نيويورك تايمز تدعو اوباما للتدخل العاجل في السودان و مجلس الامن يجتمع اليوم

Quote: The Security Council Sits on its Hands By NICHOLAS KRISTOF The U.N. Security Council is expected to meet today to discuss African peace and security issues, including how to prevent mass atrocities there. Presumably the Security Council will again refuse to address seriously the most important African peace issue — the prospect of a new north-south war in Sudan in the coming months. It is so frustrating to see what’s unfolding in Sudan these days. It looks like one of those old-time Westerns where two trains are steaming toward each other on the same track. You know it’s going to end badly — and yet it’s difficult to get attention until disaster happens. A group of 26 aid groups and human rights organizations has just warned again that the international community isn’t doing enough to prepare for the January referendum in South Sudan on whether it should split from the north. Preparations are woefully inadequate, and north-south negotiations on division of oil, water and boundary demarcation are far behind. There are deep suspicions that the North will interfere with the referendum or foment conflict in the South. The basic reason is simple: About 80 percent of Sudan’s oil is in the south, and the north doesn’t want to lose it to independence. But the upshot may well be another war that will be far deadlier than even Darfur. Now that the International Criminal Court has indicted Sudanese President Bashir for genocide, as well as war crimes and crimes against humanity, you might think that the Security Council would focus on avoiding such a war. But it has pretty much tried to avoid the subject. As for the Obama administration, it has refused to put serious pressure on Khartoum, and the policy seems to me to be failing. One measure of that is the recent crackdowns in northern Sudan on civil society there, perhaps a warm-up to the new war. The Bush administration managed to get the CPA that brought the referendum and a respite from Sudanese war. If the Obama administration blows it so that war resumes, that will be a serious black mark for the White House. As a recent op-ed in the Times by Dave Eggers and John Prendergast noted correctly: This is President Obama’s Rwanda moment, and it is unfolding now, in slow motion. It is not too late to prevent the coming war in Sudan, and protect the peace we helped build five short years ago. The ICC prosecutor, Luis Moreno Ocampo, issued a statement after the genocide indictment that argues that this may be the last chance for Sudan. He said: The ICC’s decision to charge Bashir for genocide is the last chance to stop the genocide. For the last seven years, there has been an on going genocide against Darfuris. The world is failing to stop it…. In march 2003 President Al Bashir publicly gave orders not to “bring back any prisoners or wounded.” He declared that he wanted “only scorched earth”. [Security Council members] have a chance to show their commitment to never again. Bashir’s strategy is to deny the crimes committed and to threaten more crimes against Darfuris and against Southern Sudan. …The issue of Darfur, the issue of Southern Sudan, should and could be solved. It is a matter of will. President Bashir has always calibrated his actions to global pressure. When there is global scrutiny, he is more careful. I noticed that the first time with the Asian tsunami — he had reduced the scale of the Darfur slaughter, and then when the tsunami diverted the world’s attention, he cranked it up again. We’ve seen, in Darfur and elsewhere, what a Bashir war looks like. And I fear that the failure of the U.S., Britain, Russia, China and France to keep a focus on Sudan in the run-up to the referendum is an invitation to Bashir to start yet another war.