM

i completely agree with mr. howard - it is absolutely true that the darfur camapaign in america is in so many ways an extension of the palestinian conflict and its polemics; the campaign at least in the US is driven by right-wing pro-israeli groups who see it as a way to counter pro-palestine campaigns on univeristy campuses. the best article published on the politics of this campaign - and which completely supports mr. howard's (why darfur and not congo) - is an article in the academic journal middle east report:

chck out this link:
Slavery, Genocide and the Politics of Outrage: Understanding the New “Racial Olympics”
Middle East Report 234: Slavery, Genocide and the Politics of Outrage: Understanding the New “Racial Olympics”, by Hishaam D. Aidi

"But the Save Darfur campaign is better understood by looking at the post-September 11 domestic political scene. Unlike other “hot spots” across Africa, the Darfur tragedy reverberates deeply in the US because it is represented as a racial conflict between “Arabs” and “indigenous Africans,” because Sudan is where the “moral geographies”[47] of black, Jewish and Christian nationalists overlap and because the Darfur crisis offers a unique opportunity to unite against the new post-Cold War enemy."

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NoBulshit

May 16, 2007 6:11 AM

As Roger Howerd says (and reader 'kwazulu' agrees), clearly it is the fault of Israel's supporters in the US that the West is ignoring the shameful slaughter in Darfur. In fact, I have even heard that Israel is to blame for the violence in Algeria (between the government and the Islamic Salvation Front (FIS)), as well as in Angola (the government vs. UNITA). I have even heard that Israel was responsible for the massacre of the Tutsis by the Hutus in Rwanda.

Now get this: I have it from reliable sources that Israel was responsible for the 2004 Tsunami in the Indian ocean (that killed more than 300,000 people).

To cut the list short, Israel is basically responsible for all the troubles of the world (after all they killed Jesus, didn't they?).

And as a brief conclusion to this superb academic analysis, here's a question for you readers: Where do many of the people escaping from the violence in Darfur run to -- seriously?

I'll give you a few hints. It's not a country that borders on the Sudan. It's a very small country. It's a country that takes some of the Darfur refugees in, houses them, clothes them, gives them temporary jobs, and donates millions of dollars to the UN for the victims of the Sudanese conflict.

Egypt? No.
Saudi Arabia? No.
Iran? No.
England? No.
France? No.
Switzerland? No.
Israel? You got it. Yes.

Okay, all you Israel bashers. So now it's your turn to respond and say just how 'evil' Israel is.

-

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Dimitrov

May 16, 2007 6:25 AM

Congratulations to CIF for publishing this cogent rebuttal of the Euston war manifesto. Howard writes:

"it is no coincidence that Sudan, unlike Congo, has oil - lots of it - and strong links with China, a country the US regards as a strategic rival in the struggle for Africa's natural resources"
--------------

It's true that Sudan has oil and it's mostly going to China but does Congo have nothing of value? Of course it does. It is chock full of uranium, coltan, cobalt, diamonds, you name it. Not for nothing did the West topple and assassinate the nationalist leader Patrice Lumumba and replace him with the murderous thug Mobutu Sese Seko, who continued the colonial plunder of the Congo for his Western masters.

When the Congo gained independence, the mineral-rich province of Katanga seceded and fell under the control of Western-backed rebels and mercenaires. When oil was discovered in Sudan, a Western-backed rebellion erupted around the oil fields and ended also in the secession of the South.

When new oil was discovered in Darfur, magico presto, another rebellion there.

In the Congo, the CIA used Mobutu to assassinate Prime Minister Lumumba and regime change the country into a discount mineral outlet for Europe, the proceeds going directly into Mobutu's Swiss accounts and up his nose.

In Sudan, the US has positioned the brutal rebel leader Minni Minnawi as its preferred regime change candidate and is helping him subvert the government from within while his SLA guerrillas who supposedly laid down their arms after the Abuja peace agreement are marauding the countryside killing AU peacekeepers and aid workers.

The reason why the West cares not a fig about the Congo is because it is getting what it wants from there: uranium, diamonds, coltan, copper, cobalt, etc. The reason it doesn't care about Uganda, where Christian fundamentalist rebels have been killing and displacing millions of people and kidnapping schoolgirls to use as sex slaves, is because Uganda already has a puppet regime, one that was willing to send troops into the new anti-Muslim war started by the US in Somalia.

The ONLY reason that the Euston idiots get any attention and media coverage is because the US and EU want Sudan's oil, period. Africa's mineral wealth has always been the only motive for Western interest in the continent. We don't care if child slaves mine our uranium and diamonds. We don't care if the coltan in our cell phones is flecked with African blood. We just want our goodies and the blackies can all go to hell.

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Damo70

May 16, 2007 6:55 AM

Mr Howard. Thank you for raising the issue of the Congo. I have consistently heard from my Congolese friends how rich the Congo is in natural resources (2nd richest in the world?) yet how poor the people are as a result of continuing colonial exploitation and internecine conflict. But, who is prepared to do anything? What, in fact, can be done? Why is the world media so silent wrt a situation which has continued for many years and shows no sign of abating?

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quirky

May 16, 2007 8:05 AM

Sigh. I really do despair about Comment is Free articles sometimes. What is the point of Roger Howards's article? Who's killing who in Africa - the Americans? So they are indirectly responsible? So they only care about African genocide when oil or political interest is at stake? Welcome to realpolitik, Mr Howard. Do you think European Guardianistas care about black Africans dying in a far-off country? Why aren't there more angry articles about the Congo here?

NoBulshit is spot on. ;-)

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Plataea

May 16, 2007 8:41 AM

In the context of what is going on in Congo, the discussion of what Israel did and did not do is daft. The current conflict(s) in Congo are fuelled by arms and the desire for resources. Arms go in, resources go out. No arms in/no resources go out - less conflict.

Weapons & the ammo they need are heavy = fly em in or take em in by road (we are getting near the answer). Likewise, resources. Congo answer - ring fence the bloody place, arms embargo with shoot to kill policies for anybody supplying the stuff, likewise given modern analytical techniques, weapons & ammo, confiscation of any resources going out plus sequestration of companies using the resources.

The above would not get a quick result but my guess is that the conflicts in the region would die down since there would not be much to fight about. I am sure the ring fence would not be water tight - but it would be better than nothing (or as goes on at the moment - hand wringing & talk).

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Bils

May 16, 2007 8:43 AM

Congratulations Roger Howard and the Guardian,

Liberal Interventionism is not being used as a concept of peace, it is a concept to legitimise war - the misuse of the suffering of the people of Darfur by the Euston Manifesto Group, Nick Cohen and David Aaronovitch and the whole 'why pick on Israel, why not Darfur' brigade is shameful,

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Dimitrov

May 16, 2007 9:10 AM

When asking why so-called liberals would want to beat war drums against third-world countries about which they know next to nothing, one naturally looks at whose interests such a bizarre undertaking would serve. When the target of liberal interventionism is Africa, those interests are not hard to discern: They are the same colonial/imperialist ones that have bled the black continent white for centuries.

However, Western capitalism might be beating the "humanitarian" war drums to score not just on the economic front but on several fronts at once. For example, we remember how the French left's idiotic support of Mao and the Khmer Rouge ended in tears, gutting the left when the millions of corpses produced by the various incarnations of Maoism hit our TV screens. So could it be that these pseudo-lefties are dragging people into something that would likewise end up completely obliterating the left, or whatever passes for left in the West, when we discover what monsters the Darfur rebels are and what bottomless misery our "humanitarian" invasion has plunged Sudan into? Could that be the double whammy that our corporate masters are after?

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raphaelg

May 16, 2007 9:51 AM

A whole article about the situation in Congo without mentioning the various attempts by five African nations (including Zimbabwe, heaven help us) to police the eastern part of the country. This might explain why intervention is not often discussed vis a vis Congo - along with the most extraordinary difficulty in mounting any kind of suitable military relief operation in its terrain.

The assertion that interventionists are concerned about Darfur as part of an anti-Arab campaign is breathtaking. The way the Guardian keeps finding folks to twist reality to make it reflect its' view, shared with petty fascists around the world, that everything the West i.e America does is evil is astonishing.

