Social Science Research Council

The agreement between the UN, AU and Sudan Government in Addis Ababa today (June 12) on the AU-UN hybrid peacekeeping force for Darfur might—just might—be a breakthrough. Ambiguity lurks in the text. Problems will multiply with actually making it happen. But the progress made today should be an opportunity to refocus attention on the real [...]

In the spring of 2004, at the height of the brutal offensives by the Sudanese army and airforce and Janjawiid militia in Darfur, I wrote an article entitled "Counterinsurgency on the Cheap." In it, I wrote,

"this is not the genocidal campaign of a government at the height of its ideological hubris, as the 1992 jihad against the Nuba was, or coldly determined to secure natural resources, as when it sought to clear the oilfields of southern Sudan of their troublesome inhabitants. This is the routine cruelty of a security cabal, its humanity withered by years in power: it is genocide by force of habit."

more on “Darfur: Necessary Knowledge for Effective Action” …