Economics and similar, for the sleep-deprived
Does anyone have any idea what might be done about the pointless blob of white space above this paragraph? It seems to be resistant to all my efforts. Update haha, it succumbed.
Friday, September 15, 2006
Strange bedfellows
Check it out. In the name of supporting the Darfur protests at the Sudanese embassy, I am signed up to a group letter, featuring a number of names in whose company I would normally not care to be seen. You want to know how important Darfur is? It's more important than my vanity and petty blog feuds, that's how important it is. (Update: I seem to remember that something similar was among George Galloway's post hoc excuses for visiting Saddam Hussein. I hereby admire Alan "Not the Minister" Johnson's indefatigability, courage etc)
Brian Brivati drafted the letter, and it is about right as a general, minimal statement with no specific Decent content. If one takes seriously the fact that Darfur is facing immediate humanitarian crisis, then the only priority at the moment has to be to get some sort of peacekeeping force in there which is sufficient to allow the aid agencies to work. The Sudanese government definitely ought to let UNMIS in, and their attempt to run out the clock on AMIS definitely ought to count against them (in hell if not in the ICC, as I have said before). I frankly consider the UN's behaviour with respect to AMIS to be absolutely scandalous and would vastly rather see a credible African mission being funded, but this does not look politically possible at present, so UNMIS it is, although not at the expense of war.
Here's a good article on the great power angle in Darfur, via Jamie. I don't agree with their analysis of the DPA, which appears to be straight outta Maynooth, and I think they are quite confused on the subject of John Garang, but they have the big picture particularly right. In particular, they are right on the money with their assessment of al-Bashir's current position; friendless, up against the wall and running out of options. It's for this reason that I'm pessimistic about the ability of demonstrations to move the Sudanese government, but that's no reason not to try.
posted by the management 9/15/2006 05:22:00 AM
|