Perhaps Serbian nationalists and the government in Khartoum could organize a cultural festival sponsored by the government of China (Communist home of the 7 day work week and the two-dollar a day wage) and the Guardian can send Hywel Bennett, Shameless Milne and Mr. Howard to cover it.

But seriously:
New Prime Minister, New Era ... cannot the Guardian refelct the change-over and appoint a new commissioning editor for its opinion pages?

Raphael Garshin

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ffmartens

May 16, 2007 9:52 AM

Last time I looked, there was a large United Nations presence in the Democratic Republic of Congo. MONUC (Mission de l'ONU en RD Congo)is the largest (including a 17,000-strong military component) and most expensive (with a budget exceeding $1 billion) UN peacekeeping force presently operating. Its mission to support the peace progress in DRC and, as the Security Council acted under Chapter VII of the UN Charter when establishing it, MONUC is authorised to use force - and has done so - in support of its mandate. Roger Howard may say this is not enough, but it's certainly intervention.

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Catch22

May 16, 2007 9:58 AM

I think you'll find what Mr Howard is trying to say is that the West's attitude to Sudan and the Congo is fueled by good old orientalism, where the occidental, enlightened and highly rational West loves to find fault with the 'infidel', unenlightened, irrational 'Arabs' [sic. Muslims, because let's be honest most people think Arabs are all Muslims which is juts a little wide of the mark, some Arabs are Christians and wait for it, even Jews!]

No one is blaming Israel for what is going on in the Congo or in Darfur, what Mr Howard is trying to point out is that a lot of the people involved in the Save Darfur campaign happen to be pro-Israeli Zionists who find Darfur an easy screen to hide Israel's human rights abuses behind.

If you don't think this is the case then you are either a Zionist or you have never met any. From my experiences of living in Israel as a Jew many people love to deflect any criticism of Israeli policy towards the Palestinians by either racially stereotyping them as 'evil' and less 'moral' and 'worthy' than Jewish Israelis or by saying that Israel is not as bad as Saudi Arabia etc etc. Whether this is true or not can never be quantified. But what is true is that human rights abuses are committed by all races or people, all religions and all nationalities and the sooner people stop playing willy waggling over whose got the better human rights policy and who's got the worst the better for everyone who is unfortunate enough to be on the receiving end of oppression.

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LessPeopleMoreTrees

May 16, 2007 10:17 AM

Congo? Aren't the Belgian/French imperialist lackeys sopposed to be dealing with that bit?

I wouldn't deny that anti-Arab prejudice and oil contribute to the difference, but the comparison Congo/Sudan just isn't relevant.

People have heard of Sudan. We used to be involved. It has a famous capital. Used to be in films and stuff.

Rightly or wrongly, Sudan looks like it could be sorted with a map, ruler, and pencil. Congo was the bit we decided was just too complicated back in the days when we used to go in for that sort of thing.

Vaguely similar situation in Morrocco/Western Sahara (no oil, but lots of valuable minerals) except tere most "developed" nations seem happy to deal with the occupying power

If you wanted to compare Sudan to some other Civil war, you should have chosen somewhere like Chad, or Ivory Coast. Where the French have intervened (for their own reasons, of course), to stop the killing, if not solve the problem.

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Waltz

May 16, 2007 10:20 AM

Hmmmn. I'm somewhat disillusioned both with the concept of "liberal intervention" and with the notion that the West has some sort of obligation to look after the non-Western world. That said, there are specific instances where I could be persuaded that intervention is necessary: it's all very well to sit in comfort in our wealthy and secure countries and fulminate against our governments, but there are places in this world where thousands of people have no option but to wait like cattle to be slaughtered and I cannot stomach the idea that we should loftily ignore their screams because intervention is just sooooo yesterday, dahling.

Furthermore, the argument that unless we intervene everywhere then we should intervene nowhere is a daft one. There are instances where intervention stands a very good chance of success (Sierra Leone) and instances where it doesn't (Iraq). While I'm not convinced that intervention would work in Darfur, the arguments against it should surely be based on its likely effects and outcomes and not on callous self-absorbed dismissals of the tragedy there on the grounds that it's not as bad as the situation in D.R. Congo.

Oh, and I do so love how people like to repeat the "it's all about oil mantra" before hopping into their 4x4s to visit Tesco.

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Dimitrov

May 16, 2007 10:28 AM

Israel is no different from other imperialist Western powers in Africa. What the US is doing to Sudan and Somalia for oil, Israel did to Sierra Leone, Angola, and the DRC for diamonds:

--------------------------------
http://www.globalpolicy.org/security...pert_panel.pdf
Report of the UNSC Panel of Experts on the Illegal Exploitation of Natural Resources and Other Forms of Wealth in the Democratic Republic of Congo (October 23, 2003)

(. . .)
Taking advantage of the withdrawal of De Beers from conflict diamond regions, a whole network of Israelis was established, including Mr. Gertler in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Lev Leviev in Angola and Shmuel Shnitzer in Sierra Leone. In all three cases, the pattern is the same. Conflict diamonds are exchanged for money, weapons and military training. These diamonds are then transported to Tel Aviv by former Israeli Air Force pilots, whose numbers have significantly increased both in UNITA-held territory in Angola and in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. In Israel, these diamonds are then cut and sold at the Ramat Gan Diamond Centre.
(. . .)

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Jamesbond

May 16, 2007 10:29 AM

Interesting. I would think that most Westerners have a genuine concern for the people in Darfur -- and yes, with the exception of the International Court of Justice, they seem to be entirely ignorant of the slaughter in Congo. Is there some media manipulation going on? That answer should be coming from journalists. Pending an answer, it appears to me that 200,000 people were not manipulated into dying.

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camera

May 16, 2007 10:34 AM

a)
The Congo is just as wealthy if not wealthier than Sudan but neighbouring African countries, notably Angola, Uganda and Rwanda have been pillaging the resources for the last half dozen years.
However crimes committed by African Governments are considered by Western journalists as much more tolerable than crimes committed by the West. Not a mention in this article of the foreign African states which exacerbated the tribal wars in Eastern Congo leading to the 3 to 4 million deaths.

b)
For the West to intervene in the Congo would be lunacy - the state controls the main cities and that is all. The rest is controlled by Bemba's militias and dozens of tribal warlords whose armies are held together by regional or ethnic identities and who enter and exit military alliances as often as the rain falls. The Congo is politically intractible.

c)
The UN force currently in the Congo is a token gesture - to begin to make an impact there would have to be an increase from the current 17,000 troops to a figure closer to 400,000, given the Congolese geography - a country the size of Western Europe with no roads consisting of jungle, savannah, swamps, mountains etc.
The costs needed would make the current UN expenditure look like peanuts in comparison.

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easterman

May 16, 2007 10:54 AM

PSA all the way . PSA all the way . PSA ...

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halgeel84

May 16, 2007 11:07 AM

Dimitrov

May 16, 2007 6:25 AM

"The reason why the West cares not a fig about the Congo is because it is getting what it wants from there: uranium, diamonds, coltan, copper, cobalt, etc. The reason it doesn't care about Uganda, where Christian fundamentalist rebels have been killing and displacing millions of people and kidnapping schoolgirls to use as sex slaves, is because Uganda already has a puppet regime, one that was willing to send troops into the new anti-Muslim war started by the US in Somalia.

The ONLY reason that the Euston idiots get any attention and media coverage is because the US and EU want Sudan's oil, period. Africa's mineral wealth has always been the only motive for Western interest in the continent. We don't care if child slaves mine our uranium and diamonds. We don't care if the coltan in our cell phones is flecked with African blood. We just want our goodies and the blackies can all go to hell."

--Dimitrov

Thank you for stating the facts both in their historical contexts and currently in the Congo, Somalia and Darfur. Darfur and Somalia are in the western media and will continue to be as long local resistance and foreign competitions delimit western monopoly to the natural resources in these countries. Thus, local resistance and global competition are the real reasons and not Islam/Muslims in Somalia and Darfur v non Muslims killing in the Congo which explains the best why the carnage in Somalia and in the Darfur are in western media but not the stories of the killing fields in the Congo.

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RobinS

May 16, 2007 11:11 AM

Yes indeed - self interest is all. Altruism is a nice word carrying good meaning but it is for nothing once self interest shows its face. At least Sudan appears to have some semblance of a government, unlike (as I understand it) Congo. Companies interested, in their self-interest and that of their shareholders, in oil deal with the Sudanese government: companies similarly interested in the rutile, diamonds, gold and other of Earth's resources in Congo deal with the local militia in power at the time. What evidence of governments' efforts to control these companies? Very little that I can see. And who is going to cause a fabulous collapse in the share price of these wretched companies and individuals? I think such a collapse would be headline news if it ever happened - but it won't because self-interest in pension funds and insurance claims and The Economy (far more important than poor Congolese or Sudanese or Somali or Iraqi lives) won't allow it.

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Nihon

May 16, 2007 11:25 AM

When you talk about how illiberal our concepts are, who do you mean by 'our'? Ordinary working class people, or those with power?

Journalists in the media constantly refere to our and we, when what they really mean is the media and big business. I've even read how it is our shame that immigrants are paid low wages, when I'm on a low wage myself, think it's disgusting and I don't own a business, employ people or have any jurisdiction over wages paid.

Govermnents like America and Britian represent the interests of big business and the economy. They don't intervene in countries for liberal reasons. The state accetts are normally privatised and handed over to American business to make masive profits at the expense of the people.

Capitalism is not democratic, so there isn't going to be a liberal intervention and outcome. Unelected multinationals control the economy and have the greatest influence on governments. It's not for capitalist governments to to decide what liberal democracy is and to impose it on other countries.

It's really for the people of these countries to decide on their form of government. It's interesting how during the Spanish civil war, ordinary people supported those fighting Franco, while governments supported Franco and during the Russian revolution, workers around the world sympathised with the revolution and were inspired by it, while governments sent troops to help crush the revolution.

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Tewks

May 16, 2007 11:41 AM

what's amazing is not how much fuss the west makes about Dafur but how little.
The problem is not anti-Arab prejudice but pro-Islam prejudice. Many in the west think it racist to criticize any Islamic society, and thus they tolerate their sexism, homophobism and racism. In this way they end up condoning dictatorships - witness George Galloway sucking up to Sadam Hussein.

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diplodocus

May 16, 2007 11:53 AM

It should be remembered that Darfur is the second major racial conflict in Sudan. It's not so long ago that the civil war between the North and the South was more or less settled.
Since Darfur is savanna-land, it is easy for satellites to see what's going on there. Most of the Congo is tropical forest and satellites can't see what going on under the trees.
Is there no oil in the Congo ? Nobody knows since the instability there prevents any serious search for oil. Who would have imagined 20 years ago that there was oil in Chad ?
Making sweeping statements without consideering all the facts is not very helpful

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tommyjimmy

May 16, 2007 11:53 AM

The reason Darfur gets used as a counter to I/P is that British Muslims get very het up about the oppression of 'brothers and sisters' in the occupied territories. In Darfur Muslims are being slaughtered in large numbers, and British Muslims seem not to care. It's important to note the difference.

In Israel, like in Chechnya and Kashmir, it's infidels doing the oppressing, and Muslims cannot stand the humiliation of 'the other' having effortless power over Muslims. Since Muslims already feel like their civilisation is weak and humiliated, this relatively bloodless insult is regarded as much worse than horrific Muslim-on-Muslim slaughter, like in Darfur.

halgeel84 - Please think, just for once. If the US and EU wanted cheap and easy access to Sudanese oil they'd do exactly what China is doing, and cosying up to the Khartoum regime, not making vague threats and getting on their wrong side. Can you understand that?

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INDICNORTH

May 16, 2007 12:01 PM

Roger Howard must REALLY enjoy himself ranting and raving at the Americans. Why let the facts get in the way?

As I understand, The UN has been involved in DR Congo with the largest intervention force in MODERN history. It is the fault of people like Mr Howard that the DRC conflict does not hace a higher profile.

Why spread a falsehood that the DRC has been ignored in favour of Darfur?
It is the Sudanese government that has prevented the deployment of UN troops in Darfur. A more robust Darfur intervention will be vetoed by the gaint bastions of freedom and democarcy, Russia and China.
So Mr Howard can sleep easily. Let the killings go on! Who cares? Isn't it great to hate Americans?

WHY LET THE FACTS GET IN THE WAY OF HATING AMERICANS?
HAVE A NICE DAY (HATING AMERICANS)!

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charliethechulo

May 16, 2007 12:07 PM

This strange article tells us at least as much about the author's prdudices as it does about the Us and Westen prejudices he claims to see at work in regard to Darfur, Somalia and Congo. The larger argument about "liberal interventionism" aside (though I note that the author seems to favour intervention in the DRC), there really hasn't been much of an outcry in the US or Europe about the massacres/genocide in Darfur, and certainly nothing that could be called an "intervention". And compare the considerable amount of sympathetic coverage that the Palestinian cause receives in the media throughout Europe (less so the US, admittedly) with the paucity of coverage of Darfur, the DRC, Somalia, or anywhere else in Africa. This cannot be reduced to "anti-Arab prejudice", or simplistic economism in which oil explains everything.

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Dave69

May 16, 2007 12:23 PM

It remains worth pointing out that what is happening in the DRC is 'invisible' for some basic reasons - it, like Sudan, is over half the size of the entire EU, but unlike Sudan, it can't easily be overflown to get nice, obvious visuals of what's happening. Also, the conflict is everywhere there, and there are no two obvious sides to separate. It's a slow, grotesque, gruesome ongoing death, mostly concealed from outside observation, to which the emotive label 'genocide' is not half so easily applied as to Sudan.

And no one, repeat no one, is going to put significant military forces into 2 million square kilometres of forest, mountain and jungle to try to stop a civil war. They would fail. In a desert, there is a chance, but not in the Congo.

Against these facts, the childish conspiracy-theory that somehow it *could* be stopped if it were in the West's economic interests collides like pissing up the Hoover Dam...

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menckenite

May 16, 2007 12:49 PM

The most important objection to interventionism is that it rarely serves the interests of those intervening. It just fritters away taxpayer's money and soldiers lives.Statesman that follow the national interest almost always do a better job than world savers. I also object to interventionism on the grounds that it is an extension of the welfare state to the international arena. The state, not satisfied with merely mothering its own slaves from cradle to grave, takes on the job of saving the souls of foreigners.

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halgeel84

May 16, 2007 1:01 PM

-----tommyjimmy

May 16, 2007 11:53 AM
“The reason Darfur gets used as a counter to I/P is that British Muslims get very het up about the oppression of 'brothers and sisters' in the occupied territories. In Darfur Muslims are being slaughtered in large numbers, and British Muslims seem not to care. It's important to note the difference.”

--Who are these specific British Muslims? Arabs from the Middle East? Africans from Africa? European Muslims?

--tommyjimmy

“In Israel, like in Chechnya and Kashmir, it's infidels doing the oppressing, and Muslims cannot stand the humiliation of 'the other' having effortless power over Muslims.”

Infidels” doing the killings in these diverse places! I see. Who said so?

1-In Palestine there is a Jewish/Zionist state occupation of Palestinian lands.

2. In Kashmir, India a nation with over 300,000 Million Muslims is at war with the separatist/nationalist group.
3. In Chechnya, ethnic Chechnyains are seeking separate homeland from the Russian state.

These are three different contests with their specific historical, political and cultural specificities.

Do you think that all Muslims have great five education that they do not know specificities of these different struggles with their specific political, cultural and economic contexts? simplistic language of us v them or ‘infidels’ and believers is ridiculous and reductionist! Neocons hate complexity and contexts. Perhaps it is you who is lacking in the analytic rigor.

tommyjimmy

“Since Muslims already feel like their civilisation is weak and humiliated, this relatively bloodless insult is regarded as much worse than horrific Muslim-on-Muslim slaughter, like in Darfur.”

Give the readers of this forum your working definition of “civilisation” and how you come to know that all Muslims around the world feel weak and humiliated? As for Darfur, the fighting is there is over resources and not over civilisations!

tommyjimmy

"halgeel84 - Please think, just for once. If the US and EU wanted cheap and easy access to Sudanese oil they'd do exactly what China is doing, and cosying up to the Khartoum regime, not making vague threats and getting on their wrong side. Can you understand that?"

No, they will not do. Because the U.S and EU think they can get these resources as they did in the past: by colonization and military might.

Berlin Conference of 1884-1885 to Divide Africa
U.S. unveils new military policy for Africa - Examiner.com

China is using different tactic. I am not saying that China is good for Africa but at least it is willing to use something other than military might in dealing with Africa. On the other hand, western powers know only one way to deal with Africa: colonisation and slavery and slaughter.
Just look what the US is doing in Somalia while china brings development; the US bring death and destruction to Africa.

“China launches Nigerian satellite
China has successfully launched a communications satellite for Nigeria.
The official Xinhua news agency says it is the first time that a foreign buyer has purchased both a Chinese satellite and its launching service. The Nigerian Communication Satellite NIGCOMSAT-1 is expected to offer broadcasting, phone and broadband internet services for Africa.”
BBC NEWS | Africa | China launches Nigerian satellite

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camera

May 16, 2007 1:34 PM

halgeel84
"On the other hand, western powers know only one way to deal with Africa: colonisation and slavery and slaughter"

Military interventions in the Congo since Mobutu was overthrown have included tens of thousands of troops from Rwanda, Burundi, Uganda, Zimbabwe, Angola, Lybia and Chad. All had a merry old time murdering and pillaging in the Congo resulting in between 3 and 4 million dead and who knows how many displaced.

Today the government in Kinshassa, a city which supports the Bemba opposition for ethnic reasons, is kept in place by Angolan troops. In fact the Congo has become a de facto Angolan colony. this is not the only Angolan intervention in its neighbours affairs - not content with it's own infinite oil supplies off the Angolan coast, Angolan troops had previously marched into the other Congo: Congo Brazzaville to support Nguesso and secure Brazzaville's oil for itself. With its military might financed by endless oil supplies, Angola would quite happily intevene way beyong the Congo, if it wasn't for the West which has some leverage through the oil companies to persuade the Luanda government to limit their expansionist policy.

Ever heard any journalist complain about Angolan colonialism or imperialism? No, commentators appear to live in a paternalistic time warp in which Africans continue to be victims at the mercy of Western imperialism.

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HarperSmythe

May 16, 2007 1:37 PM

"No one is blaming Israel for what is going on in the Congo or in Darfur, what Mr Howard is trying to point out is that a lot of the people involved in the Save Darfur campaign happen to be pro-Israeli Zionists who find Darfur an easy screen to hide Israel's human rights abuses behind."

Exactly!

Mr. Howard and the Guardian, thank you, THANK YOU for FINALLY FINALLY publishing a piece like this. I have been waiting in vain for over a year now for something like this article to appear on CIF. I don't understand why it took so damned long.

I have been thoroughly disgusted by the obvious hypocrisy of the concern by many people in the west--particularly Jewish zionist groups in Israel, the UK and the US as well as rightwing evangelicals here in the US--for Darfur and their total disinterest in the Congo, a far FAR worse conflict that has lasted far longer. It was the same with the west's indifference to Rwanda in 1994: no obvious bad guys that the west could use to reinforce its already pre-existing hatreds.

The reason for the so-called concern for Darfur and disinterest in the Congo is very very clear: one conflict reinforces all their hatred and contempt towards Arabs/Muslims while the other doesn't involve Arabs and Muslims.

THAT IS THE ENTIRE BASIS OF THEIR ACTIVISM ON DARFUR.

Even tho the Darfur/Sudan conflict is far more complex than just Arab v. black African / Christian v. Muslim. But that's how these groups portray it.

For the rightwing evangelicals, it's a perfect conflict for them (and they quite enjoy being so concerned about it) because they can cast it as Muslim v. Christian war in which the evil Muslims are slaughtering Christians.

Again, that is the entire basis of their "concern." It's just a way to extend their religious war against Muslims.

If Darfur involved no Arabs/Muslims cast in evil garb Jewish zionists would be completely indifferent to the slaughter. If Darfur involed Hindus and Buddhists, the rightwing evangelicals would be completely indifferent.

That's the major point of Howard's excellent piece: in order to get the rich, well organized groups and celebrities concerned about your oppression, make sure your oppressor is an Arab Muslim.

Because another important point here is that the "Save Darfur" campaign (unlike the campaigns for Palestine solidarity) is financed and supported by rich powerful zionist, rightwing evangelical organizations as well as famous celebrities and politicians.

Absolutely none of them care about not only the Congo but also the other largescale conflict in Africa, which is in Uganda.

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ReactionarySnob

May 16, 2007 1:42 PM

You could, of course, turn this to other situations and say:

Why does no one give a **** about what Morocco is doing to the the Western Saharans but we never hear the end of what Israel does to the Palestinians?

I wonder why... is a Western Saharan life worth less than a Palestinian's? Or is it just not as fun to point out that an Islamic country is behaving abhorrently? or is it just more trendy to kick Israel for any number of reasons?

Answers on a postcard...

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halgeel84

May 16, 2007 1:46 PM

---camera
You bring nothing useful to this list. I say following the resources trails and the money; soon you will come to realise that these interventions in the Congo are proxy wars done for western corporations.

Just so you know, you can find these concrete links with five minutes google search!

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tommyjimmy

May 16, 2007 1:55 PM

Fair enough halgeel84, it's a broad brush, but it's exactly the same broad brush that many Islamists here use. Have you seriously never heard the cry of 'our brothers and sisters in Palestine, Chechnya and Kashmir...'. Of course they have completely different causes, but the fact remains that it's only those conflicts where non-Muslim oppresses Muslim that cause hysteria, whereas Muslims killing fellow Muslims in Darfur causes little fuss. I don't see many Islamist demos with banners of 'Freedom for Darfur'. Do you actually think my analysis is wrong about that?

I'm not throwing stones today, but am actually interested in why people do react in these different ways. I quite accept that the Islamic world is weak as a result of Western policy over the past half-century, and that it has been in Western self-interest to ensure that no culturally Islamic state gets hegemony in the Middle East. I happen to think the rise of Iran might be what calms Islam down a bit, but that's not what we're talking about today.

I don't claim to be able to see into men's souls, but it seems obvious to me that the Muslim world is extraordinarily sensitive to insults, and quite tetchy about them. Danish cartoons? Pope's speeches?

It's fairly basic psychology. If you think you're great and want to be respected, but know that you're fundamentally quite weak, you will be very sensitive to and easily angered by any demonstration of your weakness, or any insult. It's the psychology of the pathetic little south London thug, who would shoot people for not 'respecting' him. Those who know their own power don't need to do so, or riot whenever someone says something not entirely complimentary about Islam.

And I'm sorry, but you are applying double standards to China and the US. You praise Dimitrov's analysis of the Congo, with the West buying what they want and not caring about the human cost, but when China does the same it's fine. Do you really think the US wants to colonise Sudan and physically control its oil? No. And then the easiest access by far is to cut deals with the regime. As China is doing.

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sutnar

May 16, 2007 2:02 PM

It seems a bit odd to say that leaving the Congo to its own devices while being concerned about Darfur is anti-Arab. I would have thought the reverse.

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kathyw

May 16, 2007 2:14 PM

In the United States, it's a particularly Jewish cause - save Darfur - and only this article has shown me why that could possibly be. I still doubt that there is enough understanding of Darfur and the Congo also for the average American to rally to either cause. I'm somewhat mistrustful of the exhortations in the media to use American military to solve Darfur. But then, I'm a cynic. A story is being 'sold' and it's just a question of how long it takes to get people to 'buy' it - that's cynicism for you! In the meantime, there are many genocides occurring around the world. This is not the first article I have read that points out the public relations involved in genocide 'here' but not 'there'.

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Tzimisces

May 16, 2007 2:17 PM

A few points-

i) DRC doesn't have oil but it does have other natural resources which have been ruthlessly exploited by its invading neighbours (including our old buddy R. Mugabe)

ii) I agree that more attention should be paid to DRC as well as all the other nasty wars currently happening in the world. However, you don't have to be a Zionist to be concerned by Darfur.

iii) As others have pointed out, the US is not the only "colonial" power in Africa. China is there as well.

iv) To equate concern with Darfur as being "anti- arab" is plain stupid.

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migsuk

May 16, 2007 2:25 PM

This is completely wrong-headed.

On Monday 30th April, the Euston Manifesto held a forum on 'Humanitarian Intervention post-Iraq' in which both the Congo and Darfur were discussed. The entire debate can we watched here:

YouTube - Broadcast Yourself.

It is simply not true to suggest that liberal interventionalists are interested in one country and not the other, the reason the Darfur commands more media attention is not because of oil but because the genocide is happening at a rapid pace here and now.

Why on earth it is anti-Arab to want to protect the lives of Black Muslims is absolutely beyond me, and the links instantly made between Jewish groups and the 'Days for Darfur' is depressing. I think the Jewish community in the UK ought to be commended for standing up for the rights of Darfuri Muslims, and the sharing of a platform between the MCB and various Jewish groups is a welcome step.

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camera

May 16, 2007 2:32 PM

halgeel84
"these interventions in the Congo are proxy wars done for western corporations"

Yeh right, and the helpless neighbouring peace-loving African Governments which have been forced to send troops to murder and pillage their way through the Congo are naive innocent bystanders manipulated by the evil corporatist white man.
Sounds like paternalistic racism at it's worse...

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GavP

May 16, 2007 2:33 PM

So is the conclusion that we should intevene in both Sudan and the Congo, or in neither? Or is it that we should sit around pontificating 'western hypocrisy' when don't intervene, and then again when we do? Someone fill me in, please...

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halgeel84

May 16, 2007 2:44 PM

--tommyjimmy

I will ignore your posts addressed to me until you offer what you mean by civilisation. This is not test your capacity for analytic but your capacity for careful use of language. Thus, when you are determined to use terms such as civilisation to encode the moral worth of all Muslims you should be able to tell us what you mean by civilisation.

Note, I've asked you to give the readers of this forum a working definition of civilisation according to you. You can use practical/descriptive language. Just tell us what you mean by civilisation. Those cartoons are not my problem!

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McLefty

May 16, 2007 2:45 PM

KathyW: "In the United States, it's a particularly Jewish cause - save Darfur - and only this article has shown me why that could possibly be."

Well, sure, if you believe the article's inference. There are a myriad of well-supported Jewish-American causes divorced from Israel, ranging from the historical role of many Jews in the civil rights cause, right through to Bosnia and Darfur. I for one do not believe the interest is overwhelmingly political or 'Zionist'. Brute facts on the ground show that the Jewish population of the US is overwhelmingly Democrat, anti-Bush, anti-Iraq war and interestingly, both relatively affluent and still generally to the left on liberal issues. An interest in Darfur is not exceptional or surprising at all. If that is the cause of some Jewish groups, then great. Perhaps the evangelicals, Scientologists or Nation of Islam can deal with DRC.

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stillfedup

May 16, 2007 3:13 PM

********:

rather missed there, I think

To succeed in sarcasm (or is it irony?), it would have to be absurd to accuse the Zionist state of any improprieties.
Since its role, and, even more, that of its neocon supporters in Washington is clear, the irony fails abysmally

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tommyjimmy

May 16, 2007 3:17 PM

halgeel84 - as in the cultural blocs of civilisations - European, Islamic, Latin American, sub-Saharan African etc etc. As in the Huntingdon thesis, if you like. They're rough distinctions and do overlap, but I think they are important. As I see it, people increasingly think of themselves as part of these broad blocs, and this sense of belonging is rather like how people used to belong to nations.

When no-one moved around much, one used to feel entirely at home in one's county, state or province, and share a broader identity with the other provinces within one's nation. Move everything up a level - since we're now so much more mobile - and you have the identities of nation and civilisation.

I'm not talking about civilised versus non-civilised or anything like that...

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Setanta4Now

May 16, 2007 3:18 PM

It's naive to think intervention is related to morality rather than strategy. In the early 60's when the US believed Congo was going to "fall" to communism it was quite heavily involved there, putting the horrendous Mobutu, who ruined the country in charge.
It's a bit rich for people to criticise Congo's neighbours for stealing it's resources when western powers are doing the same in Iraq and elsewhere.
The person who criticised the western media for demonising isreal certainly has a point... over 5 million have died in Congo since 1998, only 100,000 have died in isreal and the occupied territories since 1921.

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truesocialist

May 16, 2007 3:20 PM

One of my best friends worked for Canada World Youth in the Congo (then Zaire). He met and was disgusted by the corrupt and brutal dictator Mobutu. He hoped things would improve since his overthrow, but with the onset of the Second Congo War things have gone from bad to worse. I applaud the author bringing the most deadly conflict since WW2 to the CiF. I am equally disappointed by the blog author's dismissal of the Darfur genocide.

I fail to understand why he has reduced the death count amongst this small population with distastful haste from what Red Cross assumes now to be almost 300,000 to be 200,000. What purpose does this author think is served by writing off 100,000 women and child corpses? Unlike Congo, the murder Darfur victims are victims or racial rather than tribal conflicts. What is so craven is that they have largely been unarmed women and children vs combatants and cut off village dwellers. This distinction is important, the deaths of soldiers on the Somme for example are terrible, but not as terrible as the holocaust murder of interned citizens (jews, socialists, poles, gays, gypseys) at the cold blooded hands of Hitlers nazis. Congo is a horror and has got worse than Rwanda, but it lacks the systematic racial brutality of Darfur. An author who dismisses this because of some unhelpful spurious linkage to palestinians is not an author whose views I consider just. It is obvious to me and my friends who are trying to save humanity from slaughter that Darfur is monstrous and so is Congo. Intervention and diplomacy are needed in both cases, it is sickening to pick one instead of the other just because one feels sorry for other unrelated arab communities.

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CanadianJew

May 16, 2007 4:03 PM

Surely it's better to cry crocodile tears (according to the author's accusations) for Darfur than to cry none at all for Congo?

I think the victims of genocide in Darfur would be quite pleased to know of all those "zionists" highlighting their cause. I agree that the "zionists" should also try to highlight the conflict in the Congo.

Or, here's a novel idea. Why don't the Trendy Leftist Guardianista lard-arses actually campaign to raise awareness of the conflict in Central Africa? After all, the "zionists" can't do everything themselves, you know, much as many of you think that they run the world.

You could start by petitioning Georgina Henry to include at least one thread on Congo per week, and gradually increase the frequency. Within a year Congo's presence on CiF will reach Israel proportions - 25 threads per day.

And HarperSmythe...your hypotheticals are pointless. This conflict would NEVER involve Hindus and Buddhists and you know it.

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Fundisi

May 16, 2007 4:31 PM

The writer of this article may have got it wrong. The real reason why Th Congo and Darfur are being treated differnenly is imply that in the Congo, western interests were always protected ( even at the heih of the killings - the inportant resources suc as mones and oil were under the irect control of western "security contractors" ) and China had little opportunity to access them. In Darfur and in Sudan as a whole, however, Chinese influence is growing and the resources are not at resent under the control og western coroprations and/or governments. That is the real reason why there is concern about Darfur. It has nothing to do with the well-beign or otherwise of local people.

The campaings being waged now by supposedly well-intentined individuals and charities is reminiscent of what happend when Leopold of Belgium planned to settle the area of the COngo so many year ago. His aim, everyone was told, was humanitarian to bring schoool, hospitals, roads, trade etc to poor suffering africans and to protect them from Arab slave traders. He was given ustinting supprt by the early cahrity groups in England ( Webb ?? )America and Europe.

I for one to not believe that the western powers have any interest in the peopleog any African Asian or native american people, only in the resorces to be found in their countries. Western governemnts are just not capable of doing anything good for anyone other then their own voters. Please do not intervene anywhere in africa!!!!

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halgeel84

May 16, 2007 4:33 PM

tommyjimmy

May 16, 2007 3:17 PM

"halgeel84 - as in the cultural blocs of civilisations - European, Islamic, Latin American, sub-Saharan African etc etc. As in the Huntingdon thesis, if you like. They're rough distinctions and do overlap, but I think they are important. As I see it, people increasingly think of themselves as part of these broad blocs, and this sense of belonging is rather like how people used to belong to nations."

--tommyjimmy

These are geographical zones and not civilisations!

Well, alas!

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Telescreen

May 16, 2007 4:33 PM

So now it's "anti-arab" prejudice to bring up the subject of atrocities and ethnic-cleansing perpetrated by arabs in Darfur and probably anywhere else.

I think someone at the Guardian should come clean about their agenda. this obsession with pandering to arabs and islam is becoming ever more sinister.

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inmejimjams

May 16, 2007 4:51 PM

It is sooo easy for well-paid Guardian writers to call for intervention in places like the Congo from the comfort of a well-padded office chair. Why exactly should any young man from Western Europe risk their life in inter-tribal strife in Africa? I would bet that young men in the army earn a fraction of the likes of you, Roger. And when the intervention goes wrong and gets messy, who will be the first to pen a lucrative piece about "the inept forces of imperialism"?

Congo is the size of Western Europe so it hardly surprising that wars happen there - as they have across Europe for centuries. Let them fight it out. Our only intervention should be to help the civilian population through NGOs.

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HarperSmythe

May 16, 2007 5:00 PM

CanadianJew:
"And HarperSmythe...your hypotheticals are pointless. This conflict would NEVER involve Hindus and Buddhists and you know it."

No, it's your bigotry that's pretty obvious--and pointless.

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conorfoley

May 16, 2007 5:17 PM

Mgisuk: I do not buy the conspiracy theories on Darfur, but I also do not understand why,in objective terms, the focus is on there rather than other places. It certainly cannot be 'because the genocide is happening at a rapid pace here and now.' There are far more people being killed at the present moment in Somalia than Darfur and my guess is that the continuing fighting in DRC is also probably heavier as well(despite the UN presence). Both Northern Uganda and Colombia have comparable displacement crises and the recent upsurge of fighting in Sri Lanka has been much more dramatic than what is happening in Darfur.

There is a narrative about Darfur which reduces a complex conflict to the word 'genocide', comes up with a simple solution 'military intervention' and a simple scapegoat 'the UN'. It is easier to peddle these myths then to try to explain what is really happening and that is probably one of the reasons why the conflict has been so widely publicised.

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tommyjimmy

May 16, 2007 5:19 PM

i know the ideal is for a universal brotherhood, without borders, divisions or identities, halgeel84. Trouble is, no one's told the rest of the world...

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halgeel84

May 16, 2007 5:41 PM

tommyjimmy

May 16, 2007 5:19 PM

"i know the ideal is for a universal brotherhood, without borders, divisions or identities, halgeel84. Trouble is, no one's told the rest of the world..."

--tommyjimmy

Do I understand you correctly, you here to reveal 'universal brotherhood, without borders, divisions or identities' to the rest of the world for the first time?

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socialistMike

May 16, 2007 5:47 PM

Steerpike opines: 'Far from anti-Arab prejudice,I think it likely that few people elsewhere care tuppence about what savageries the inhabitants of these benighted lands are visiting upon one another. The media and chattering classes yes, they will pick their goodies and baddies according to their political prejudice, but for the rest, pfui!'

Have you ever heard of Freudian projection? In your case it's not so much projection as all channels multicast.

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DPavett

May 16, 2007 6:53 PM

The central point is that the argument for liberal intervention of countries such as the US and the UK are really only their national interests (as conceived by their political leaders) dressed in humanitarian clothing. I believe that this is largely true (even though some careful qualifying might help). But this sort of point is made so often in publications like the Guardian that it would be good to go beyond them and investigate the concept of liberal intervention further.

The article fails to do this. Thus it seems to conclude from the idea that some political leaders use liberal intervention to disguise their own interests that the concept of liberal intervention is bogus and that therefore the rest of us don't have to even concider it.

There are other problems with the article that other posts have pointed out (natural resources of the Congo, Rwanda shows that people do not find it difficult to be concerned about a situation in which it is a case of black killing black).

Anyone inclined to agree with the main thrust of this article should ask themselves would it have been better if the Vietnamese had not toppled Pol Pot and would it have been better if the Serb leaders had been allowed to do whatever they wanted to do in Kosovo.

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shiran

May 16, 2007 9:22 PM

HarperSmythe:"If Darfur involved no Arabs/Muslims cast in evil garb Jewish zionists would be completely indifferent to the slaughter."

For the second time on the Guardian blogs in just two days I find myself having to defend Israel from the ignorant criticism of those who see all the world's conflicts originating from Israel, or alternatively manage to blame Israel for not doing enough to stop a conflict, or as in this case being too vocal in highlighting a conflict.

The truth is Israel probably does more to help in international disasters than any other country in the world relative to its size, and Darfur is just one of many that has attracted the attention of the world's Jewish community. Nor has Congo been ignored as can be seen in the article below, the Israeli organisation Brit Olam being one of the few organisations to offer aid to the country.

http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7...369461,00.html

See this video (a bit long)
CastUP: Tikun Olam

or this newspaper article form just last week:
Iraqi children to get lifesaving heart surgery in Israel - Middle East needs Peace - Care2.com

The fact that Israel is in its own conflict with Hamas, in the "occupied territories" which causes Israel itself to be involved in ugly war situations, does not make Israel and the world Jewish community immune to what is going on around it.

Dimitrov

You are a liar. You posted a link to a pdf document in which it allegedly stated "Taking advantage of the withdrawal of De Beers from conflict diamond regions, a whole network of Israelis was established, including Mr. Gertler in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Lev Leviev in Angola and Shmuel Shnitzer in Sierra Leone."

One of the features of a pdf document is a search facility and I searched with this and manually, and nowhere in the document is this quotation present. This isn't surprising as the quote is clearly fraudulent. Indeed the Israeli Lev Leviev is particularly well known for being a leader in the fight against trading in conflict diamonds.

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Dimitrov

May 16, 2007 10:10 PM

Shiran:

Honest mistake. It wasn't in the main document but in the addendum. Here:
Thunderstone: GlobalSecurity.org - Reliable Security Information
Or here:
Resolutions and Related Reports: Great Lakes, Addendum to the report of the Panel of Experts on the Illegal Exploitation of Natural Resources and Other Forms of Wealth of DR Congo (S/2001/1072)

Guess they didn't want to embarass big daddy USA by pointing a finger too openly at Israel's blood diamonds industry.

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FubarTheHaq

May 16, 2007 10:12 PM

Unilateral interventionism, it is argued, requires the
ability to distinguish the Black Hats from the White Hats,
and the Congo presents few such opportunities.

It is possible to do others good and fill your pockets
at the same time. But it requires the full awareness of
those "others" to work because "unilateral" is just the
sound of one hand clapping.

~D

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JohnR

May 17, 2007 1:52 AM

Congo is far from being free from useful minerals, and the sad history of that country has a lot to do with western (mostly US) interest in having access to what is on offer there.

However, all of this bounty is well away from the troubles on the border with Uganda and Rwanda, so keeping mum about what the government of Congo is up to is politic; while they're in power access can continue.

In a sense, western behaviour in both countries is all of a piece; cynicism and self interest rule in both, and the only people who suffer live in "a faraway country of which we know little".

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Kasimir

May 17, 2007 9:27 AM

The horrific situation in Darfur might be resolved a little more quickly were people to remember that the thousands of dead and millions of displaced Darfuris are all Moslems and that the conflict has nothing to do with religion, despite the best efforts of the military dictatorship in Khartoum to present its usurption of power as a legitimate defence of Islam.
It is tragic that the people of Darfur should be paying the price of the illegal and ill-considered invasion of Iraq, just as the people of Rwanda had to bear the cost of the bungled US invasion of Somalia in the early nineties, when the post new world order western appetite for intervention was whetted by the disasters of "shoot to feed" and Blackhawk Down.

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The above are the comments.

What is your opinion?

Ray · 05-17-2007, 04:45 AM

Quote:

steerpike77

May 16, 2007 1:33 AM

Far from anti-Arab prejudice,I think it likely that few people elsewhere care tuppence about what savageries the inhabitants of these benighted lands are visiting upon one another. The media and chattering classes yes, they will pick their goodies and baddies according to their political prejudice, but for the rest, pfui!

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FRVessant

May 16, 2007 1:38 AM

I think a part of the problem is that there is no simple solution for Congo. (Not that there are simple solutions for Iraq or Sudan, but there is at least the appearance of their existing.) It's a complex conflict that can't be bombed to a resolution. Where would we intervene? How would we get troops there? Who would they attack? In the Sudan, these questions seem to have simple answers: in Darfur; by paratrooping them in maybe, heading down through Egypt perhaps, maybe by airlift or maybe just bomb Khartoum a little; any and all Arabs. Basically, even the Decents know that "intervention" in Congo would be disastrous. The Sudan is mostly arid and seems ideal for manoeuvres by armoured troops; it seems like we'd only need to go in, shoot a few bad boys and it would all be resolved in a couple of months. The Decents probably aren't even clear on who's fighting whom in Congo.

Yet you are absolutely right. Sudan is much more complicated than the Decents tend to believe. It won't be resolved without a political solution and it is not simply the Arab-dominated government that refuses to come to one. Intervention would not be very likely to resolve anything. Besides, so long as no one hurts the flow of oil, we don't actually care a less.

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halgeel84

May 16, 2007 2:36 AM

Did you say that the Congo does need liberal intervenion yet again? Stunning, indeed!

Weep, Beloved Black Brother
A poem by Patrice Lumumba

"O black man, beast of burden through the centuries,
Your ashes scattered to the winds of heaven,
There was a time when you built burial temples
In which your murderers sleep their final sleep.
Hunted down and tracked, driven from your homes.
Beaten in battles where brute force prevailed.
Barbaric centuries of rape and carnage
That offered you the choice of death or slavery.
You went for refuge to the forest depths,
And other deaths waylaid you, burning fevers,
Jaws of wild beasts, the cold, unholy coils
Of snakes who crushed you gradually to death.
Then came the white man, more clever, tricky, cruel,
He took your gold in trade for shoddy stuff,
He raped your women, made your warriors drunk,
Penned up you sons and daughters on his ships.
The tom-toms hummed through all the villages,
Spreading afar the mourning, the wild grief
At news of exile to a distant land
Where cotton is God and the dollar King.
Condemned to enforced labor, beasts of burden,
Under a burning sun from dawn to dusk,
So that you might forget you are a man
They taught your to sing the praises of their God,
And these hosannas, tuned in to your sorrows,
Gave you the hope of a better world to come.
But in your human heart you only asked
The right to live, your share of happiness.
Beside your fire, your eyes reflect your dreams and suffering,
You sang the chants that gave voice to your blues.
And sometimes to your joys, when sap rose in the trees
And you danced wildly in the damp of evening.
And out of this sprang forth, magnificent,
Alive and virile, like a bell of brass
Sounding your sorrow, that powerful music,
Jazz, now loved, admired throughout the world,
Compelling the white man to respect,
Announcing in clear loud tones from this time on
This country no longer belongs to him.
And thus you made the brothers of your race
Lift up their heads to see clear, straight ahead
The happy future bearing deliverance.
The banks of a great river in flower with hope
Are yours from this time onward.
The earth and all its riches
Are yours from this time onward.
The blazing sun in the colorless sky
Dissolves our sorrow in a wave of warmth.
Its burning rays will help to dry forever
The flood of tears shed by our ancestors,
Martyrs of the tyranny of the masters.
And on this earth which you will always love
You will make the Congo a nation, happy and free,
In the very heart of vast Black Africa."

Weep, Beloved Black Brother

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kwazulu

May 16, 2007 5:17 AM

i completely agree with mr. howard - it is absolutely true that the darfur camapaign in america is in so many ways an extension of the palestinian conflict and its polemics; the campaign at least in the US is driven by right-wing pro-israeli groups who see it as a way to counter pro-palestine campaigns on univeristy campuses. the best article published on the politics of this campaign - and which completely supports mr. howard's (why darfur and not congo) - is an article in the academic journal middle east report:

chck out this link:
Slavery, Genocide and the Politics of Outrage: Understanding the New “Racial Olympics”
Middle East Report 234: Slavery, Genocide and the Politics of Outrage: Understanding the New “Racial Olympics”, by Hishaam D. Aidi

"But the Save Darfur campaign is better understood by looking at the post-September 11 domestic political scene. Unlike other “hot spots” across Africa, the Darfur tragedy reverberates deeply in the US because it is represented as a racial conflict between “Arabs” and “indigenous Africans,” because Sudan is where the “moral geographies”[47] of black, Jewish and Christian nationalists overlap and because the Darfur crisis offers a unique opportunity to unite against the new post-Cold War enemy."

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NoBulshit

May 16, 2007 6:11 AM

As Roger Howerd says (and reader 'kwazulu' agrees), clearly it is the fault of Israel's supporters in the US that the West is ignoring the shameful slaughter in Darfur. In fact, I have even heard that Israel is to blame for the violence in Algeria (between the government and the Islamic Salvation Front (FIS)), as well as in Angola (the government vs. UNITA). I have even heard that Israel was responsible for the massacre of the Tutsis by the Hutus in Rwanda.

Now get this: I have it from reliable sources that Israel was responsible for the 2004 Tsunami in the Indian ocean (that killed more than 300,000 people).

To cut the list short, Israel is basically responsible for all the troubles of the world (after all they killed Jesus, didn't they?).

And as a brief conclusion to this superb academic analysis, here's a question for you readers: Where do many of the people escaping from the violence in Darfur run to -- seriously?

I'll give you a few hints. It's not a country that borders on the Sudan. It's a very small country. It's a country that takes some of the Darfur refugees in, houses them, clothes them, gives them temporary jobs, and donates millions of dollars to the UN for the victims of the Sudanese conflict.

Egypt? No.
Saudi Arabia? No.
Iran? No.
England? No.
France? No.
Switzerland? No.
Israel? You got it. Yes.

Okay, all you Israel bashers. So now it's your turn to respond and say just how 'evil' Israel is.

-

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Dimitrov

May 16, 2007 6:25 AM

Congratulations to CIF for publishing this cogent rebuttal of the Euston war manifesto. Howard writes:

"it is no coincidence that Sudan, unlike Congo, has oil - lots of it - and strong links with China, a country the US regards as a strategic rival in the struggle for Africa's natural resources"
--------------

It's true that Sudan has oil and it's mostly going to China but does Congo have nothing of value? Of course it does. It is chock full of uranium, coltan, cobalt, diamonds, you name it. Not for nothing did the West topple and assassinate the nationalist leader Patrice Lumumba and replace him with the murderous thug Mobutu Sese Seko, who continued the colonial plunder of the Congo for his Western masters.

When the Congo gained independence, the mineral-rich province of Katanga seceded and fell under the control of Western-backed rebels and mercenaires. When oil was discovered in Sudan, a Western-backed rebellion erupted around the oil fields and ended also in the secession of the South.

When new oil was discovered in Darfur, magico presto, another rebellion there.

In the Congo, the CIA used Mobutu to assassinate Prime Minister Lumumba and regime change the country into a discount mineral outlet for Europe, the proceeds going directly into Mobutu's Swiss accounts and up his nose.

In Sudan, the US has positioned the brutal rebel leader Minni Minnawi as its preferred regime change candidate and is helping him subvert the government from within while his SLA guerrillas who supposedly laid down their arms after the Abuja peace agreement are marauding the countryside killing AU peacekeepers and aid workers.

The reason why the West cares not a fig about the Congo is because it is getting what it wants from there: uranium, diamonds, coltan, copper, cobalt, etc. The reason it doesn't care about Uganda, where Christian fundamentalist rebels have been killing and displacing millions of people and kidnapping schoolgirls to use as sex slaves, is because Uganda already has a puppet regime, one that was willing to send troops into the new anti-Muslim war started by the US in Somalia.

The ONLY reason that the Euston idiots get any attention and media coverage is because the US and EU want Sudan's oil, period. Africa's mineral wealth has always been the only motive for Western interest in the continent. We don't care if child slaves mine our uranium and diamonds. We don't care if the coltan in our cell phones is flecked with African blood. We just want our goodies and the blackies can all go to hell.

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Damo70

May 16, 2007 6:55 AM

Mr Howard. Thank you for raising the issue of the Congo. I have consistently heard from my Congolese friends how rich the Congo is in natural resources (2nd richest in the world?) yet how poor the people are as a result of continuing colonial exploitation and internecine conflict. But, who is prepared to do anything? What, in fact, can be done? Why is the world media so silent wrt a situation which has continued for many years and shows no sign of abating?

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quirky

May 16, 2007 8:05 AM

Sigh. I really do despair about Comment is Free articles sometimes. What is the point of Roger Howards's article? Who's killing who in Africa - the Americans? So they are indirectly responsible? So they only care about African genocide when oil or political interest is at stake? Welcome to realpolitik, Mr Howard. Do you think European Guardianistas care about black Africans dying in a far-off country? Why aren't there more angry articles about the Congo here?

NoBulshit is spot on. ;-)

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Plataea

May 16, 2007 8:41 AM

In the context of what is going on in Congo, the discussion of what Israel did and did not do is daft. The current conflict(s) in Congo are fuelled by arms and the desire for resources. Arms go in, resources go out. No arms in/no resources go out - less conflict.

Weapons & the ammo they need are heavy = fly em in or take em in by road (we are getting near the answer). Likewise, resources. Congo answer - ring fence the bloody place, arms embargo with shoot to kill policies for anybody supplying the stuff, likewise given modern analytical techniques, weapons & ammo, confiscation of any resources going out plus sequestration of companies using the resources.

The above would not get a quick result but my guess is that the conflicts in the region would die down since there would not be much to fight about. I am sure the ring fence would not be water tight - but it would be better than nothing (or as goes on at the moment - hand wringing & talk).

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Bils

May 16, 2007 8:43 AM

Congratulations Roger Howard and the Guardian,

Liberal Interventionism is not being used as a concept of peace, it is a concept to legitimise war - the misuse of the suffering of the people of Darfur by the Euston Manifesto Group, Nick Cohen and David Aaronovitch and the whole 'why pick on Israel, why not Darfur' brigade is shameful,

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Dimitrov

May 16, 2007 9:10 AM

When asking why so-called liberals would want to beat war drums against third-world countries about which they know next to nothing, one naturally looks at whose interests such a bizarre undertaking would serve. When the target of liberal interventionism is Africa, those interests are not hard to discern: They are the same colonial/imperialist ones that have bled the black continent white for centuries.

However, Western capitalism might be beating the "humanitarian" war drums to score not just on the economic front but on several fronts at once. For example, we remember how the French left's idiotic support of Mao and the Khmer Rouge ended in tears, gutting the left when the millions of corpses produced by the various incarnations of Maoism hit our TV screens. So could it be that these pseudo-lefties are dragging people into something that would likewise end up completely obliterating the left, or whatever passes for left in the West, when we discover what monsters the Darfur rebels are and what bottomless misery our "humanitarian" invasion has plunged Sudan into? Could that be the double whammy that our corporate masters are after?

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raphaelg

May 16, 2007 9:51 AM

A whole article about the situation in Congo without mentioning the various attempts by five African nations (including Zimbabwe, heaven help us) to police the eastern part of the country. This might explain why intervention is not often discussed vis a vis Congo - along with the most extraordinary difficulty in mounting any kind of suitable military relief operation in its terrain.

The assertion that interventionists are concerned about Darfur as part of an anti-Arab campaign is breathtaking. The way the Guardian keeps finding folks to twist reality to make it reflect its' view, shared with petty fascists around the world, that everything the West i.e America does is evil is astonishing.

Perhaps Serbian nationalists and the government in Khartoum could organize a cultural festival sponsored by the government of China (Communist home of the 7 day work week and the two-dollar a day wage) and the Guardian can send Hywel Bennett, Shameless Milne and Mr. Howard to cover it.

But seriously:
New Prime Minister, New Era ... cannot the Guardian refelct the change-over and appoint a new commissioning editor for its opinion pages?

Raphael Garshin

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ffmartens

May 16, 2007 9:52 AM

Last time I looked, there was a large United Nations presence in the Democratic Republic of Congo. MONUC (Mission de l'ONU en RD Congo)is the largest (including a 17,000-strong military component) and most expensive (with a budget exceeding $1 billion) UN peacekeeping force presently operating. Its mission to support the peace progress in DRC and, as the Security Council acted under Chapter VII of the UN Charter when establishing it, MONUC is authorised to use force - and has done so - in support of its mandate. Roger Howard may say this is not enough, but it's certainly intervention.

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Catch22

May 16, 2007 9:58 AM

I think you'll find what Mr Howard is trying to say is that the West's attitude to Sudan and the Congo is fueled by good old orientalism, where the occidental, enlightened and highly rational West loves to find fault with the 'infidel', unenlightened, irrational 'Arabs' [sic. Muslims, because let's be honest most people think Arabs are all Muslims which is juts a little wide of the mark, some Arabs are Christians and wait for it, even Jews!]

No one is blaming Israel for what is going on in the Congo or in Darfur, what Mr Howard is trying to point out is that a lot of the people involved in the Save Darfur campaign happen to be pro-Israeli Zionists who find Darfur an easy screen to hide Israel's human rights abuses behind.

If you don't think this is the case then you are either a Zionist or you have never met any. From my experiences of living in Israel as a Jew many people love to deflect any criticism of Israeli policy towards the Palestinians by either racially stereotyping them as 'evil' and less 'moral' and 'worthy' than Jewish Israelis or by saying that Israel is not as bad as Saudi Arabia etc etc. Whether this is true or not can never be quantified. But what is true is that human rights abuses are committed by all races or people, all religions and all nationalities and the sooner people stop playing willy waggling over whose got the better human rights policy and who's got the worst the better for everyone who is unfortunate enough to be on the receiving end of oppression.

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LessPeopleMoreTrees

May 16, 2007 10:17 AM

Congo? Aren't the Belgian/French imperialist lackeys sopposed to be dealing with that bit?

I wouldn't deny that anti-Arab prejudice and oil contribute to the difference, but the comparison Congo/Sudan just isn't relevant.

People have heard of Sudan. We used to be involved. It has a famous capital. Used to be in films and stuff.

Rightly or wrongly, Sudan looks like it could be sorted with a map, ruler, and pencil. Congo was the bit we decided was just too complicated back in the days when we used to go in for that sort of thing.

Vaguely similar situation in Morrocco/Western Sahara (no oil, but lots of valuable minerals) except tere most "developed" nations seem happy to deal with the occupying power

If you wanted to compare Sudan to some other Civil war, you should have chosen somewhere like Chad, or Ivory Coast. Where the French have intervened (for their own reasons, of course), to stop the killing, if not solve the problem.

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Waltz

May 16, 2007 10:20 AM

Hmmmn. I'm somewhat disillusioned both with the concept of "liberal intervention" and with the notion that the West has some sort of obligation to look after the non-Western world. That said, there are specific instances where I could be persuaded that intervention is necessary: it's all very well to sit in comfort in our wealthy and secure countries and fulminate against our governments, but there are places in this world where thousands of people have no option but to wait like cattle to be slaughtered and I cannot stomach the idea that we should loftily ignore their screams because intervention is just sooooo yesterday, dahling.

Furthermore, the argument that unless we intervene everywhere then we should intervene nowhere is a daft one. There are instances where intervention stands a very good chance of success (Sierra Leone) and instances where it doesn't (Iraq). While I'm not convinced that intervention would work in Darfur, the arguments against it should surely be based on its likely effects and outcomes and not on callous self-absorbed dismissals of the tragedy there on the grounds that it's not as bad as the situation in D.R. Congo.

Oh, and I do so love how people like to repeat the "it's all about oil mantra" before hopping into their 4x4s to visit Tesco.

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Dimitrov

May 16, 2007 10:28 AM

Israel is no different from other imperialist Western powers in Africa. What the US is doing to Sudan and Somalia for oil, Israel did to Sierra Leone, Angola, and the DRC for diamonds:

--------------------------------
http://www.globalpolicy.org/security...pert_panel.pdf
Report of the UNSC Panel of Experts on the Illegal Exploitation of Natural Resources and Other Forms of Wealth in the Democratic Republic of Congo (October 23, 2003)

(. . .)
Taking advantage of the withdrawal of De Beers from conflict diamond regions, a whole network of Israelis was established, including Mr. Gertler in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Lev Leviev in Angola and Shmuel Shnitzer in Sierra Leone. In all three cases, the pattern is the same. Conflict diamonds are exchanged for money, weapons and military training. These diamonds are then transported to Tel Aviv by former Israeli Air Force pilots, whose numbers have significantly increased both in UNITA-held territory in Angola and in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. In Israel, these diamonds are then cut